Wednesday 6th January 2016:
After packing up our Airbnb apartment, we headed back out to Charles de Gaulle airport with our expectations set for freezing conditions in Iceland. Adam rode the travellator handrail part of the way because walking is too mainstream.
Landing at Keflavik International Airport, we caught our first glimpses of snow either side of the runway. Keflavik International Airport is located around 45 minutes out of Reykjavik and so after we’d collected our baggage, we headed outside to the bus transfer and had our first run-in with the powerful, ice cold winds.
Up until only recently, Iceland’s main industry was fishing. In the last few years, tourism has overtaken it and part of that can surely be attributed to the northern lights or 'Aurora borealis’. The lights are caused by electrically charged particles from the sun colliding with gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. The best time of year to see the lights is during winter, and while there are forecasts conducted to measure the likelihood of the lights appearing, it is impossible to know whether they will come out. Over the course of our stay, a significant amount of time was spent checking up on the
forecast.
Iceland has quite a strange cycle of daylight - in winter there is only around 5 hours of light a day, while in summer it is light for the majority of the day. By the time we arrived in town at nearly 6pm, it was dark enough to be considered the middle of the night. Brad was determined to see the northern lights, and had already booked us on a tour for the night of our arrival, but unfortunately due to cloud cover it had been cancelled and so we went straight onto our accommodation, Reykjavik4you Apartments. That night, we went to the grocery store nearby and discovered skyr, a bit like an Icelandic version of yogurt, which went on to become a staple snack during our stay.
The next morning, we awoke to complete darkness yet it was after 8am. Suella and Brad went off to a day spa and so we were left to explore the city with Adam, once the sun had risen after 11am. The city centre of Reykjavik isn’t very large, so this wasn’t really that hard. Brad was convinced that the Icelanders regularly eat puffin (a bird) and minke whale, so we wandered from the apartment checking out the restaurant menus as we went by. Through the streets and down towards the sea, the difference in the weather once we stepped out of the built up area was just incredible. Crossing the street from the urban area to the Harpa concert and conference centre, the howling wind was insanely powerful - it was hard to stay upright and you definitely needed to keep a firm hold onto any loose possessions. We went in and sat down for hot chocolates, dreading the thought of going back outside.
For the last few months, Brad had been in contact with the staff from What’s On, one of the Reykjavik’s tourism offices (for some reason, this small city has a multitude of different tourism offices…). We all met at the What’s On office, to book a few day trips as well as suss out what our chances were of seeing the northern lights over the coming days. The forecast was showing that tonight it was on! With limited daylight remaining, we went for lunch, wandered the main street and then returned to the apartment. The apartment smelled a bit weird, which we realised later was due to the sulphur in the hot water. Iceland is a world leader in renewable energy, and much of the country is powered by geothermal energy and the naturally hot spring water.
At around 10pm, the shuttle bus arrived to take us on our northern lights tour. Optimal conditions for seeing the lights are clear skies, with minimal cloud cover and light pollution and so the location the excursion takes you to view is always different. Apparently the lights are up to 380 kilometres above the earth, and an old wives’ tale is that pregnant women should not look at the lights otherwise they will end up with a cross-eyed baby. After driving for around an hour out of the city, we arrived at our destination. Brad had a tripod borrowed from someone back home, and so we all moved over to a prime piece of land, changed the camera settings as per what we’d read and been advised on the bus, and Brad got the camera and tripod set up. The lights looked promising, there was a feint glow in the skies but the strong winds were also freezing cold. It only took one gust to spell the end of it all.
The camera and tripod started to fall and as Brad reached out to grab them, tripped over the back pack at his feet and landed on top of the camera and tripod. Even though we were all standing close together, in the total darkness none of us could really see what was happening other than hear things tumble to the ground and Brad saying “I’m right, I’m right". Fumbling around, we gathered up Brad and the camera equipment and tried to put it back together. The sight of the tripod with its bent legs, which had now been divided into a bi-pod and a mono-pod, coupled with Brad trying to convince us that it was still ok was uncontrollably funny. By this time, the small glimpse of light had failed to become anything more spectacular and a little after midnight we were all ushered back onto the bus into town. The good thing about most of the northern lights tour operators is that if you don’t get to see the lights or only see a fleeting glimpse, like we did, they welcome you to rebook for another night for free.
