Some data for you!

• Hours in the air, up to and including landing in Iceland, 38 hours and 45 minutes
• Number of flight, up to and including landing in Iceland, 11.

Where did I leave you? Oh yes, we had been to Dublin and were heading back to London for a quick change in suitcase contents before heading to Iceland.

The wonderful, generous, amazingly great chauffer, Gavin picked us up, again, from the airport and took us back to the Honey Home.

Sandra had cooked us dinner. Sandra is now 1^st favourite, tied with Niamh Kromo, for the most wonderful person ever. He had been craving home cooked meals and both Sandra and Niamh made him a very, very happy man.

As we got in late it was a short catch up with Carter and his parents before we all hit the sack. We needed our rest, the next day was THE LONDON UNDERGROUND!

Heading to Iceland – 12th June!

Unfortunately Gavin has a job other than driving us back and forth to the airport, so we were on our own this time.

Our flight departed Gatwick at 110PM, so we wanted to give ourselves lots of time. To get lost, get on the wrong train etc. So we left the Honey Home at 845AM. According to the Oracle, Google Maps, it was going to take us 1 hour 45 minutes to get there. All going well.

Of course we could not assume that all would go well, because it just doesn’t sometimes, so we added extra time, just in case.

But it did go well, we made it to the trains, found our connections, dragged suitcases, stood to the right as good citizens should, and made it onto the Gatwick express. All arriving with 2 hours to spare. Well done us!

We had access to the lounge and hung out there having lunch and a couple of refreshments before our flight. I had to be sensible as I was driving in Iceland.

The flight itself took just under three hours. Then we were there! We landed in the late afternoon to a beautiful sunny, yet still a little chilly, day.

Coming into Iceland you started to get an idea about how big this place is, for some reason I had it in my head that it wasn’t overly large and driving around should not take us too long, WRONG 😛

The airport was super busy, lots of tour companies, car rental companies, people, bags, chaos, the whole thing. We didn’t realise that the rental company was based 2kms outside of the airport. So there was a fair bit of standing around waiting for them to come and get us.

Collecting the rental car was a bit of amateur hour, only one person on, long queues, standing about, but finally we got our vehicle, wahoo!

A Few Things About Iceland

Before we get started there are a few things I thought I would share about Iceland. It may help put things into perspective J

1. The total population is 340,000.
2. Last year the number of tourists topped 1,300,000.
3. They have neither the infrastructure nor workforce to deal with that number.
4. They have the highest suicide rate in the world.
5. In summer there is no night time, it gets a little dull, but not dark.
6. Which means in winter they have no day time, most likely influential in point 4.
7. As they have a very small population it has been necessary to create the Anti Incest Database their catch phrase is to “stop Icelanders from becoming too close”, yes really.
   1. This database has its highest use every Sunday morning – somewhat after the horse has bolted.
8. They equal New Zealand in the level of sarcasm – a trait I really liked about them.
9. They have a strange idea that New Zealand is a hot place – we laughed and laughed.
10. Iceland is one of the leading countries when it comes to gender equality. Equal pay, equal treatment, love it! In August they are having a “free the nipple” rally – kind of sad I will miss that. According to our guide it’s going to be a sea of nipples. All to show that breasts and breastfeeding are just a normal thing!

Back to the Story

The drive from the airport Keflavik to the main city, Reykjavik took 45 minutes, Google Maps did a wonderful job of getting there and we easily found a park, and our accommodation.

This time I had booked us an apartment so we could be as self-sufficient as possible. Iceland is renowned for being expensive so I wanted to be sure we could make our own breakfasts and stock up on a few wines and beers for our stay.

We bought two bottles of wine and a 6 pack of beer at duty free, $77 NZD thank you very much.

The apartment was lovely, had everything we needed, and was right in the centre of town. Easy for us to walk about.

A quick dump of the bags, and off to the supermarket. Jason really wanted to cook whilst we were here, and of course I really wanted to do some dishes (said no one EVER).

Fish, breakfast food, salad stuff, and a few necessities and the bill was 5,550 KRN, which equates to around $75 NZD. We did not buy a lot, but it seemed reasonable enough.

Jason cooked us some amazing haddock, Iceland being so close to wonderful fishing waters, has an abundant supply of tasty fish.

As it was still light, no surprise there, we went for a walk about town. It’s a little disconcerting to be out and around at 1000pm with the blue sky and bright light. It does mean you can make the most of your tourism time though.

First impression, a very pretty town, friendly people, yummy fish. Happy!

13 June – Our First Full Day

Jason did his homework whilst I did dishes and mapped out a route for us to explore the south of the country. We had highlighted sites we wanted to see and the road to get there.

So, a yummy breakfast of avocado and tomato on toast, filled roles and snacks from the supermarket, to the car and off we go! Very exciting.

Our first stop was at the Seljalandsfoss waterfall it was about 75 minutes outside of Reykavik and you can see it at least 10 minutes before you get to it. It is METERS high and is one of three waterfalls that are grouped together. We did the obligatory photos and walking behind the waterfall to get soaked with icy cold water.

After climbing a few banks for some great photos, Jason thought it would be a great idea to climb to the top of the biggest of the waterfall.

Warning!

Now, I would like to take a little time out to mention that Jason loves hills, tops of hills, and climbing to the top of hills is number one on his fun list.

He gets a look on his face and his smile is so big his eyes disappear. So we climbed.

And its about this time that all the programmes I have watched on the Crime Scene Investigation channel start running through my mind.

“The newly married couple were enjoying a scenic walk when a tragic accident happened… or was it an accident..”

