FINALLY!

It was a very long time coming but 3 years after we were initially supposed to get to Iceland (thanks Covid), we finally set foot on the elusive ground.

Imagine leaving Canada in the middle of Birding Season (mid-May) where the weather was slowly waking up to where it was supposed to be, and arriving in a country that reportedly was just getting out of the worst winter that they can remember, straight into the wettest May on record.

Getting out of the airport to a cold winter wind and waiting for a bus, and literally freezing. What were we thinking?

Little did we know at the time that the car rentals were just a few steps away from the airport, through a different set of doors than where we came out from.  We could have walked there in 3 minutes instead of freezing our butts off for 30 minutes. I should have looked at the map a little closer beforehand.

We eventually picked up the car and spent a while trying to figure out how to use the onboard map, when Tech Support (our Son) remembered to turn on our Android Auto and link up to the car, before we finally carried on into the very interesting landscapes beyond Keflavik Airport.

Destination – somewhere to pick up a little munchie and a cup of coffee or tea.

Of course, after flying through the night and arriving before 7 a.m. made the above task a little harder than it should have been. But we succeeded … eventually. At least it gave our Son and Daughter in Law an opportunity to catch a bit more sleep.

Since the kids were only there for a few days with us, we felt that much of our time would be spent seeing the Golden Circle (come Hell or High Water) and a few things in Reykjavik afterwards.

Destination – Kerid Crater. The start of our time along the Golden Circle.

As soon as we arrived at the crater … Cold Winds and Rain. My Lady, along with our Son and Daughter in Law decided to have a quick look at the crater and jumped back into the relative warmth of the car, while I made my way around the top of the crater, bravely battling the wind and the rain, before dragging my wet and dishevelled self, back into the car to join them, and attempt to dry off my camera.

Destination – Geyser (where the word originally came from)

We eventually got to the world famous Geyser site, to be once again greeted by the biting winds and torrential rain. As we were entering the obligatory tourist trap / washroom / restaurant our Son and I were able to just barely see a very large jet of hot water erupting from the nearest geyser site. Sadly we have no photo of it, just the memory burned into our mind.

Quick break for the washroom then spent a while wandering the shop before we each spent the equivalent of $27 Canadian for a bowl of Lamb Soup. While chock full of Lamb and a few veggies and tasting extremely wonderful on a cold wet day, we were still taken aback by the price. We were soon to find out that this was actually the going rate for a bowl of soup in Iceland.

Finally the weather settled enough for us to make our way outside to experience the geysers themselves. After some confusion as to which area we should go to, we finally made our way to the proper location in time to see a couple of pretty little geyser farts, before the rain started again and pushed us back to the car.

Destination – Gullfoss.

Just a short jaunt up the road we came to the mighty Gullfoss. You’ll never guess what the weather was doing. If you said wind and rain …. Ding ding ding, you win.

I made my way to the various viewing areas to get a number of photos, while the others once again had a little look at it and stayed warm in the car.

It was a stunning waterfall and I am hoping that some of the photos do it justice.

Destination – overnight in Laugarvatn

While the young ones had a bit of a rest, my Lady and I went to the dining room to have a cup of tea or two, sit and chat and watch for birds.

Hey you had to know we would be birding while we were here.

Fortunately the weather held off for a bit and we actually got to see a few birds to add to our list.

Destination – Thingvellir

Today everyone felt a lot more awake and for the most part the weather was a lot more agreeable.

Time to let our Son drive for a while.

The road through Thingvellir has a good number of lookout points which really helped to get a feel of the area. Absolutely Stunning.

Thingvellir is famous for many things, but we were really interested in seeing where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates were moving apart. We spent quite some time exploring this area. We actually had a chance to enjoy some very  comfortable weather while we stopped at waterfalls, saw a few birds, and marvelled at the wonders of the area.

Destination – Reykjavik

Continuing to let our Son drive we ended up at our hotel before going out for a walk about the area to do a little shopping.

Okay, don’t let anyone fool you. Iceland is expensive.

