Prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, my Wife and I had a trip to Japan booked. Tickets bought. An overseas holiday after years. Of course, covid brought that crashing down.
Once the pandemic lifted, the thought of booking our trip returned. However, it was at this point when I got my Leukemia diagnosis. After receiving treatment, and having a successful Stem Cell Transplant, I reached the 2 year post cancer, with my chance of recurrence dropping from 20% to 2%.
We once more resumed talks of overseas travel. However, with receiving lung damage from the stem cell transplant (or the chemo), I was worried still about catching Covid. So, my Wife had a thought about it, and as Japan is densely populated, we were worried that it would be too risky to travel there, so she threw out another suggestion of a country we were interested in: Iceland.
We began looking into it, deciding to do 'Icelandic Full Circle at Leisure' through Nordic visitor, which organised our car rental, accommodation, and airports transfers as well as giving us a lot of itinerary options of things to see and do along our road trip to Iceland so we could plan a lot before we went over. We also decided to have a stopover in Denmark, staying in Copenhagen on our way to Iceland, and upon our return home.
Prologue - Copenhagen
With lots of planning, and going through details, working out mathematically distance between places and what things we wanting to do, booking into activities, and getting everything ready for months leading up, the day finally arrived, and we headed to the airport, bags packed, with the dread of a very long flight to look forward to. We lined up in a long line at the airport, before realising that was the wrong flight, and then lined up in another super long one.... which was also wrong. Finally, we found the right line, checked our baggage, and made our way in where we grabbed some quick lunch and waited for our flight with Singapore Airlines.
We made our way onto the plane, where I was eager for some free beers and to sit down and just binge watch some movies (you gotta try and enjoy yourself right?). After we took off, I chose my first film, the Super Marios Bros movie. I was shocked at how bad the sound quality of the headphones was, and I sort of wish I had just downloaded some films onto my tablet and brought my own headphones. I moved on to watching Shazam 2 followed by Black Adam. I started to feel pretty tired and started to watch the reality TV series 'The Climb' hosted by climbing legend Chris Sharma. We arrived at Singapore, where we had a bit of a wait until our connecting flight to Copenhagen, we found a spot to sit and sat to remove our hiking boots (which we had worn onto the plane because my Wife was paranoid about the weight of our checked baggage, which was way under the limit anyway), and let our feet breathe. As we wandered around, we noticed a machine at the airport which created tea or coffee for you, and you could watch the robot make it, which I guess was the niche thing. It offered an iced pandan latte which sounded pretty good for us, so we got one of those, which tasted good though there was too much ice in it, making the actual drink rather small.
We got back on the plane and my Wife who had been watching very different sort of films to me had finished the new Spielberg film 'The Fabelmans' which I had wanted to watch anyway, and said it was really good. I said I would watch it, but I first tried to get some sleep, which I had been severely unable to do on our last flight to Europe. This time I was able to nod on and off so actually got some sleep before putting on that final movie (which was the best of the four I watched). After this my eyes were just to burnt out from looking at the small bright screen, so I nodded off again before just spending the rest of the flight watching the little flight map as we slowly got closer and closer to Denmark.
Finally we arrived and had the long wait of getting off the plane because everyone stands up at once, taking down all their luggage, and taking ages to do it, which was annoying because we only had backpacks so could have literally just walked off the plane. After getting over our frustration and eager to breathe fresh air, we exited and made our way to customs. As we waited in line, I was eager to remove my face mask (that I had worn for the entire flight to avoid catching covid) and could feel the aching pain of the straps on my ears and just pined for fresh air. I noticed that the person stamping passports in our line didn't look as friendly as some of the others, and hoped we wouldn't have any issues.
"How long are you visiting Denmark?" He enquired as we arrived at him.
"Just two nights."
"Two nights and back to Australia?"
"No then to Iceland for two weeks, then back here" I responded.
He stamped our passport and finally through we went in search of our checked luggage.
Finally finding it, we found a seat where we could swap our boots over into normal shoes (oh the unpleasant odor of boot foot after 23 hours!), and made our way through the airport, where fortunately the train service was connected in a very convenient manner. We worked out the train tickets at a nearby ATM style ticket purchasing machine that allowed us to swap the language to English and got a ticket to København Hovedbanegård, which was nearby our accommodation at the Andersen Hotel. We took the escalator down to the train station where we tried to work out if we were on the right platform. A young man saw us looking and asked, "Is this train going into the city?'
