St. Petersburg to Göteborg: Iceland

First impressions:

I was going to keep the text down and let the pictures do the talking. A picture is worth a thousand words or probably two thousand in my case, but couldn’t help myself. This place is big, well bigger than the Faroes but not in the same league as home of course. It’s uncanny how we had to pinch ourselves to be sure we weren’t driving across the Hay Plains at one stage, such is the vastness of some of the plains along the south coast. Iceland is also wet. There’s water everywhere from rain (plenty of that, but at least intermittent), rivers and streams that arise from vast glaciers and waterfalls. So many waterfalls. Just looking out the window at one part of one side of one fjord I can count over twenty waterfalls! There’s gazillions in all and, because of so much water Iceland is very green. Fluorescent green in places. Abundant flowers and mosses helping to soften the jagged lava fields. It’s also windy here and I mean WINDY - the sort of wind that produces horizontal rain, makes it hard to put up your tent, keep your camera gear dry and your tripod steady. But despite the climatic challenges or perhaps because of them we are loving it here. The scenery is truly majestic.

Things they don’t tell you in Lonely Planet.

Lots of tourists. Hey, it’s summer here after all. French hikers and German bikers by the thousands. It’s a mecca for motorcycle riders (mostly middle aged Germans on big BMWs) and bicycle tourists (also mostly Germans, mostly men and mostly in their late 60’s and early 70’s.)

Camping is very popular with the locals and they have their share of grey nomads just like we do back home. 4WD is also big and it seems there are no rules when it comes to registration. ‘Super Jeeps’ are the go here for getting into the rugged interior. Not just Jeeps but Landrovers, Landcruisers, Nissan Patrols, Fords etc with huge oversized wheels and tyres to help them blast across the black lave in summer or the white snow in winter.

Day 1:

We arrived to a sodden Reykjavik and picked up our fourby, expecting a Jeep Patriot but, you know budget car hire places - you don’t always get what have been promised. So we have a very tired Kia Sportage with 185,000km on the clock and a temperamental gearbox. Then we find out some of the roads we had planned on driving are out of bounds unless you have one of the aforementioned super jeeps and that’ll be an extra arm and leg thank you very much. As it happened, many of the roads had been closed to all vehicles so it didn’t really matter and, fortunately there are many alternative roads we are allowed to travel. Another plus is that perhaps we will be able to use the additional time to see a limited part of the Western Fjords where there are apparently some red beaches.

We headed out of Reykjavik in an anticlockwise direction, largely decided by the weather forecast. Not far out of town was the Blue Lagoon. A popular place to swim in the warm, milky blue waters but we were’t ready for that so early in the piece. Instead we took a quick walk through the surrounding convoluted lava field before heading off towards the “Golden Circle” with Gullfoss (golden falls) and Geysir (geysers) being the main attractions. On the way we visited Pingvellir (actually the P is an unprintable Nordic letter that sounds like “th”). It was a place of early Icelandic chieftain pow-wows and law making and lies along the fault line between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, the evidence being an impressively large cleft in the ground. Having prepaid for a camping card we decided, despite the inclement weather, to break out the tent and the fuel cooker.

So what do you think of our camper? Not that one, the other little one on the left!

The Blue Lagoon

Strandarkirka on the wild south coast

A simple sailor's church

Oxararafoss at Pingvellir

The fault line between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates

Sue doing dinner. It's been so long since we used the fuel cooker it was a relief to get it going.

Day Two:

After visiting Gullfoss we headed inland towards Landmannalaugar - a remote location of geothermal activity which can only be reached by driving over fairly rough roads through black lava fields and fording quite a few swiftly flowing streams. Rising majestically from the black plains on all sides were beautiful hills covered in fluorescent yellow-green mosses, their clefts laden with white snow. At Landmannalaugar we joined hundreds of others camped on hard gravel with only rocks to hold the tent against the strong winds. A dip in the hot springs after dinner had us ready to hit the sack.

This ones for you Rog's. A couple of veterans German Hanomag campers. The one on the left from the late 60's and the blue one from the early 70s. The guy with the older one is making his 22nd trip to Iceland and the other his 6th.

The sheep here appear well groomed. It's the horses that have bad hair days. Icelandic horses are quite distinct with their bushy blond locks, short legs and unusual gait.

Hjalparfoss

Gullfoss (Golden Falls) Iceland's most visited.

Typical road through to Landmannalaugar.

En route to Landmannalaugar

Day Three:

Our day dawned promisingly. When I say dawned, I don’t mean that literally because it doesn’t get dark here. Thin clouds and the occasional peek of sunshine were very welcome. A three hour return hike was reasonably challenging (with a heavy load of clothing and camera gear to boot). The views were fantastic! Amazing colours as you can see from the photos. Left Landmannalaugar for the south coast and found a nice little camping ground which looked cosy and not too busy.

Landmannalaugar campsite viewed from our hike

letting off a bit of steam. Strong winds make the steam hard to photograph

Amazing colours in the soil and rocks - don't adjust your set folks this is what it does look like.