We were told that the best prices in Iceland would be in the Duty Free at the Keflavik Airport. As a benchmark I used a small bottle of Saltverk Sea Salt that ranged anywhere from $16 – $21 Canadian in stores and Tourist Traps, which turned out to be $13 at the Duty Free. Yup, still expensive but less expensive at the airport.

Later on we had a Food Walk set up in time for dinner, and we visited 5 different places to try a small plate of local food at each stop.

This was a lot of fun, and we even had our first taste of Horse Meat at our very first restaurant, eventually ending up with the legendary Hot Dog from the first Hot Dog stand in Iceland.

And speaking of Hot Dogs, we took a quick visit to the Icelandic Phallological Museum which had a very large display of preserved male animal genitalia. Certainly interesting.

Destination – Costco

Ok, I’ll admit it. For some strange reason I like Costco. I had joked with some old co-workers before that I would visit the Costco in Iceland, and as it turned out, it wasn’t even me that suggested it, but who am I to say no? Sure we picked up a few things to last us through the rest of the Ring Road journey, but overall it was meant to waste a bit of time before we had to get the kids to the airport for them to head home.

How’s this for a surprise (sarcasm intended), the weather turned bad and the winds were hitting a Yellow Alert level. Guess who’s flight was delayed a couple hours. They didn’t mind though. Better to wait out the winds than try to fly into them.

The Ring Road Awaits

Destination – Back to Geyser and Gullfoss

Don’t tell the kids, but we ended up doing a quick side trip back to see Gullfoss when it wasn’t raining (of course it started to spit when we were heading back out), and a short stop at Geyser to see a couple more little farts, before making our way to the first stop along the Ring Road.

There are a couple ways to do the Ring Road. No not the right way and the wrong way, but instead Clockwise or Counter clockwise. We chose Counter Clockwise for no particular reason, other than that’s how I had booked the hotels and Guest Houses.

Destination – Waterfalls

In case you didn’t know, there are some pretty nice waterfalls in Iceland. Many hide away until the last moment, but some are brave enough to be seen from the road itself, and a few are famous enough to charge you for parking. Naturally we had to stop at most of them, no matter what the weather.

Destination – Black Sand Beach

Down the road we visited the Black Sand Beach in Vik. Of course the winds were still blowing strongly and the North Atlantic Ocean was sending waves smashing into the beach and sending up a fine mist that diffused our views of the coastline.

Destination – Glaciers

Something has to feed these waterfalls. That happens to be Glaciers. We found out that Iceland ranks in a tie for the purest water in the world and it was perfectly fine to drink from most of the clear water streams and rivers (not the cloudy ones that contain glacial sediment though). We were not quite willing enough to try it fresh from the rivers, but certainly had some from the tap.

Destination – Icebergs

Where you have glaciers you are going to have glacial lakes and icebergs. At Jokulsarlon along the Ring Road you can take a tour on an amphibious vehicle out to visit some of the icebergs, so of course we had to try that.

Hey Look – A Seal! Since the lake empties right out to the ocean, the area is often visited by seals looking for food. We saw a few not only in the lake, but also out along the ocean at the Diamond Beach. While we were watching the seals, My Lady noticed a Whale quite far out on the ocean, so at least we could say that we saw one.

Destination – PUFFINS

Our initial plan was to take a Whale Watching tour and “possibly” see Puffins. After talking with some other tourists we found out that there was an area where you can have Puffins extremely close, with only the cost of time and gas to pay for it. Naturally it was a no-brainer for us, so off we went up and down winding roads that at times seemed to hug the side of the mountain with a very long drop beside us, but eventually we got to the Puffins in good time.

I won’t go into too much detail about the drive, but let’s say that at times my poor Lady had to close her eyes in fear, and just let me drive.

Puffins everywhere. We made our way up the staircase with Puffins all around us doing their own thing. They were almost close enough to touch, but we were smart enough not to try. The smell was, how shall I put it, what you would expect from a bird colony at the edge of the ocean. Not unpleasant enough to chase us away, but not what we can say is “fresh and clean”.

Destination – Geothermals, Birding and then into the northwest.