We explained we were trying to work it out, while waiting for the new sim I had placed in my phone to allow roaming and overseas mobile data to take effect to have the help if the good old internet and google maps.
"Are you from Australia?" He asked.
We told him we were, and he said he was from Lebanon and he was going into the city to visit his sister who was there before going off to University in Canada. He asked if there were a lot of Lebanese people in Australia and we said there were, finally, the train arrived and we got on, while I unfolded a map of the city I had grabbed from the train/plane terminal. I looked at things to do while also looking out the window at the scenery. I struggled to refold the map, and I could see the man's amusement as I simply shoved it into my backpack. We arrived at our destination, hopping off the train with no mobile data and no idea where to go. We headed to an escalator while I fiddled with my phone trying to get the mobile data to activate. Finally, we worked it out and made our way towards the street 'Reventlowsgade', where our very first impression of Denmark wasn't very good. There was a bar right outside, and it was 7am in the morning, and there was a group of seedy looking drunk people standing in front of it.
"Oh god," I thought "Where have we come to." As my Wife informed Me, she had found out after booking that our hotel was apparently in the 'red light district', and we began to worry about what was in store. We made our way down 'Istedgad' street and into our hotel where check-in wasn't until 2pm, but we had asked ahead of time about storing our suitcases and going out to explore the city until check in was available. We were greeted by friendly staff who explained about their wine our, where at 5pm you could come down and try a free wine, and we thought the hotel looked really lovely. We placed our suitcases and decided to set out to find a coffee and a pastry, as my Wife had looked into a particular pastry shop prior to our leaving Australia. However, she had not saved the location or name and so as we wandered and explored we ended up just going to one that looked nice for a coffee and a berry flavoured pastry, passing a building with a ringing bell and a fountain out the front.
We were pretty cluelessly wandering through the city before finding a bench to stop and eat out pastry and drink our coffee. From here, I looked up directions and we began making out way to the botanical garden to spend some time. By the time we had the reached the front of the gardens the city was really starting to come alive and seem a much more friendly and inviting place. We entered the garden, in no hurry and slowly made our way through, looking at the plants, enjoying the fresh air, especially after enduring a 23 hour flight.
We made our way through to a section called the 'palm house' which was a section that required paid entry. We weren't too keen on seeing palm trees, living in Australia and having them growing in our yard, so we continued through the entirety of the gardens before making our way to the nearby Museum of Natural History, which requires us to leave through the gates we entered through and walk around the outskirts to the far side of the gardens to get to the museum.
At the entrance to the museum was a giant meteorite that I couldn't help but touch.
When we entered and paid, we were told it also included entry into the 'palm house' we had just walked away from. We entered the museum which was presenting a special exhibition on Primates and the opening was older species, including those of human ancestors which was right up our alley and was very cool to see.
We finished exploring that exhibit and continued upstairs, where there was a display of minerals, rocks, and gems which were cool to look at (and confirmed we're old souls enjoying looking at rocks in a museum).
We decided to make our way back to explore the palm house, seeing as we had paid for it. We stopped in at a nearby Netto (grocery store), that was outside the start of the gardens just to grab something to eat. We entered the garden finding a shady spot by a pond to have some snacks before continuing on and in to the Palm House, which ended up being really interesting and filled with far more than just palms. One of the first things we noticed (besides the humidity) was the cool brightly coloured frogs, hopping around.
As we made our way through each section, we investigated all the plants around us, learning what they were and where they were from (luckily, we're botanically inclined). We passed through Aquatic and Mangrove plants, warm subtropics, dry tropics and the Mediterranean house. In one section we were able to walk upstairs, high above the canopy of the thick jungle trees (though my Wife's fear of heights kept her firmly on the ground).
After walking through we were ready to make our way back to the accommodation, until we saw people entering another door that had a guard, only allowing a few people to enter at a time, we realised that it was a Butterfly House that was included and so lined up and walked through enjoying all the butterflies. It was in here we overheard one of the workers explain to someone that the brightly coloured Frogs we had been seeing were poison dart frogs, however, that the poison came from the ingestion of a particular food source, which they didn't have access to here and so they were nontoxic.
