Day 10 - Closing the loop

How difficult it is for us to end our touring and head for the capital, Reykjavik, is a testament to how much we enjoyed the vast, spectacular and largely deserted landscapes of Iceland. After 10 days of being virtually the only car on the road, and the only people on the trail.... it is tough to return to the bustle of a city. We left our hotel on the western peninsula this morning and headed straight into Reykjavik, returning the car just before noon. Thrifty car rental dropped us at the Fron Hotel, right in the middle of town on the main shopping street. Reykjavik is a beautiful little city, very compact and easy to walk around. We spent the afternoon visiting the sights, shopping and sampling local coffees and pubs. The day culminated in a delightful dinner with Addy the travel goddess from Nordic Visitor, and then strolling through town as Reykjavik’s legendary nightlife started to ramp up around midnight.

This trip has been all the adventure we had hoped for and more. Even after living it for the past week and a half it is hard to describe just how vast, dramatic and variable the scenery is. And the people and food have been extraordinary throughout. We leave with warm, fond memories of this extraordinary island.  

Full Trip Map on Google

Day 9 -Trolls, Hail and Rocket Shaped Lighthouses

A rainy day in Grundfjordur chased us south across the Snaefellsnes Peninsula late Friday morning. Of course we chose another F road (mountain track) to do this, passing behind Snaefellsjokull mountain on F570. All of the park information centers were closed so we did this using a tourist map and limited GPS information since the road did not exist according to Garmin. All went well, however as we climbed from sea level to over 800 metres by SUV and then added more altitude on foot until stymied by an icefield. The view was excellent, despite being just below cloud level. The temperature was 1C and sure enough we were enveloped by a hail/snow event that caught us at some distance from the vehicle. Blair and Wes retrieved the SUV and hauled Alan on board further down the road. Once on the other side of the mountain, the weather cleared dramaically as we descended on the south side of the mountain. A stop along the way led us to Songhellir, the Singing Cave. No, we didn't try to sing in it given the reputed angry disposition of the trolls that lived there, according to tradition.

Back at sea level we headed to Hellnar for lunch at a charming and very small seaside restaurant called Fjoruhusid before trekking out on the adjacent coastal trail. The wind and tide favoured big crashing waves, and we spent a few hours trying to find the best lookout along the trail. Following that we shifted over to Malarrif for a hike to two sea pillars close in by the shoreline. We also had our encounter with the lighthose shaped like a rocket (really).

After that it was back to Hotel Framnes for a late dinner, and the necessary preparations for our return to civilisation and people which happens tomorrow in Reykjavik.

Day 8 - Down, Up & Sideways

Thursday morning saw your intrepid travellers staggering out of bed a bit later than usual, the effect of our exciting (i.e. nail biting) sojourn down mountain track F35 the previous evening, resulting in a late arrival at the Hotel Gullfoss. (Note to our friends at Ford...your headlights stink).

We suspect we may have been the only guests at the hotel, but enjoyed a pleasant breakfast before heading out for the day. The weather...well, it's Iceland in late fall...gray and rainy. Naturally that didn't deter us in the least as we motored up the road to the waterfall at Gullfoss. Another waterfall you say? Well yes, but they are all very impressive and one never really get tired of watching these gargantuan volumes of water cascade over the falls. The power behind them is incredible.

Suitably awed at watching all that water head down, we were then off to Geysir to watch water go up in dramatic fashion. There are 2 geysers; the oldest, Great Geysir, is a bit tired now so it mainly just steams away, but a short distancce away its sibling Strokkur regularly churns up great amounts of water and steam every few minutes. Very entertaining, particularly when it thoroughly hosed a group of less-than-brilliant tourists who hadn't figured out they were downwind of the action. This was the first time we had seen any significant number of other tourists, not that we are saying that was good thing!

Next it was west to Pingvellir National Park, the site of the 1st Icelandic parliament in 930, and a UNESCO world heritage site. What was particularly interesting is that it is located in a rift valley where the North American and EurAsian tectonic plates are separating (2 cm. / year), creating giant rifts where the earth is moving sideways. This is also why there is so much volcanic and geothermal activity in Iceland. The rain stopped part way through our hike through the site, raising hopes for a fair day on Friday.

Our destination for the evening was the Snaefellsnes peninsula on the west side of Iceland. During the trip we heard from Addy the Nordic Tour Organizing Goddess, confirming that she could join us for dinner on Saturday...our way of saying thank you for putting up with all our changes and challenges in our tour.