On Friday, we woke once again in the “early” hours (circa 8am) of morning darkness set for a day out on one of Iceland’s most popular routes, the Golden Circle tour. The key attractions of this 254 kilometre round trip are Þingvellir national park, Gullfoss waterfall and Geysir hot spring area, plus our tour with
Sterna Travel also included a visit to a natural geothermal swimming pool. The tour bus only seated around 20 people, making for a nice small group size. Our driver explained that Iceland covers a relatively large (for Europe anyway…) area of around 100,000 sq km and yet 2/3 of the entire population lives in the south-western region near Reykjavik.
We were still a bit fatigued from being out at the northern lights the night before, but the scenery was too impressive to miss out on. Our first stop was at Þingvellir (the Icelandic letter Þ (uppercase) or þ (lowercase) is pronounced ‘th’), where the old Viking parliament was founded. Þingvellir is a national park and Unesco world heritage site, where two tectonic plates are slowly drifting apart thereby creating some sensational geography. The rising sun at 11:30am cast a stunning glow over the mountains, scenic waterways and vast expanses of snow. The driver dropped us at the visitors centre, and we then walked around 15 minutes along a track through the park to where he was stopped to collect us once more.
Back on the bus and onto the Geysir hot spring area, where we were to see the erupting hot spring Stokkur. Fortunately for us in the horrendously cold and windy conditions, Stokkur spurts every 8 minutes on average and can spray up to 20 metres high, so we didn’t have to wait around for too long to see it. Across the road in the visitors centre, we were keen to get some hot food.
The next stop was the Gullfoss waterfall (aka Golden falls), Iceland’s best known and most iconic waterfall. Once again, our driver dropped us at the visitors centre and we were left to walk down the hill towards the falls where he would meet us at the bottom. This powerful waterfall is fed by the melting glaciers, and carries up to 2000m3 of water per second. As beautiful as this waterfall was, the wind atop the walls of the canyon were also insanely strong and very very cold. Luckily, next up was the naturally warm waters of the Secret Lagoon geothermal pool.
At the opposite end of the spectrum to the world famous luxury Blue Lagoon, the Secret Lagoon is very natural, with minimal amenities. This makes it quite unique and helps feel a bit more authentically Icelandic. The Secret Lagoon is the oldest swimming pool in Iceland, dating back to 1891. The water is 36 – 40°C year round and so the worst bit is getting from the change room into the water and then the return back again. The facilities are fairly basic, consisting of change rooms with showers, a dining area and decking leading out to the pool, but this helps retain that classic feel.
After bathing in the sulfuric waters for a while, it was time to get out and get ready to return to the bus. Suella and Brad got out first, and Suella headed straight in for the change rooms, leaving Brad to talk to another lady on our tour. Distracted by conversation, he detoured from the non-slip mats and came crashing down. Roslyn, Adam and Brendan were still in the water and not really watching closely, but out of the corner of Brendan’s eye he saw Brad standing there one second and gone the next. With a worried gasp from the woman Brad had been talking to, we looked down to see Brad in the midst of his slip, still bouncing off the deck. It seemed that on this trip, he was seeing lots of Iceland from a low altitude. With most of the people in the pool now turned around to see what the commotion was, Brad stood up and proclaimed “ah, its slippery just there”. If National Lampoon’s were to make an updated movie, Brad would be frontrunner to be cast as Clark Griswald. The next part really is the icing on the cake of this story (you can’t make this sort of stuff up). He headed inside to the change rooms and, as we found out later, in his dazed state wandered into the women’s by mistake!
We arrived back in town, and unfortunately the forecast for the northern lights wasn’t good and the tour had been called off. For dinner, we wandered down to an Icelandic tapas restaurant that served plenty of signature Icelandic dishes, both good and also some that were less than appetizing (think rotten shark).