We took our time enjoying the butterflies darting about all around us, slowly making our way through. As we exited, we stopped to once more snack, and put our sunglasses on as the weather was overcast, but also bright and glary (and quite warm and humid). It lightly rained before stopping shortly, and we decided to now make our way back to our accommodation to check in. We passed through Ørstedsparken, a local park that reminded me of the parks in and around London. There were people here playing Finska. I noticed a sign nearby mentioning escape, and I pointed to my Wife saying there might be an escape room there we could do (as lovers of escape rooms). She mentioned we might be able to on our return to Copenhagen after our Iceland trip. (We didn't end up getting to do it, which you'll find out about if you read on).
We returned to our accommodation, and the city was well and truly alive now and our destination didn't seem at all dingy, but a beautiful vibrant city. We picked up our suitcase from the storage and went to our room, where we had been given a free upgrade because of my Wife's Booking.com membership level. Our room was beautiful, and my Wife started sharing photos to her Nan of the room. We had a little rest a lie down, before we decided to head out to explore the location we needed to be at tomorrow as we had booked a Canal tour. We set off towards Ved Stranden and the canal, passing a massive museum, the National Museum of Denmark, which I suggested as an option to go to after our canal trip the next day. We then passed through Christiansborg Palace, the seat of Danish parliament, where the Prime Minister's Office was, and where the Danish Monarchy also frequent.
We found the location we believed our tour would leave from but continued for a walk along the canal as the humid glary cloud cover cleared and we found ourselves in Scandinavia with intense sun and heat beating down over us. We walked up to Havnegade Basketball Court, using a public toilet there and giving my Wife a rest as her feet were beginning to swell and get sore from both the walking and the heat. We made our way back where we decided to have a proper look in a grocery store for any unique or interesting food items where we bought 'Peberbolcher' a hard form of salted licorice that also had chilli spice, a can of Faxe Kondi which seemed to be Denmark's soft drink of choice (which really just tasted like lemonade), and we bought a mixed fruit drink in a carton that ended up being a concentrate and needed to be mixed with water, which was very strong and not enjoyable. I also purchased a Leffe Brune beer, which is a beer brand made at a Belgian Abbey. I had tried the Blonde as home, but as a beer drinker I always lean more towards stouts/porters so was excited for a brown beer. We placed them in a our minifridge to get cold while I once more took out the map of Copenhagen I had grabbed, and we tried to work out what to have for dinner that night. Looking at nearby restaurants and prices and reviews we decided to walk down the street to Isted Grill, for their roast pork sandwich, which was delicious and very affordable considering the nearby prices (and the crackling was fantastic). We headed back to our accommodation to finally crash out, alarm set for the next morning.
The following morning, we awoke and headed downstairs to enjoy our breakfast buffet where we were able to make open sandwiches with meats, cheeses and salads (I also hit up, the bacon, sausages and eggs) I made a few coffees and enjoyed the fruit juices of which they offered elderflower juice, which I assumed was more likely a cordial but enjoyed drinking it anyway. We took our time, relaxing before heading back upstairs to get ready for our tour at 11:30. We made our way across the city towards the canal, and we were beginning to get our bearings of where things within the city were situated. We lined up at the wharf, the first people there and began waiting in the hot sun. We watched a few canal boat tours go by and noticed some of them had roofs, which we thought would impact our view and we began discussing were we should sit if that was the case. People began to line up at the nearby service desk for 'Stomma' (the company we had booked the tour with) and my Wife thought we might have needed to line up there too. I said we had already prebooked out tickets online which I had saved on my phone, and I didn't want to move as we had already been standing and waiting in the hot sun for so long. So people began to come and stand near us, and a boat arrived full of people. A lady who was standing nearby started telling the people on the boat to cheer or say something and began taking photos of them. I assumed this lady was going to be on our tour with us, however after taking the photo's she walked away. Once everyone on that boat had exited, we were able to board, and we took a seat up the front right. (The row had three seats). My Wife asked if we should sit there as we were just two, and if we shouldn't move further back to a four-person row in case there was a group of three. I said there would be one single person who would sit there, and sure enough a blonde lady came and sat down next to me. While we were waiting for the tour to start, she began talking to us, letting us know she was an American, from Washington D.C.
"Ah, the capital." I responded.
She told us she was here on the way to watch her son compete in an Ironman competition and began telling us about her morning. Soon the tour got underway, and the lady informed us she would be doing it in English and another language.