A beautiful (sunny!) drive through hills and fjords brought us to Hotel Framnes in Grundarfjorour at about 6:30. We checked in then promptly headed out to see the town, locating the very pleasant Kaffi 59 cafe for the evening beer tasting, delicious seafood soup and a great pizza, while watching the Icelandic women's soccer team beat the stuffing out of New Zealand on TV.

Much exploring through Snaefellsnes to come on Friday.

Day 7 – Just when you think you’ve seen it all...

Awoke to a cool cloudy day at Lake Myvatn, with a few local sights yet to see before heading southwest on a rough track between mountains. We had been commenting yesterday at how incredibly diverse the Icelandic landscapes are; rapidly changing from one breathtaking panorama to yet another distinctive ecosystem. After 6 days we thought perhaps we had seen the full range of volcanic terrains, until we reached our first stop, a one hour hike at Leirhnjukur. As the youngest lava flow (’75-’84) on the island, this area has a unique awe-inspiring feel; steaming hillsides, boiling pools, smoking black lava pits and cones - straight from the darkest depictions of hell.

Nearby was a pleasant hike through the “dark castles” of Dimmuborgir, 2,200 year old lava sculptures normally found only at the bottom of the ocean; one of which bore an eerie resemblance to a certain ‘portal to other worlds’ from the old Star Trek series. We followed the Ring Road west to Akureyri, Iceland’s second largest city – a really charming place where we enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Blue Teapot Paris Cafe. We also made a stop at the Godafoss falls, very much a smaller version of Niagara. From there we went WAY off the beaten path, onto a dirt ’mountain track’ between glaciers across the central highlands towards Geysir.

That’s where things got really interesting. We have seen a lot of desolated areas, but nothing can compare with the central highlands. Apollo moon crews trained here, with good reason – grey rock and rubble, and no signs of life, for as far as the eye can see in every direction. We also discovered why the lunar rover has a top speed of 5 kph; it’s slow going over terrain like this even with our big SUV. It started to rain pretty hard, and get dark; washboard and potholes bigger than the Ford – full of water. So it was 10 pm before we made it to the Gulfoss Hotel, but we had called ahead so sandwiches and beer were waiting.

Day 6 - Shake Rattle and Roar with Dettifoss

A sunny but very windy morning led us to push our Ford up a cartpath optimistically called highway 862. Must have been built by the Romans and not repaired since then. A tortuous 22km brought us to the first of three waterfalls on the Jokulsa a Fjollem River which serves as an escape to the sea for interior glacial melt water. There are two “lesser” waterfalls, Hafragilfoss and Selfoss, which would be stars in their own right anywhere else in the world. However they are dwarfed by Dettifoss, not an Icelandic thrash metal band but Europe’s mightiest waterfall which thunders between them.
More bone jarring road led us to a pastoral trail at Vesturdalar which was, in effect, an alpine meadow at sea level. The day was waning as we emerged from the north end of Jokulsarglijufur National Park, so it was time to head for dinner in Husavik, a major fishing port in the north. We ate at the Gamli Baukur, a delighful local restaurant right on the harbour, and had the most enjoyable meal of the trip thus far. We were impressed by the two pages of beer choices that started the menu, but did not order the one that advised it had the “taste of liver pudding” as an attribute. An hour later we were back at our lakeside hotel, readying for the next day’s drive back to southwest Iceland.

Day 5 - Somewhere Under The Rainbow - South-East to North-East Iceland.

Monday dawned gray & wet…the view from our room, which yesterday was like a travel magazine photo of a glacier and the mountains, now looked as though someone had used a giant eraser on all that spectacular scenery.

Fortunately, today was a travel day…roughly 500 km from Skaftafell to Reykjahlid. Addy the Nordic Tour Organizing Goddess had plotted us a course snaking along the eastern coastal fjords, but given the weather and anticipated slow going on some of the gravel roads your loyal travellers decided to tweak the route, opting for a shorter inland road (939). Before leaving the coast we stopped for lunch in Djupivagur, a quaint fishing village; a nice lunch but when it comes to quaint fishing villages, Nova Scotia and Maine have nothing to fear.

Our new route featured switchbacks, waterfalls, steep grades, a total lack of guardrails and a vertical change of 1,760 feet in ~ 15 minutes. Breathtaking is an understatement.