Once again after speaking with some other Ring Road travellers, we decided to make a detour along the route and head to Studlagil to see some really fascinating Basalt Column formations in a canyon. Basalt is lava that has cooled into crystals forming hexagonal columns.

Little did we know that this would bring us into some very interesting driving situations as we carried on towards Myvatn.

In what turned out to be a deviation from the main Ring Road, we ended up following a route that took us higher and higher over the mountains and into a blizzard. Winds were blowing the snow straight across the road and covering it as much as it could. For quite a while we were the only vehicle on the road and we began to wonder if we had made the right turn. Eventually we arrived behind a row of cars moving very slowly through the blinding snow, and felt a little more comfortable. Soon a few more cars joined our little conga line and we stayed together for about 30 minutes until we were able to see clear enough to pass the lead car. Thank goodness for Canadian driving experience.

After a little more time we stopped for a short visit to the Myvatn Geothermal Area. The smell here was 1000 times worse than the Puffins. Rock vents blowing sulphuric smells into the air, bubbling pools of mud, the ground steaming all around. It was bad enough that My Lady had to retreat to an area away from the incessant winds and constant bad fart smells, while I bravely attempted to see what I could and take photographs before I too had to retreat to an area with fresher air.

From there it was a short drive onwards to Lake Myvatn and an hour or so of BIRDING!

Lake Myvatn has various places where it is often fairly easy to view waterfowl up close, and we tried to make the best of our time here.

Eventually it was time to continue our journey with an overnight in Akureyri, after a drive through a 7.5 kilometer tunnel through a mountain.

Leaving Akureyri in the morning we carried on for a few hours making various stops to see the wildlife that included seals resting on an island just offshore, and an interesting stop at the site of the last execution in Iceland. This one wasn’t on our radar, but when we saw other tourists stopping there, we thought we should see what’s going on.

An overnight in a really nice place and then we diverted off the Ring Road into the Snaefellsnes Peninsula to check out a couple of waterfalls and the wooden Black Church of Budir.

Destination – The Mountain

After the church we headed further along the main road around the peninsula on our way to our overnight in a small town near Kirkjufell mountain.

Little did we know that Iceland still had some tricks up her sleeve as we climbed higher into and over the mountains. Fortunately it wasn’t a blizzard this time, but blinding fog. We could see it early on and I kept trying to keep that ominous feeling in my stomach a little quiet. Sadly our hopes didn’t pan out and we were soon enveloped in fog so thick you could just barely see the yellow road marker at the side of the road ahead of us.

After far too long with My Lady curled up in a nervous ball on the seat beside me, I asked her to take a couple of quick photos before we finally dropped below the fog line and back into some semblance of visibility.

Suddenly there was the semblance of a mountain ahead of us, but I initially had no idea of where we were until I saw a parking lot to the right side, and a sign saying Kirkjufellsfoss and the lightbulb went on. We were here.

In we go and quickly got to the classic location where we could see both the waterfall and the mountain before the winds, fog and rain chased us away.

We were fortunate to have seen it when we did as it was almost invisible for the next few hours, just barely letting us see it every once in a while, at least until the next morning.

Destination – Volcano

Sadly our time in Iceland is nearly over but we still have one more thing to do. Upon our arrival in Reykjavik we made our way to the city airport where we had a Helicopter ride booked to fly to another Geothermal area for a landing and walkabout.

With the weather being as crazy as it was over the past week or so we learned that the flights had been cancelled every day, with ours being questionable until the very last moment.

As the take-off time approached we learned that our expected landing spot was not available but there was another place to go to instead, so we headed out to the chopper and off we went.

The weather proved difficult to work with, but we were able to see some pretty “hot stuff” and to land at the very edge of a lava field from an eruption from 1 year ago.

Our Daughter in Law had asked us for a small piece of lava rock, so we were very happy to pick up a small memento from our trip to a still smoking lava field.

It was time to drive back to Keflavik Airport and we dropped off the car right beside our overnight hotel, with a 3 minute walk the next morning to the airport for our flight to Switzerland. And guess what, I am expecting that to be our next blog, probably coming out in a month or so, after all once again we took far too many photos.

Hope you enjoyed this travelogue.

Thanks for reading

Till next time.