Iceland - the final chapter

Still dazed by the experience of the whale whatching, we set of towards Akureyri, the biggest city in the north and forth biggest city in the whole of Iceland (but only around 20.000 inhabitants). We basically only stopped there to get some late lunch which only found after touring half of the city. There were some festivities because of the national holiday of Iceland (17th of June).

Apparently the city is known for its botanical gardens but we didn't really care about it and drove further towards Sauðárkrókur where we stayed for the night. It was one of the finest guesthouses we had along our journey with a very nice living room and kitchen which we had more or less to ourselves. We took advantage of the nice setting to have a relaxing evening with a game of chess.

The next day (day 5 already) we set off, driving further east. In the mean time some red light had started to blink indicating that we needed to check the oil level. Well, we did, and we couldn't see anything wrong with it so we simply continued. Need I to remind you that neither of us has any idea about car mechanics, but we felt relatively okay.

We drove through the surprisingly green and fertile lands of the Húnavatnssýsla county.
We continued towards the Borgarfjörður district. This district is largely dominated by a big valley and again nice and luch to behold. The roads are pleasently winding through the countryside. We stopped at Deildartunguhver hot spring. It doesn't look very special but the hote water is tunneled over towards Borgarnes and even Akranes (34 and 64 kilometers away) where it provides all the hot water and a lot of the heating.

Still following the valley we arrived at a historical site called Reykholt. There there is since recent years a big museum and site dedicated to Snorri Sturluson. Apart from having a very funny name it is one of Iceland most famous writers and especially there best known historian.
There was a interesting museum there and although the girl that greated us was very cute, we didn't really feel like running around a museum for a few hours.Instead we continued following the valley and river until we came to the Barnafossar and Hraunfossar waterfalls. These are very beautifull and although we had seen many warfall (fos) before in Iceland, these really appealed, but difficult to describe and as they say: 'a picture says more than a thousand words' (yeah i know, a strange thing to hear me say)
Instead of turning around here, i had one more thing to visit here, something i had been looking forward to for a while. Starting to leave the least signs of civilisation and the last parts of paved road (although the policy of our car rental said clearly we had to stay on paved road with our 2x4 car), we found the lava fields. We had seen these rugged landscapes before, but this time there were lava tubes in these fields that you could actually visit.
Again you could see the naturally formed basalt stones that look like they are created by humans, this time in such a vast amount that the church floor (see before) looks pathetic.Luckely we had a flash light, because the cave was very dark, which made it a bit of a challenge to take pictures. Above you see the entrance to the lava tube i took, as you might be able to see it goes downwards rather steeply. I didn't just wanted to take pictures from the rock of the cave but especially of the beautiful stalagmites made entirly of ice. The temperature in the cave was rather chilly which is why the stalagmites survived even in June.
This last one is really dark, taken from inside the cave where i could still see some daylight (i went just beyond the point where i had some idea of where the exit was and then i turned around since i was by myself and with only one flashlight, i had no redundancy :-) ).
We stayed overnight at the town of Borgarnes, which is located nicely next to a great lake. The hostel was outside of the town, and after a nice swim in the Borgarnes swimming pool we enjoyed our dinner at the guesthouse (payed for since we had to be in the city center but they were booked out due to a visiting motorcycle group).

The next day we had a very lovely drive towards Reykjavik (going through an impressive tunnel they created as a shortcut). We stopped by the rental company to let them have a look at the flashing light and the mechanic put 2 liter of oil in our car (it was apparently a good idea to make the pit stop).
After that there was one more thing to do: The Blue Lagoon. By far the most visited attraction in Iceland. It is a big geothermal pool, that was blue one day, but due to the huge amounts of white clay that are being used by visitors (because i has a kind of natural peeling effect and is suppose to be good for your skin), the water in the actual pool has turned white. This picture was taken outside the actual pool area and here you can still see the blue color.

The pool itself is big, put very shallow, so don't be mistaken by this picture, people generally are sitting down.

The Blue Lagoon is a very fancy infrastructure, trying to lure a more high end public (than what the hell was i doing there, i can hear you think). Including groups who basically are touring Europe and take in Iceland in one day (which means they quickly tour Reykjavik and swim in the Blue Lagoon), like the group of Japaneese girls we met. In the picture below you also so how the edges of the pool are painted white because of the clay.

By then it was time to head back for the capital where we turned in the car. Then we went for the centre again and had a lovely diner and went to sleep early, the next day we had a plain to catch very early in the morning. The trip back was rather eventless, except that because of poor planning i had to be back in time because i still had my diving tanks to fill because i was scheduled to go on the North Sea the next day. But all ended well ;-)

All in all it was a very filled trip. Although i only spent one week in Iceland (to visit, the other week was purely for work), i really saw a lot, got a good impression and the trip was filled with first timers (whales, lava tubes, geysers, ...)

Iceland - whale watching

There we go again, we continue circling the island.

Day 4: Whale Watching day!!

An extra day especially to go out with a rebuilt fishersboat to go 'hunting' for whales, not to kill them as they did a lot in the past, but to observer them. We set of in the morning going to the end of the bay in the direction of the open sea. The area is very rich in krillwhich is the reason that there are so many whales around, question of course was, are we going to see any?