Nearing the highest pint of our trek. Extremely windy.

Safely back at our camp on the south coast, before the hordes of Vikings arrived.

Day Four:

Woke to find the near empty camp ground chockers with tents and caravans which came all though the night. Got our revenge on the neighbours from hell with an early start (necessary to get to the most popular sites before the tourist buses arrive). Just a half hour drive to Sjelalandfoss, one of Iceland’s best known waterfalls which you can walk behind for a different perspective and where we enjoyed a light breakfast after taking some photos. By the time the buses arrived we were done and dusted and heading to our next falls, the equally well known Skogafoss. Getting tourist free pictures here was quite a challenge, along with keeping the camera dry and the lens free of water droplets courtesy of spray on the wind. Even though it was not raining at the time full wet weather gear was the order of the day including rain pants. Next stop was a diversion to the black sandy south coast for a rendezvous with an old US Navy C47 aircraft which crashed there during WWII and finally we headed for Vik, the southernmost town in Iceland. Beautiful scenery among the way. Incredibly green fields, black beaches and, yes, finally some blue skies (which didn’t last long by the way).

After a busy hour of taking pictures it's time for some muesli and skyr (yoghurt) behind the waterfall. Strong winds fanned the falls, changing it's shape continuously and occasionally sending spray in our direction.

Grace

and power

Skogafoss - the river was too deep to go out any further. Full wet weather gear. This and the other major waterfalls have been photographed innumerably.

But not this one. In an exclusive world first, we bring you an image of Suefoss - one of Icelands' smallest and least eulogised waterfalls

the river Skoga, above Skogafoss has at least twenty more falls, some quite spectacular in themselves if you care to hike high enough.

Looking back down on the coast from the viewing platform above Skogafoss. You get an idea of the openness of Icelands coastal plain. A German fellow was standing on a ledge playing the trumpet. Quite beautiful. We complimented him with a "Bravo" and I cheekily suggested bagpipes would be better, whereupon he played "Scotland the Brave" for us and from then on it was numerous other requests before he was able to get away.

Lovely light, colours, skies and open spaces. Cream coloured, red roofed buildings are typical, as is thick green grass and fat, contented sheep.

Loved this scene with it's electric yellow grass highlighted by the sun. That is grass and not a yellow flowered crop

It took a while but finally got one without masses of tourists, just Sue and one other for perspective.

Another set of falls above Skogafoss

The old US Navy DC-3 wreckage on the south coast. A not so well-kept secret. Not signposted but worth going out of your way to find it.

This one is for Jordie, Erin and Anna.

The south coast at Dyrholaey peninsula

Last place in the white sands competition goes to...a beach with an unpronounceable name in Iceland.

Ta da...

Day Five:

From Vik to Höfn, turning in a north-easterly direction. First stop was Skaftafell at the base of the huge Vatnajökull Glacier National Park. Spent the morning there hiking to Svartifoss (Black waterfall) and the afternoon cruising amongst icebergs on Fjallsarlon, a most beautiful glacier lagoon at the foot of Vatnajökull and later walking by the larger Jokullsarlon glacier lagoon where the bergs are free to float out to sea and where you can find large chunks of ice washed up on the beach like driftwood. An easy drive to Höfn to set up camp on the wet grass.

Wide open (green) spaces at Skaftafell

Hiking up to Svartifoss, above Skaftafell in the Vatnajökull National park. Warm, sunny and SEVENTEEN degrees!

Bruce's turn to test the water. A glacial lagoon running out to the North Atlantic. Not so warm.

Icebergs on the beach???

Now that's a super jeep!

Svartifoss. Small but scenic with it's black basalt amphitheatre resembling a series of organ pipes.

Fjallsarlon glacial lagoon, where we took a cruise in a rubber ducky, was silent and eerily beautiful. Many photos and hard to show so few.

again, don't adjust your set - the colours are real. Grey skies, blue ice and muddy brown water.

The intrepid explorers.

Getting down amongst the ice blocks for a picture of Sue walking on the black beach. Kind of surreal if you're not from these climes.

Day Six:

Woke to sunshine and headed for eastern fjords. A very serpentine route in and out of the many narrow waterways. The sunshine didn’t last long and the last 20km down to Seyisfjordur were in heavy fog - visibility severely restricted as you can see. It was an easy decision to upgrade to the comforts of a Youth Hostel….$Aus 150 later and we are loving it. Thick curtains to disguise the fact that it’s still daylight outside at 3 am.

Here's looking at ewe!

Typical Icelandic farm scene.

Heading toward the Eastern Fjords, the road winds around many picturesque fjords with their sentinel snow-capped ranges, poking like the fingers of a hand into the North Atlantic.

small harbour en route

trying to capture a sense of the moodiness of a dull day

A bird watching hide. Behind, the road winds along the other side of the fjord. Clouds hang low and water streams from the mountain sides.

Nearing the bottom of the fjord visibility was suboptimal

Seydisfjordur, in the Eastern Fjords region is known for its Blue Church. It's also the place where the passenger ferries arrive from and depart for the Faroe Islands and Denmark.