We set off down the canal along the same way we had walked the following day, while the lady pointed out things and informing us on the history of them (as usually occurs on a tour!), such as the Christiansborg Palace, Børsen, the Little Mermaid, the majestic Amalienborg Castle – home of the royal family, and the old Stock Exchange building (not necessarily in that order).
When we went past the Copenhagen Opera House the American lady turned and ask if it was anything like the Australian one.
"No, ours looks like Shark Fins." I said, knowing she was asking about the Sydney Opera House, and not any other one in the country. As we looped around the big harbour and reached the Little Mermaid, she told us to smile because we would be in the background of the numerous photos of all the people there photographing it. She told us of the history of the statue, and that it was modelled after a ballet dancer, and about all the acts of vandalism against the statue, including having its head cut off numerous times and being graffitied for political reasons.
As we went near or through certain sections of the tour our guide said she couldn't use the microphone other than telling us to watch our heads under some bridges. I turned to my Wife and asked if she thought that it was because we were going through Freetown Christiania in Christianshavn, which we had only learned about the day before we flew out of Australia. Although we didn't know all the details we read that it was a sort of commune, drug area, that had had some shootings occur and that it was advised that while you were there to not photograph the area, the details were a bit sketchy on it and even looking it up didn't give us the full story of the area, but every time we went through this section the lady would go quiet and made no comment or reference to any of these things we had heard other than at one point noting we may notice similarities with 'Amsterdam' which was a read-between-the-lines reference to pot smoking, which is apparently still illegal there but apparently a lot of frequent.
The canal tour continued as we got to see a lot more of the city and from a different and unique point of view, as we progressed through a smaller tunnel and took a very sharp turn, we clapped to the guy driving the boat as we were told often boat coming through there would hit the wall or sides as it is the sharpest turn along the canal with a tight squeeze. As we approached the end, I noticed the American lady had gone silent and was sighing heavily (maybe she was bored?). As we reached the wharf, we had left from she was very quick to depart the boat as I thanked our guide, we tried to find a spot in the shade, shocked at how hot and sunny it was.
"I left Australia to get away from this heat!" My Wife commented as we were both feeling on the verge of heatstroke.
We planned to go to the museum next, but I suggested we grab lunch beforehand, and I tried to look up a hotdog vendor, as it is custom to get a Danish hotdog when in Denmark.
We found one a short walk away, Petersens pølser. We had a bit of a wait though as there was a group on tour who had been taken there to try a Danish hotdog too. As we waited another couple began waiting behind us with a baby which we could smell had soiled itself.
"Scheiße!" We heard a man yell, and we knew enough German language to know what that tourist was yelling as we saw him limp up a nearby street holding his knee, unsure what he had done to himself.
Soon we got our Danish hotdog which was quite tasty (though I'm yet to have a hotdog ever match the one I tried in Poland)
We ate them and decided to head straight to the museum for some air conditioning as the weather was very hot and sunny.
"If it has air conditioning." My Wife said, referring to the Museum of Natural History near the Botanic Garden, which had not had air conditioning.
As we entered, we realised this museum was much larger in size than the one at the gardens and had a lot more sections and floor levels that actually started to become a bit of a maze as we worked out way through the different exhibitions beginning with Danish Prehistory.
Followed by Danish Middle Ages and Renaissance. It was after this we got a bit lost and began walking through various exhibits and having to backtrack as we had missed other such as Stories of Denmark (1660-2000), The Royal Collection of Coins and Medals, Voices from the Colonies, Ethnographic Collection and Classical and Near Eastern Antiquities. It's fair to say as a history buff I was fanboying from the start to the end while my Wife began to lose enthusiasm as her feet were beginning to swell and get very sore from all the walking around.
We made our way back to our hotel where we realised it was 5pm and so decided to head down to the main room to enjoy our free glass of wine.
We sat in the outdoor courtyard, relaxing and enjoying having a break from our day to day lives. Afterwards we headed up to our room for a break and to work out what to do for dinner, while a cracked open my Belgian Abbey beer. My Wife had mentioned the Wagamama restaurant that was just outside the side of Tivoli theme park (which we had decided we would do on our returning from Iceland) on the way to the museum and apparently that was 'very big in England', though I'd never heard of it, so we decided to go there where we had ramen with duck gyoza in it. I thought the ramen was nice, but the duck gyoza had a sweetness that I felt didn't go with the ramen and thought maybe they would have been nicer on their own. We headed back to our accommodation to get some sleep as the next day we would fly out to Iceland, and while I was very keen for that, I was a little sad at I had been enjoying Copenhagen and wished we had maybe arranged to spend some more time there.
