Iceland

We're back in the UK now after almost two weeks in sunny Iceland. Its been the highlight of the trip so far. I've never been anywhere remotely like it, the scenery running the gamut from a moonscape to mountains to desert. Except no forests. There's a joke about it.

So we spent the first four or five days in Reykjavik with Catherine, Liz's sister, who we stayed with for two days in the UK prior. I'll talk about the UK in a later post. So the three of us stayed in Reykjavik and went out to do some of the numerous tourist day trips you can do from there.

Our first trip out was to the Blue lagoon, a beautiful man made lagoon heated by the local geothermal plant. The water is full of silica particles, so its this incredible light blue colour and the silica is supposed to be good for your skin, which is why people rub big gobs of this pure white condensed silica mud all over themselves. Its a bus ride from Reykjavik, but we saw this tour you could do on Midsummers eve, where you hiked up a mountain and did a midnight swim there. What we didn't know was that the hike was quite difficult, it would be pouring with rain (and we had no wet weather gear) and the guides only spoke Icelandic. Anyway, after an uncomfortable hour and a half of climbing and descending(which would have been awesome, but for the weather), we got to the lagoon and relaxed. It seemed like a harrowing ordeal at the time, like this weather would actually kill us (the wind did threaten to blow you off the cliffs), but in hindsight, it was more just walking in drenched clothing that was unpleasant. Oh, and getting back into wet clothes after a swim for an hours bus ride home; well that sucked. But the lagoon was awesome.

We did the 'golden circle' tour, which was a bus ride to all these natural sights nearby. We stood in the rift valley created between the European and North American tectonic plates. We saw the spectacular Gulfoss waterfall, which was being buzzed by joyriding helicopters. We visited Geysir, and its surrounding geysers. And we went inside a geothermal plant.

Iceland loves showing off its renewable energy. We kept getting geothermal plants and hydro stations pointed out to us. Most of the countries energy is generated that way, and they have massive reserves of power untapped, so much power that they are building plants to run aluminium smelters over the country, effectively exporting some of that energy. And they have plans to generate hydrogen for fueling the cars they love so dearly. Also they use the waste heat to heat hot water which is then plumbed to every house for heating, thereby providing incredibly cheap heat and hot water, two things that are a major part of most peoples home heating bills.

We did another day trip out to landmannalaugar. Its an area in the central highlands, near the hekla volcano, that has a few geothermal springs. the spring runs into a river so you can jump in and sit in this lovely warm water, swim a few metres to glacial melt where its freezing cold, and then back again. Geologically its really interesting with incredible variety in the colour of the rocks. Its a long way from Reykjavik though, so we spent most of the day (around eight hours) on the bus to spend just two hours there, which is a bit of a waste. but we did see more hydro plants...

Liz and I then went up to Saudarkrokur to catch up with Kristinn. Kristinns family are the nicest people in the world. We really got looked after there, from his grandmother making sure we never went hungry between meals, to his aunt's fantastic and accommodating cooking, to the three story house rented for the wedding guest that we had command of. It was an absolute highlight to an already great trip. A couple of awesome things happened up near Saudarkrokur.

News of Michael Jacksons death ( i must be the last blog online to mention it...) broke when we were staying in Saudarkrokur. It was late, but still light outside. Kristinn was upstairs on the top floor having a drink after an evening playing whist with us and his parents. We heard a knock on the door, and I went out to balcony where Ross and Olga where waiting below. I told them they would have to climb the fire escape, which Ross did, bounding up to tell me Jackson was dead. He and I scrambled up the stairs to break the news to Kristinn. Fun.

We took a drive out the Grettislaug, a natural hot spring on the beach. On the way we climbed over a fence and wandered around a stream to get some photos of a cool waterfall, one of the many streams trickling down from Mt Tindastoll. Grettislaug was awesome, close to the water, but sheltered by rocks, and lovely and warm. Icelanders love to swim, it seems, and with so many natural or man made heated pools, why not make a habit of it.

There was a bonfire on the beach on Friday night, I'm not quite sure I recall the occasion, but there was a band playing next to the fire. Ross, Dean and I kicked an Aussie rules football around, attracting a bunch of local kids to join in. They kicked the flat regular football into the sea, so I ran across to the red house, suited up in my swimmers, climbed out onto the rocks and went in after it. The local men thought me strange on the way out, and I got some applause from the local kids. I've never felt water so cold, but once I got out I was quite fine, I had imgined the wind would chill me to the bone, but it was fine. I stood by the embers of the bonfire for a while, until I was told that Kristinns grandmother had seen me heading out and gone home to fire up the spa for me.

Sad to leave, we took a quick flight back to Reykjavik. Booking the flights on the Eagle Air Iceland site in English was twice the price (115 euro) of booking it via the site in Icelandic (9700 Kronur), luckily we had locals to call on our behalf. Then two nights relaxing and exploring Reykjavik, before back to the UK.

I could go on about Iceland, it was something truly special and remarkable, one of those memories you'll leave earth with. I'd go on, but Its something I'll do to each and everyone in turn in person whenever I see you.