After looking at the icebergs in Jökulsárlón Lagoon we drove home via a basalt cave. It was so incredibly cold and windy, stomping through the wet black sand to look at them was arduous enough. I took no photos.
The next day was clearer at the cabins and we decided to go horse-riding.
Kerrie didn’t want to come so we left her at the cabin and set off. By the time that we arrived at the horse riding place, we were under cloud and there was some rain spitting on the windshield.
The Icelandic Horse is smaller and more rugged than European horse breeds. I have ridden horses a number of times, maybe 20 or so (?), Anna has ridden twice and this will be Wayne’s first time. So a bit of a play inside on the horses is well spent.
Outside we go for an hour-long walk up the side of a mountain and back down again. It is funny to watch the horses take us much slack as their riders allow. The views are pretty cool, but I’m not confident to take a photo at any point along the way.
To finish the walk we are taken on an extra loop around the driveways to try a tölt, a gait specific to the Icelandic Horse.
The ride was fun and without any falls – despite some steep slippery bits and some horse-play (!). I’d love to come back and do another longer ride in better weather. They said that on a clear day we could go far further up and see the glacier much more clearly.
For our first day-trip from Hvoll we drive east. Five hundred meters to the South: the sea. For miles infinity is a thick fog one hundred metres North of the road. We pass vast fields of black nothing in all directions. Apparently arctic foxes roam here. The knobbly black fields begin to get grassy tops. Now there are hay coloured mounds to infinity, like strange music visualisations whizzing past. In the blink of an eye the grassy mounds have turned to rock. The rocks are like splinters speared up from the earth. They are reptilian, fascinatingly ugly, a thing for desolate nightmares.
The fog clears out to the north and mountains come into view, covered in yellow grass up to dark rocky shear cliffs. As the mountains appear the spears of rock become and oozing field of bubbly bright green moss.
It is a lava flow from the 1700s all bulbous and strange and covered in moss up to 500mm thick. It looks like ancient green creatures frozen while trying to clamber over each other – the way corn flour and water goes in a vibrating speaker cone.
The world goes on changing wildly for another hour or so. And then we arrive. We pull left into a grey gravel car park. In front of us is a small rise to a hill and the drive seems like a big effort for nothing.
We climb out of the car and rug up for the cold. It is misty as we climb over the saddle of the hill. At the top we pause to take in the view: a field of icebergs in a huge lagoon surrounded by the shadow of mist-obscured mountains far back in the distance.
The icebergs come from the Jökulsárlón Glacier, assemble in the lagoon here and then wander out to sea through an opening about a kilometre from where we stand.
After taking in a view for a while we begin to explore. We go down to the water’s edge and watch the ice rise and fall as the water laps on the gravel. The reflections and the shimmer off different coloured ice is stunning. From the very top of the hill the view is more isolating. We are in the middle of nowhere and so is this ice. There is no view of where it has come from, and for the moment no view of where it goes either.
After maybe an hour poking around and exploring we cross the road and head to the sea. I think his was even more stunning.
There on the pitch black sandy beach, washed up like whales were thousands of icebergs. All multicoloured like before (deep and light blue and white and clear). Some big ones are being smashed by waves, other have succumb and washed further up the beach and sit half buried in the sand.
We arrived in Reykjavik in the afternoon after a flight from Amsterdam to Copenhagen and another to Reykjavik.
We left our bags at the hotel and set out for a walk. First impression: cold!
Down the Main Street a wind cut through like needles. Every shop sold things to keep your its warm. Justified.
Reykjavik seems cool, but more is revealed in the light and with some visibility. Mountains overlook everything here. This becomes more apparent during the trip.
The top photo is the view from the (nautically themed!) hotel room. Cold. Moody. Mountains. The only theme not set yet is this photo is wind.
The next day we set off on a drive south east to Vik where we have cottages on a dairy farm awaiting our arrival. But there are a few things to do along the way. Primarily: be in awe of a country still being made.
This is the thing that (as Wayne pointed out) sets Iceland apart from Norway: Norway has a feeling that it’s ancient, the mountains and the valleys have stood again the same wind and rain and sun forever, the rhythm is set and the views are cast in stone; Iceland feels like it’s being made as you go and it hasn’t quite figured out how it’s all going to end up. And in some ways that is true. It is still very active and is still being made.
The drive is about 3 hours of actual driving, but it takes us all day as we stop along the way. Each stop reinforcing the Iceland motto: “It’s windy, I’m cold”.
We stop at the location of the first Icelandic parliament (I have no idea how they could speak to one another if the wind was like this while in session!). It is also where two tectonic ages meet and make their own decisions. There is one hell of a view off he viewing platform, but it is so incredibly windy that the thought of taking photos is quickly replaced with an attempt to stay upright at all…hence no photos.
We stop next at to geysers. The first reliably shoots 120 degree water about 20m into the air, the second very rarely shoots water 80m into the air. We stop long enough to see the first go off a few times, to the enjoyment of the group watching. Even better are the people who decide to stand down-wind for the show and end up completely soaked!
I think next was our first waterfall. And one that you can walk behind. Wet, loud and noisy. So much fun. And starting to get used to the cold and the wind and just enjoy it. I’m sure we’ll find Some warmth even if it’s not until we get back to Australia.
This place is incredible. It’s very hard to describe. Extreme and awe-inspiring I suppose.
Right now it’s after bedtime but I’ve missed updating this due to busy-tiredness and lack of regular wifi. There are some more fun stories to add to catch up. Tomorrow we head back to Reykjavik for a couple more days before flying to the UK for Anna’s graduation and the halfway point of the trip. But I’ll write more on Iceland before then!
Summary of Amsterdam: pretty and kinda dirty. It’s sort of a cross between Berlin and Copenhagen. I still think I’d prefer to live in Copenhagen or Berlin, but Amsterdam was pretty good.
We had a lovely warm and sunny day. The best part spent on a barge/cafe just watching the world go by.
Watching the organic traffic (read: slightly disorganised, potentially dangerous mix of pedestrians, bikes, cars and big trucks) go by fast became a fun pastime.
The four of us did heaps of walking and tramming around the city. Places like the red light district were okay for a quick look but going a little further out was more pleasant. We spent most of our time poking around second hand stores and clothes places, in a coffee shops and wandering down canals while avoiding the silent-but-deadly bikes.
The Anne Frank museum aka the place that she and her family hid during WWII was eerie and sad. Amazing that they all managed to hide there for a full two years and completely awful to think that someone sold them out…but worst of all that Anne herself died only a month before the allies arrived at the camp to free them.
There was also a Catholic Church built into the attic of a building where the Catholics went to worship while the Protestants set the rules on who could worship. Quite an amazing construction given the constraints! And used up until quite recently.
Such a brief summary for a whole city, but we’ve been out and about so much and tired when wifi is around.