Iceland
Day 0 - We awoke and headed down for our buffet breakfast, before quickly heading back up to pack our stuff, check out and made our way back up the street towards the train station and back to the airport. We found the check in a very easy process with automated weighing machine and no human interaction needed. As we progressed through customs which had the usual of taking your electronics out, boots and belt off, beanie off, and liquid containers out we were shocked to find that all the way up until we got on the plane no one had asked for our passport which we found very odd. We were shocked to find our flight to Iceland with Icelandic airways (which had the little screens on the back of the chairs) was not going to turn them on and we would have no entertainment, as well as being provided no food (luckily, we had purchased snacks). To entertain myself I played a puzzle game on my phone called 'Flow' before we started playing a game together where you have to go through the Alphabet and name something from a letter, swapping in turns on a particular subject (such as food, films, or dinosaurs). Thankfully this passed the time and we soon landed at Keflavik airport in Iceland. After the long wait of everyone getting out their overhead baggage, we made our way off the plane, down a hallway and found it led to an open airport. Soon a bus arrived, and we managed to fit on the first group being transported (having to stand up) as this bus made its way through to the main section of the airport where we jumped off and entered.
Once we progressed through the monotony of the airport (still never once being asked for our passports). Once we had collected our baggage my Wife informed me there would be someone with a sign waiting for us to transport us to Reykjavík. As we exited there were lots of people holding signs and I walked around looking for my name until I saw a lady holding it, looking away. I stopped in front of her.
"Howdy." I said, as she asked our names confirming it was us and led us to the car to be transported. We were impressed by the landscape. Open plains of mossy rock as hard as the eye could see. (Little did we know we would see a lot of this landscape), as we sadly tried to take blurry photos while in motion from the car.
Our driver's phone rang, and I immediately noticed it was the Halloween theme (from the films). She soon began speaking and we listened in (not that we could understand Icelandic, but we just thought it was cool to hear the language spoken as it is pretty unique.).
"Sorry about that." She apologised after her phone call.
"No worries," I replied. "I like your Halloween ringtone."
Soon we entered Reykjavík, driving past Hallgrimskirkja a big Church with a statue of Leif Erikson (the famous explorer Viking from Iceland). Just before reaching this Church, I saw graffitied along a wall saying something along the lines of 'Get rid of the tourists', though I'm paraphrasing because I only briefly saw it as we drove past, that made me wonder if we were going to have an unwelcoming experience. Soon we pulled up around the back of our hotel, Hotel Fron and our driver said she could not park or pull up out the front without getting fined, adding that it had happened too much lately. Obviously, we did not want her to get a fine and hopped out the back of the car, grabbing our luggage and making our way into the hotel to check in. We had a room upstairs and took the lift up to our room, noticing it was right by a door leading outside on and upper level, and saw that someone had taped a sign to the door telling people not to slam it as people are 'trying to sleep'.
We put our stuff down and my Wife quickly googled where The Handknitting Association of Iceland was, which was within walking distance, and open (she wanted to buy Iceland wool to crochet when we got home), we made our way there as I continued snacking on the peanut flavoured chips I had purchased in Copenhagen (which my Wife found disgusting).
We went in and my Wife was able to buy all her wool, so we returned to our accommodation to drop that off before heading down the main street to explore Reykjavík. Stopping to look at all the menus and stores as we progressed down the street, also having a look to find the restaurant that we had booked at for dinner that night 'Social Sushi' which we found was the sixth left street turn down from our accommodation, and not a very far walk at all. As we progressed further down there was a sign out the front of a place advertising 'lavender lattes' and as we are huge on floral flavours, (lavender and rose are delicious) we tried to find where it was for. However, the name on the board apparently didn't exist when I google it, and I could find no help from Google or Trip Advisor and eventually had to give up on finding it. We continued all the way down to Ingólfur Square, where we turned to the coast to go and see the 'Sun Voyager' sculpture. We passed the humorously named 'Pablo Discobar'. Continuing over to a cruise terminal, where we realised there must have been a cruise ship rocked up (as the city was way busier than we had expected).
"I wonder if that's what the graffiti was about?" I pondered to my Wife. We continued along the water, heading the direction back to our hotel towards the sculpture. The wind was harsh and cold and I stopped for a photo in front of the water with the Island 'Engey' in the background and the wind almost blew my beanie right off.