Our menu comprised of Icelandic sea trout, garlic lobster tails, pan-fried blue ling, grilled lamb, teriyaki beef and the Icelandic delicacies of smoked puffin and minke whale. Surprisingly, the puffin didn’t really taste like chicken or any other type of poultry, while the whale was quite tender and had a good flavour, similar to beef. With all the publicity surrounding whaling, we felt a bit morally torn about eating it, but then again minke aren’t endangered…
Saturday was our last full day in Iceland. Brad and Suella stayed in Reykjavik for the day, while the three of us “kids” went on a South Coast tour to fulfil Brendan’s desire of seeing a glacier. The South Coast tour travels through one of Iceland’s biggest volcano regions, and along the way we got to walk along a black sand beach, touch a glacier, and stand behind a waterfall.
Driving along, our guide explained how mass floods are always a threat, due to subglacial volcanoes which are literally just volcanoes covered by a glacier. The volcanic eruption and flow of hot lava causes the overlying ice to melt. In early 2010, there were several earthquakes around the area, and then in April 2010 the subglacial volcano Eyjafjallajökull (pronounced kind of like "I feel like a yogurt") erupted for the first time in 200 years. Water turns lava into ash, which resulted in ash exploding 9 kilometres into the atmosphere, and the melting ice led to flooding. In this time, there was significant disruption to aircraft and nobody knew how long it was going to go on for. Apparently the previous eruption 200 years ago lasted for 3 years! Fortunately the 2010 eruptions only lasted for five weeks. Another one of the volcanoes, Katla, last erupted in 1918 and until then had been doing so every 50 years on average. Ash from Katla, has been found as far away as Asia and so its next eruption is overdue and has the potential to affect the whole world.
The first stop on our day out was the extremely photogenic Skógafoss waterfall, which has been widely used in TV and film. There is a walking track that leads you up a steep staircase to a viewing platform right over the top of the waterfall, and looks out over the vast flat landscape – much of which was once the ocean floor.
There are a few signals that suggest Iceland’s tourism has boomed quicker than even the Icelandic people could have expected. Accompanying amenities such as toilets, a café or gift shop are either minimal, or absent altogether from the majority of the tourist hotspots. This is both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that a very high percentage of Iceland’s tourist attractions are nature based, although it will be interesting to see whether they become commercialised in the future.
For our lunch stop we arrived at Reynisfjara, the black sand beach. If the outside temperature alone wasn’t enough to put you off, the waves and ocean current are so strong here that it isn’t a beach you’d want to swim at. Reynisfjara and its neighbouring basalt formations and caves are reputed to be an amazing sight. On a nice day, they probably are. The overcast sky, light drizzle and howling cold winds (did we mention that the winds in Iceland are cold?), made it all seem dark and gloomy. Even trying to capture a photo that made it look appealing proved troublesome. At least the sand doesn’t blow up and sting your legs.
Next, we drove around to Cape Dyrhólaey, the headland at the other end of the beach. The view from up here across the landscape, taking in the ocean, black beach and varying topography was great but the 93 km/h wind speed meant we didn’t stay too long. One lady on her walk back to the bus appeared to get blown over by a strong gust, although the loose gravel she stumbled on didn't help either. Lucky Brad didn’t come today because given his recent track record, it probably would have been him on the ground.
The Sólheimajökull glacier is an amazing sight, and yet also a shocking casualty of global warming. Since 1995, the glacier has been retreating at a rate of 50-100 metres per year. On the drive in, we went past a large car park and café that seemed to be located in a rather odd spot, because there was nothing nearby. Our guide explained that when the café opened in 1999, the glacier was just in front of it. Since then, the roadway has been extended and the car park moved another couple of hundred metres away to make them closer to the glacier. Yet when we visited, it was still a further 10 minute hike from the bus until we reached the glacier. The walk was made more exciting, although slightly complicated, by the snow storm we faced trying to get there!
The glacier itself when viewed up close is a luminous blue colour. Brendan touched the glacier, but nobody was game enough to put their tongue on it.
Our final stop, on the way back to Reykjavik, was at Seljalandsfoss – a waterfall that you can walk behind.