We immediately took position at the highest point on the boat, and i found myself next to a girl (who's name was something like Fyrerune, which apparently meant something like 'the sign of God' or something along those lines) who works for the whale museum of Husavik. There is some kind of deal between the museum and the people operating the whale spotting boats, and on almost each trip there is someone from the museum to take notes and photographe the whales.

In case you are wondering, yes it was cold up there!

They try to identify as many of them as possible, among others to see whether they are coming back to this bay. This is important since it shows that krill population is still thriving.

It also gave us a direct access to a lot of information on the whales.

But which ones? We didn't see any. We spent at least an hour on the calm water (the few puffins we saw where cute but that was already a long time ago).

Seems a bit wierd behavior for a bird? Yeah, the little guys really are great flyers, they skim over the water but they are good divers and that makes them okay in my book!

And just when we thought we were going to be in that 1,75% of the times that there is nothing to see on the trip (and therefore we were going to get another free trip), it started. First there were rumors, entusiastic people from the company that told us there was a blow to be seen at the horizon: yeah sure, they are probably saying that so we can't ask for another free trip. But then, behold: we saw it, far away still but we could see (especially through the lens of my camera) the back of a Blue Whale, the biggest animal on the planet. The idea that i was looking at this magnificent creature, that can reach a length of 30 meters and can weigh upto 200 tonnes, gave me a very excited feeling.

From that moment on it started, we got reports from everywhere: first the people on watch were shouting instruction to the ever more enthustiastic tourists, they gave us the directions by using the clock reference system (i.e. if the whale was straight ahead it's at twelve o'clock, behind us at six o'clock, etc...)

Afther a while they couldn't keep up anymore and at a certain time they actually called out: they are everywhere :-)

We saw a lot of blue whales, mostly at a respectful distance and then a whole bunch of humpback whales.

Above you can see a humpback, through the water you clearly see his right front fin, which is absolutely huge.And in this one you can see also the two blowholes on its back.

The humpbacks came a lot closer and gave us a nice show, with many fluke fins, the absolute view i wanted to see in my life.
This was already nice but this was wat i had always dreamed of seeing:
'V' for Victory:
This one isn't bad either: And to close it all of: a mother with calf just next to the boat, everyone went wild ;-)

I was taking pictures like crazy, luckely i emptied my compact flash card (2GB) the day before. Suddenly i noticed that Fyrerune (or something like that) hadn't taken any pictures for a while and was basically looking at here camera in stead. When i asked she said her camera appeared not to be working anymore and there was this strange message. It read 'CF Full', which i explained to her meant her memory was full so no more pictures.

I suggested that, also since i had a zoom lens with a better focal length, i would let her copy my pictures. See it as my contribution to science :-)

She was delighted and we went with her to the museum, where they all started looking at my pictures. One guy started looking and when he saw one of the first of the blue whales (and you could just see the back) he simply stated 'oh yeah, saw that one last week'. Apparently they all have a unique pattern of blue and grey on their back, but still, amazing that he could identify them on the spot.

We were allowed free entrance to the museum and it was worth a visit. Have a look at their website: http://www.whalemuseum.is/museum/

Afterwards i started chatting with two trainees who almost finished their intern (one girl from Italy and one girl from the States). Although they were cute girls, Tony reminded me that we needed to move on if we where to arrive at our destination of the day in time. ;-)

One more grand finale (if you wonder whether it's the same: just check the patern of white on the tail to compare the humpbacks):

Iceland - Part 2

A rather short entry this time, only one day out of the trip in Iceland, but you will agree that it was a full day, what plenty of diversity.

Day 3: The next morning we started of from Höfn, and took the Almannaskard tunnel to Lónsöræfi, which is a mountainous area ringed by extinct volcanoes and traversed by glacial rivers.
We did a lot of driving that day, but it took us through rough and beautifull landscapes. Some of the mountains seem to plunge directly into the sea. The area of the East Fjords, is very sparsely inhabited, some of the fjords are now deserted and each time you round a corner it's as if you enter a different world. In the picture above you can see wildflowers clinging on to the steep cliffs.
We stopped at a small town called Djúpivogur for a light meal.

We took a short cut: instead of proceeding along the coast we drove across Öxi pass (road 939), a steep and spectacular route. The scenery was absolutely stunning. You had the feeling you were alone on the planet, so desolate.
Once out of the mountain pass we followed a green valley up until the town of Egilsstaðir. While driving through the valley we saw a small herd of moose!
From Egilsstaðir we travelled across the highland desert plateau towards Lake Mývatn. That desert landscape is very daunting but there were few places to really stop and take a picture. Several times Tony was luckely engrossed in his literature (travel guide) so that he didn't see how narrow the road was and how deep the drop on both sides ;-)
The next pictures only gives you an idea:


We made a stop at the Námaskarð pass where boiling mud pools and flashing colours of the pass merge with lava and ash from the Krafla volcanic system. The colours are out of this world, the sulfuric smell of the mud pools also :-)

The Lake Mývatn area is known world wide for the abundance of birdlife and its exceptionally many breeding duck species, but to be honest we lacked the time to actually go and explore the surroundings of the lake area. We did visit the Nature Baths at Mývatn our first geothermal pool in Iceland. There are a few spots in the pool where new, warm water comes into the pool and to be honest, i could stay close to those spots for a long time, i was too hot.

We continued on our way towards the lovely town of Húsavík town.


From here we were to take a whale watching trip the next day!