As we continued along, I noticed a metal block with writing placed unceremoniously within the break rocks.
We continued along to the 'Sun Voyager' sculpture, with was like a metallic Viking ship design with tridents or forks sticking out of the middle.
We crossed the major road and made our way back to our accommodation (with my Wife stressing the whole time about being late to our restaurant booking). We decided to shower and get dressed nice for dinner. I hopped in first and was hit by the smell while showering.
"I think the drains need cleaning or something." I said when I got out, referring to the smell.
My Wife soon hopped into shower, and she really couldn't handle it, mentioning she just couldn't feel clean and that the smell made her sick, she said, saying she really didn't like the place we were staying at, then the thought hit me.
"I don't think it's filthy drains!" I exclaimed. "I think it's sulfur! The heating is probably volcanic and that's why there's that smell."
She didn't care, she just really didn't like the smell.
We made our way to Social Sushi where we had already planned. We arrived 5 minutes early, and as we said we had a booking we got shown to a little dimly lit waiting room as we could see the restaurant was incredibly busy. More and more people arrived in the waiting room with us, and I felt a little uncomfortable because everyone was ultra blonde, like, ultra, with blue eyes. I leaned over to my Wife and whispered as a joke 'Aryan Master Race'.
Soon about 10 minutes past a booking time we were led to our table and handed menu's though we had already decided on what we were getting which is why we had booked the restaurant. We were going to get the Icelandic Feast.
*insert pictures throughout if any*
We're pretty adventurous eaters and love trying new things, and we also believe in trying foods people of the region would eat. When I told the waitress that we were ordering it she made sure we understood that the order covered a table therefore, the two of us. We nodded and were served our alcoholic starter. A shot of Brennivín.
We did the shot, and winced. "Blimey!" I thought at it was a very intense and strong alcohol, and I don't usually drink shots, and had hugely cut back on my alcohol consumption after my cancer.
Next, we were served smoked Puffin, which I felt weird about eating. Not because I believe that there is anything wrong with in, but because I had always wanted to see Puffins (missing out when we went to England), and now my first time seeing one was on my dinner plate. However, I tucked in, and it was quite delicious. Next on the menu was the thing I was most dubious about, Minke Whale. There's a whole ethical thing about whale, particularly due to being endangered. However, I was informed by my Wife (before even going to Iceland), that the Minke Whale had a stable population, wasn't endangered and that Iceland actually sustainably hunt them, with a limit of no more than 30 a year.
It was placed in front of me, and my Wife tried it first and said it was really good. (The couple next to us giving us looks of disgust when they heard the word 'Whale'). I picked a piece up, putting it in my mouth. The texture was a lot meatier than I had anticipated, expecting it to be very fatty. The flavour was pleasant enough, but as I kept chewing, I struggled with the soft texture, finding it a bit chewy. After a few pieces I was struggling now, and I felt my stomach churn, and I told my Wife I couldn't eat any more or I might be sick. She was a little surprised but finished the rest of the plate.
Next came the torched 'Arctic Charr' a type of arctic fish. I was curious how I would go with it (not being a huge eater of seafood), and the only sort of, uh... 'less cooked' fish I had eaten was salmon. However, it was actually really tasty.
Coming with this was Icelandic sushi rolls which were utterly fantastic and some of the best sushi we had ever had.
We were beginning to fill up by this point as all the portion sizes had been bigger than expected, when they brought out a massive bowl of Wasabi salted cod.
The smell of it made my stomach churn a little as I was scared from the awful 'cod mornay' my Mum used to cook when I was growing up, which was always disgusting and super fishy. (However, I had since eaten good cod and new I could eat and enjoy cod), but the look of it was reminding me of that mornay. I scooped into my bowl and tried the first mouthful (holding my breath to not smell it), and the taste was warm, buttery and salty cod and quite pleasant. However, the bowl was massive, and as we kept eating, we noticed little shrimp inside that we thought might be responsible for the more 'fishy' smell, and so neither of us were brave enough, and simply ate around the shrimp. We were both stuffed full by this point, I pretty much finished my bowl but my Wife had to leave a lot more than me.
Next was the Icelandic rump steak which was also cooked to perfection, and I devoured my plate even though I was stuffed full. I finished my Wife's plate as she couldn't fit any more in and she was getting upset that she was so full because she wanted to enjoy all the food.