The difference in the scenery was dramatic. The black volcanic terrain shifted quickly into brown and gray sedimentary rock with enormous slopes of fine broken rock and gravel. Much of the landscape was covered in moss and short grass and despite the absence of any sign of habitation, sheep could still be seen just about everywhere.

As the day progressed it became increasingly obvious we had made a good decision. The weather improved the further we moved inland, and by mid-afternoon it was sunny and the temperature hit a trip high of 18 degrees. The scenery continued to amaze as we worked our way up a valley between two enormous ridges of glacial sediment with waterfalls spilling over them.

An hour later, another dramatic change; we had entered the area of the highlands that has been likened to a lunar landscape, and with good reason. Black, barren sand and rock and yet every so often clumps of pine or spruce trees and other vegetation…bizarre and yet beautiful in its own very unique way.

As we neared our destination of Reykjahlid we passed another area of high geothermal activity; this is one of the regions in Iceland where the tectonic plates are separating, thus the geothermal activity and the ominous formations in the lava fields that seem to be everywhere.

Despite the starkness of the surroundings, Reykjahlid is located on a very pretty lake, Myvatn; our hotel was on the edge of town and we arrived ~ 5:30 so we checked in quickly and then headed off for another adventure while we still had daylight. About 20 minutes outside of town is Hverfell, a bowl-shaped volcanic crater. A 20-minute hike up a steep trail on the side of the crater took us to the lip where we could look down into the crater and see the lava dome inside. The wind which had been gusting fiercely all day, almost knocked us off our feet and made our mouths feel like we had been gargling with pumice.

That was enough for us to beat a hasty retreat to the hotel to shake out the grit and reward ourselves with some beers (are you noticing a pattern to our evening activities???) and a great dinner of arctic char.

Tuesday will be a day of hiking, and our 2nd night at the hotel in ????.

P.S. Your intrepid travellers cum bloggers love your comments to our posts, so feel free to chip in (you too Steve & Leah!).

Day 4 – And now for something completely different...

Less than 5 km – that’s how much mileage we put on the ol’ Ford Explorer today. We are staying at the same hotel for a second night tonight so today was hiking day in Skaftafell National Park. Weather was good again, up around 15 C and mostly overcast with occasional patches of sun. We got off to a great start with the discovery that this hotel has a full breakfast buffet – even eggs and bacon, what more could hiking guys ask for. A quick stop at the gas station across the road for lunch and liquids, and the boys were ready to go.
What sort of a hike you ask?..... 7 hours and 15 km; up and down mountains, through streams and waterfalls, and across vast glaciated floodplains. We started from the park visitors’ centre and followed the gentle climb to the famous Svartifoss waterfall. Along the way we passed several other jaw-dropping waterfalls, and at each one Wes and Alan had to drag Blair back from the edge of the fall’s precipice to keep him safe. We did have one of those ‘hikers’ moments’ where, half an hour into the hike at our second beautiful waterfall, there came that discordant sight – a tour bus driving up the mountain to the next to the falls – ugh. Still we hardly saw a soul for most of the day, often feeling we had the mountain to ourselves, and at times a kind of quietness that is rare indeed. At Svartifoss itself we were not disappointed – it is known as the ‘Black Waterfall” as the surrounding rock face is a wall of black basalt hexagonal columns, very striking. From there we headed west across several ridges to descend into the valley of the Morsarjokull glacier. Along the way, the terrain is blanketed in an assortment of astonishingly hardy mosses, plants and bushes with a broad palette of colours from limitless greens to burgundy and red.
Once in the valley we headed north towards the glacier, through wetlands and new forest to a vantage point with a great view of the glacier headwall. It was now 4 pm, time to start heading back. We went south out of the valley, crossing a bridge from the rocky wash into the vast black sand wasteland which is the legacy of the last major volcanic eruption – ‘the big one’ that killed 20% of Iceland’s livestock; imagine an eruption under ice, that took 4 days to explode from under the glacier hurling lava, water and icebergs up to 50,000 cubic feet per second. So, we walked quickly. It was still a long walk out, back at the car at 7pm, maybe a LITTLE tired. But a few beers, a fine dinner at the hotel and a little blogging and we are ready for a new day.

Day 3 - South East Iceland

It was a dark and stormy day before, but the boys awoke to a brilliant sunny morning. After the traditional search for the breakfast room, we were off in search of Systrafoss, one more waterfall for the trip collection. Soon, however, we stopped looking at waterfalls and just counted them. When Blair counted 16 on one bend in the road, we ended the counting as well. We crossed the Wasteland, which is the result of volcanoes partially melting the glaciers that covered them (you have to see this country to believe that this is possible). Many photo stops, including remnants of a bridge destroyed by one of the massive floods enabled us to get a sense of the number of glaciers in the south east part of Iceland.