“…at first they seemed like a perfectly happy couple…”

“her friends could not understand why she would walk up such a path knowing how clumsy she was, and immediately had their suspicions”

Anyway, we scrambled, please keep in mind I still have a munted finger so cannot grip with one hand which made some of the manoeuvres quite exhilarating, up the side of this hill to reach the top. And he was right, it was a pretty damned good view. Which I tried my best not to get too close to ha, ha. “A tragic end to the honeymoon of a lifetime”…

We hiked along the top to where the water poured over the cliff top to the pond below, around 270 meters below. Really amazing and pretty. A group of young guys had seen our trek and followed us up.

We had a quick chat with them and found they were Australians, goes to show antipodeans are usually the crazy ones – I wonder how many holiday photos we are going to be in as we hovered by that cliff.

A quick, but not any less perilous, trek back down to continue our tour.

We continued around the south coast, it is very bleak. Flat, with stunning hills off in the distance, and very similar to the dessert road.

Off in the distance I saw another waterfall and decided one was not enough so we needed to visit this one too. This waterfall is called Skogafoss, yet another spectacular vision! It seems that Iceland have a lot of these things, and they are well worth visiting!

There had been some forward thinking around this waterfall and steps had been built to the top with a site seeing path winding along the river. So much more sensible than the death defying hike (I may be exaggerating – slightly).

There were 418 steps to the top, got the heart rate going I can tell ya! Then 418 steps going back down.

Back on the road!

Lemmings!

Once back on the road, we continued our way around the coast when we saw a large parking lot with lots of cars and people heading down to the beach.

There was nothing on our map, there were no signs, but there were lots of people all walking down to the beach. We ummed and erred about whether we should follow the crowd, and with all these people it must be something good.

So we parked up and off we went, we followed the crowd, and we followed, and followed, and kept walking. To set the scene the wind chill probably made the temperature around 1 degree! Bloody cold, hands cold, face cold, walk long.

The track we were walking was desolate, black rocks, black sand, cold wind, freaking cold wind. But we were committed so we kept walking, and walking, and freaking walking!

In fact it was nearly 4km in one direction! 4km in this bitter wind with no idea of what we were walking for, or why. What were we thinking. For the love of God! Oh, I have to add that we had not eaten yet, so it was like 1pm, and no lunch.

So we continued on the desolate voyage, following like lemmings, and with no idea of what we were doing. Eventually we got to the thing, everyone was walking along to!

And we were not happy, not impressed, and not grateful to have made it! It was a downed DC3 plane that belonged to the USA Navy. It had crashed in 1973 (either due to lack of fuel or ice on the wings, depending on the Wikipedia article you read) and all on board survived. So what is the big deal! For the love of PETE!

Why did we trek nearly 4kms down to see this thing, a decaying carcass of a plane, not a monument, not a treasure, not a relic, just a broken thing that no one has bothered to clean up. I was not a happy camper.

Time to walk back then! Another 4km to go before we could have lunch! Needless to say it was not a chatty walk ha, ha.

Hangry, cold, tired, and grumpy – always good 😀

Once we got back to the car we scoffed down our supermarket rolls and lots of lollies, then on to the next thing – we do not speak of the walk of the lemming!

The Hole and Black Beach

Next on our list of things to do Dyrholaey! Or as our lovely receptionist at the apartment told us, its this big hole in a wall, and it’s really awesome. We cannot laugh at her for her simplistic description because that essentially is what it is!

Similar to the one that did exist in Gozo. You get an amazing understanding of the power of nature and how the sea can tear the rock apart with its persistence.

On the way back to the car, we decided to walk across a large paddock type area. As we progressed there were some birds, artic terns, that started to get a little agitated. In fact you could say they were a little frosty towards us.

As a bird myself I realised that these particular feathered creatures were not happy and we were probably walking on their nesting area. I opted for the sensible approach and veered away from the paddock, but not Jason, he decided a front on attack was the best way.

Hmm, silly man, birds were dive bombing him, screeching and crying, the noise was incredible. This attracted the attention of the massive male bird! And he really was big and he really was angry. Missing Jason’s head on each dive bomb by around 6 inches, madness – but funny to watch. You must see the video, it’s on Facebook and hilarious.

Goes to show that not all animals are subject to his animal wiles, I have to say I laughed, and laughed, and went the long way round 😛

He did make it safely back, no injuries but a lot of really pissed off birds.

Onto the beach.

The fascination of the black beach is the black, iron, sand. Like quite a few things we saw in Iceland, the black beach itself was very familiar. Wanganui, don’t get me wrong I am not comparing Wanganui with Iceland, has black sand and it is very cool. But the most fascinating thing is the basalt.

The basalt rock is fascinating, scary, intimidating, and amazing. As you see the rock formation clinging on, with the underlying threat of collapse, you cannot help but want to climb and touch it. Hopeful that it won’t choose to collapse at exactly that moment.

Jason climbed to his heart’s content, well possibly not that much as I am telling him not to fall and die (in a very grumpy voice).

There is a tiny little village called Vik about 9kms south, so we drove on and did a tiki tour before heading home.

It was getting late and we knew, if we did not head back soon we would be eating late, sleeping late, and shite the next day.

Due to my slightly heavy foot, speed limit ummm, we made it home and it was still light (no crap lady, it’s always light) and Jason had lots of time to cook me another amazing dinner! I love the fish here.

A very tiring day, lots of driving, walking, hiking, and after a lovely dinner, an amazingly great sleep. God bless black out curtains!

Tomorrow we head to the golden circle. To see what everyone talks about.

Night, night, except it looks like day, day.