Finally, we were served dessert of a traditional Icelandic cake, a 'Happy Marriage Cake' which again was delicious, and I managed to finish mine, but my Wife once more could not finish.
"What happened to always having a second stomach for dessert?" I questioned her on her boastful dessert loving statements.
Our waitress asked if we had enjoyed everything, obviously noticing that some of the plates hadn't been totally cleared.
"Yes, everything was delicious." I said. "Just huge portions, we're stuffed full.
We paid, before going for a night stroll up to Hallgrimskirkja.
Then we made our way back to the hotel, where in the morning we would be picked up and taken to collect our car to begin our drive around the rest of Iceland. However, at night, as we tried to sleep, we were woken up constantly by the door people had placed the sign on constantly slamming and so we were aggravated and exhausted in the morning when our alarms went off.
Day 1 - We made our way down to the bar area of the hotel for our breakfast buffet. The coffee here was percolated, compared to the coffee pods of Andersen, and I soon learned that all around Iceland that would be all they would offer, not barista coffee like we have in Australia (we're proud coffee snobs). We ate a breakfast of processed meat once more, and returned to our room to pack, check out and wait in the foyer to be picked up by the car rental company.
They arrived but told us they could only take one of us (we had originally been told we could both go). My Wife suggested I go to collect it (as my phone was the one with the roaming sim and mobile data in case of anything). As I got there and began the process of the car I was asked about insurance for any damage and explained the difference of payout for damage depending on insurance. I began sending the pictures to my Wife who just ended up saying to get the max insurance, just in case. With this I was told we got a free car upgrade, as we had originally booked just a normal car (a sedan), but we had been upgraded to an All-Wheel-Drive, a Kia Sportage.
"Fuck!" I thought, when he told me this and handed the paperwork that said it would be diesel fuel, we had booked the other car because we knew fuel was so expensive in Iceland (and in Australia diesel is even more expensive than regular fuel). They pointed me to the car outside and I hopped in, trying to quickly adjust everything and not look like a complete moron as I attempted to drive on the opposite side of the road, it didn't help everything else was back to front too, and I of course, when pulling out of the parking lot immediately turned on the windscreen wipers instead of the indicator.
I had the Bluetooth linked in the car however it wasn't telling me where to go or showing up on the screen, I was in the middle of the city in busy traffic trying to drive a backwards car on the opposite side of the road in a place I had no navigational knowledge of. I began to have a panic attack, managing to pull over into a service station while I sat there trying to work out why Google Maps would not come through the Bluetooth, but music would. Eventually I had to give up, and simply have my phone on loudspeaker saying the directions to me, but not being able to see the map and where I needed to go. I eventually found myself coming past Hallgrimskirkja and was thankful I was near the hotel. The road along here were tight and I heard a loud noise and looked around but couldn't see anything, as I continued down the street and turned when directed to by Google Maps (which told me too early, so I had turned down a one-way street going the wrong way). and I noticed in my side mirror a car with it alarm flashing.
"Fuck I probably hit it with my side mirror." I thought but couldn't be sure.
Another car started coming towards me in as I was going down the one-way street in the wrong direction. I noticed parallel parking and quickly reversed into it, allowing them to pass and turned back and entered down the next street, right behind the hotel where we had been dropped the day before, where my Wife was waiting with our suitcases. I wound the window down.
"I can't do this!" I said, in a panic, having had an incredibly stressful experience. I told her I thought I might have hit a car and as we looked there was a scratch on our side mirror (lucky we got the insurance). I felt like a dick, having hit someone's car but I wouldn't have even been able to find it now if I tried.
"Maybe this happens all the time and that's why they hate tourists." I said as we loaded the suitcases into the boot.
"It was probably another tourist's car if it was on the side of the street." She replied, jumping in the driver's seat as I couldn't emotionally handle it.
I started explaining about the GPS and the system in the car (which we tried to work out), as my Wife began the drive through the city to our first destination; Geysir.
As we made our way through the city, I set the tone by playing 'Skald' a Viking folk band through the speakers, and we discovered that, it was an Android auto system, and I was able to set the GPS up simply by plugging my phone in (which we discovered as I was simply keeping my phone charged).
Continuing through the city I saw someone using a little mower that was remote controlled as it mowed the side of a slope. As someone who had worked as a Front Deck Mower Operator, I thought it was such a cool thing and much safer.