This proved to be more of an obstacle course than a leisurely and magical stroll behind a cascading waterfall. The pathway leading to the falls was covered in super slippery ice, but we managed to get through and stand behind the fall.
There were two options that presented themselves for the return to the bus - turn around and try to navigate the icy path again, or continue rock climbing ahead to go down the stairs on the other side. We went for the second option, there were people in front of us who'd done it - how hard could it be?
We managed to overcome the first challenge of climbing up the wet and slippery rocks, and then discovered that a thick layer of ice covered the platform leading to the stairs. The safety rail preventing us from plummeting over the cliff edge and into the water below was a bit of rope tied between a few pretty loose timber stakes. We sat down on the ice and edged out way towards the stairs, finding that they too were mostly covered in ice. A bumpy ride to the bottom it was going to be for us, and a comedy of errors for others.
The sturdy rope-around-a-stake safety rail also sided the length of the stairs. Even sliding slowly down the stairs, we nearly slipped completely off the edge a few times.
A few of the people behind us were clearly not interested in sliding down on their behinds, and soon learned the error of their ways. One guy who was attempting to walk down the stairs slipped over the side, smacked his head on a rock and slid the rest of the way down. The "safety rails" didn't save him because he slid straight under it. He got up at the bottom and didn't seem too worried. Luckily for him, the spot where he went over was a steep grassy hill as opposed to the rocky cliff
that we'd carefully scooted past at the top.
Closer to the bottom of the stairs another guy tried to pass us, and he too quickly went like an out of control human toboggan over the side and down to the foot of the hill.
Once we'd finally reached the bottom of the stairs, we thought we were home safe. But the bus was on the other side of the stream, across a bridge. The pathway and bridge had a fairly minor gradient but were also covered in a layer of ice. The sensation of having no real stability while walking on a surface that is almost flat
was a little reminiscent of the first time skiing.
Eventually we made it back onto the bus, muddy and wet, and returned to Reykjavik. This was our final night in Iceland and our last chance to see the northern lights.
The forecast for tonight was looking good as well, and the tour was on. This time we were taken out to Þingvellir national park. Like two nights prior, there was a feint glow of light developing when we first arrived. It took a little while, but gradually several glowing circles of light formed from behind the mountains.
Most people would probably be unaware, as we were until our visit, that the light you see with your eyes is very different to photos captured by a camera. While photographs show vivid colours, the light we saw with our eyes were white with a slight green tinge.
The glowing circles turned into columns of light in a fairly short space of time. They started gently but noticeably moving along the horizon, drawing plenty of oohs and aahs from the crowd.
Eventually the lights faded and so we were directed back to the bus after midnight. The driver had only just started the engine when he turned it off again and we were let back out. The lights had returned and were looking even more impressive than before, swirled across the night sky.
The final day, we strolled up to the architecturally intriguing and skyline dominating Hallgrímskirkja church. This church is fairly modern, having only been completed in 1986. The tower stands 73 metres tall, much higher than anything surrounding and so from up here we were afforded views in every direction across the city.
Highlights:
- Snow and powerful winds at the airport
- Total darkness by our arrival in town at 6pm
- Ate lots of skyr
- Sunrise not until after 11am
- Brad and Suella visited a day spa
- Harpa concert and conference centre
- Northern lights tour on Thursday night
- Brad fell over and broke the tripod before it had been used for anything significant
- Golden Circle tour
- Þingvellir national park, stunning sunrise at 11:30am
- Geysir hot spring area, saw Stokkur erupt
- Gullfoss waterfall
- Secret Lagoon
- Brad’s second tumble, then wandered into the women’s change rooms
- Icelandic tapas, ate puffin and minke whale
- South Coast tour
- Skógafoss waterfall
- Reynisfjara black sand beach and basalt formations
- Cape Dyrhólaey
- Sólheimajökull glacier
- Snow storm walking to the glacier
- Seljalandsfoss waterfall
- Precariously sliding down stairs on our bums
- Second northern lights tour on Saturday night
- Hallgrímskirkja church