An afternoon highlight was a cruise on the glacial lagoon at Jokulsarlon. Imagine a bay filled with icebergs of all shapes and sizes. It is hard to picture that, but luckily we captured probably hundreds of images (all of you are therefore forewarned). We retreated to the Hotel Skaftafell in the national park of the same name for a short trek to the glacier located just east of the hotel itself. Another fine dinner (we avoided the $35 chicken breast item), some fine local beer, and we banished ourselves to the hotel lobby to write this blog, check the sky situation (bleak due to fog), and to marvel at wi-fi and cell phone connectivity. After a very nice min-chalet in Kloster we are somewhat shoehorned into a typical European sized room, hence we socialize in the public areas.

Day 2 South Iceland

Ode to Ford - NOT!

Day started with very nice breakfast, weather was gray &rainy but your intrepid explorers headed off into the remote high country ready for a full day’s adventure, including fording a couple of rivers later in the day...until 15 minutes into the trip when the “Check Engine” light on our Fix Or Repair Daily Explorer came on. Discussion with the car rental outfit in Reykjavik saw us backtracking an hour to Selfoss to get it checked. The diagnosis was a sensor problem, so we were good to go before noon.
Turns out this was a good thing...remember those remote high country roads? Found out before leaving Selfoss that they were closed due to severe flooding and fording (no pun intended) those rivers would have resulted in something really, really bad. Fortunately Addy the Nordic Tour Organizer Goddess had a Plan B for us and we had great visits to two spectacular waterfalls (the ONLY good thing about 10 days of rain), an amazing black lava sand beach with huge waves at the southernmost tip of the island, some of the most bizarre landscape ever, and culminating with a couple of hours hiking along Fjadrargljufur gorge, a breathtaking geological oddity featuring bizarre rock outcrops, and even sheep (which are everywhere) who do great imitations of mountain goats climbing seemingly vertical canyon walls to get to the best grass. All of the above done in driving rain and howling wind and remarkably good spirits.
We decided that the Norse gods have sent us god omens though...on the way back to the car at Fjadrargljufur, the wind dropped, patches of sun appeared nearly blinding your vitamin D – deprived explorers, and we had a rainbow a few minutes later. Energized by some late evening beer and pizza, we look forward to a good night’s rest in a very quaint and well-equipped 3-bedroom cabin at Horgsland just outside Kirkjubaejarklaustur (Klaustur for short...you think I’m making up these names, don’t you?) and heading off to the Skaftafell National Park in the morning.
On speaking Icelandic...
At the risk of sounding like stereotypical tourists (which lord knows we aren’t), and despite valiant efforts, we have all but abandoned attempts at learning some basic phrases in Icelandic. Very nice people, spectacular scenery, mind-numbing language; one that is actually so little changed from what the Vikings spoke that many Icelanders are able to read the ancient Viking texts without translation. Mercifully, most Icelanders speak English and do so gladly, no doubt to avoid the excruciating pain of hearing us mangle their native tongue. Many road signs (not to mention almost all advertisements) are bilingual and there are even a few words that you can figure out; most importantly, coffee = kaffe.

Day 1

Superb send-off with dinner at Pearson with Larry and Robin. Question - why would you have to go through security on arrival at destination - full on, disposal of liquids, laotop and shoe inspections etc. all just to get out of arrivals and into the terminal - odd?

On the ground, we loaded up our black Ford Explorer and proceeded to go in circles - just to orient ourselves of course. Across some moonscapes and on into the Blue Lagoon for a few hours of post-flight soaking - ahhhhhh!

Dirt is black, everywhere, roads and not far beneath whatever vegetation has taken hold, the volcanic nature of Iceland reveals itself. But seismic activity doesn't explain a whole new definition of washboardy roads - thank god it´s a rental. Lots of impressive surf alongside the route too. Geothermal is very real here, we visited an electricity plant set in the midst of a landscape literally boiling and steaming.

As we have been awake for most of the last 39 hours, we were thrilled to roll into our hotel, sip a beer and enjoy an excellent meal (seafood and lamb of course) at the Leirubakki hotel in the foothills of the mountains. Further off the beaten path tomorrow as we head 'behind the mountains´.