We had a 1 hour and 27-minute drive from out Hotel to Geysir (my Wife had worked everything out and we had our itinerary printed and with us in the car. As we progressed out of the city and the traffic was less hectic and I continued to take blurry landscape photos from the car.
We arrived at the Geysir carpark, now busting for the toilet. It was pretty busy at the Geysir centre however we made our way inside to find a toilet. Afterwards we made our way across the road where we headed to the top of the hill to look out over the Geysir and the beautiful landscape also on the opposite side of the hill.
Fun fact, the English word: Geyser, actually derives from Geysir, derived from Icelandic 'geysa' ("to gush").
We continued up to the very top, getting too hot and having to remove our jumpers.
The ground was incredibly muddy, and my Wife had to move slow in certain sections to avoid slipping. There were a few different Geysir and hot pools in the area, roped off to warn tourists not to get too close, however of course right in front of us and everyone else and family crossed it close to this Geysir and took a selfie together. "Fucking asshole tourists." I commented with a twinge of guilt still about the car.
We reached the Great Geysir, also just called 'Geysir' and were a little surprised to learn it was not that one frequently erupting, (that was Strokkur).
Soon we joined the hordes around Strokkur watching it erupt right in front of us. We watched it once, then joined the hordes trying to photograph and video it. The family that had blatantly crossed the rope barrier came and stood next to us and I eyed them off waiting to see if they did anything once more however, they did not.
We continued along the path, past the Little Geysir and remaining puddles of hot springs.
Arriving back at the car I agreed to give it a drive as the roads were way less hectic and I didn't want my Wife to drive the whole time. I hoped in and followed the road a short distance until we arrived at another very busy carpark to view the magnificent waterfall Gullfoss. Luckily the waterfall was so massive and there were amble vantage points all around it, as it was very busy.
We walked across the top walkway for a few down overlooking the waterfall, before heading down the stairs and walking up as close as possible to the waterfall.
As we made our way back up the stairs to the car, I pointed to a random man sitting eating as he had warming earmuffs in the style of Yoda ears.
As we turned the car on setting the GPS up to our next location, the crater Kerið, however there was a farm named Friðheimar Farm that specialised in tomatoes, which brewed a unique Tomato beer which I was keen to try, and in our first run-through of our itinerary we were never able to make it to be able to go there within its opening hours, however we had time so set off towards this farm.
As we walked towards the farm, we walked past a group of Icelandic Horses my Wife was immediately excited to see, and as she went over towards them, they all came to say hello.
As we entered there seemed to be a wait to sit with people being seated at set tables, however I simply wanted to try a beer and I could see some toilets to our right and as we both used them, I could see a bar you could go up to, so I walked up to it to order a tomato beer, where I had the option of a normal tomato beer and a green tomato beer. I chose the normal beer and noticed a small beer table nearby we just sat down at while I enjoyed my beer. I would have tried the second green tomato beer too, but I didn't want to force my Wife into driving for the rest of the day as Iceland has strict drink driving laws.
I finished my beer, and we headed off towards Kerið. As we arrived at the crater, we noticed a little hut taking payment for entry, and headed up to do the right thing and pay whilst we noticed other people simply walk past it and just enter.
We followed the path down to the base of the crater where we walked around the water inside. Where at one point I knelt to touch and feel the water, with my Wife shaking her head about my need to 'touch everything'.
We continued back up the path and walked around the top of the crater.
From here we set of for about a 50-minute drive to Hjálparfoss. As we drove it began to rain, however as we arrived it was now only very light.
I noticed people fishing at the base of the waterfall and wondered if they were locals (but just assumed they would be).
The next spot on our list was Gjáin, still within Þjórsárdalur valley. We discovered this was originally a place we were not going to visit as it was recommended for 4-wheel drives only, (with a sign saying so before you follow the dirt road out towards it), however it was fortunate that our insurance upgrade had got us one, so we followed the road out to an amazing valley, as we were left breathless at our first views overlooking it.
It looks like 'The Great Valley' I said, referencing my childhood favourite cartoon film series 'The Land Before Time.'
As we walked down into it the rain began to get slightly heavier, but it only added to the beauty of the valley.
As I looked up at a cave in the hillside, I pointed out to my Wife, three sheep taking shelter from the rain.
We continued along, looking at the numerous waterfalls running over the lush greenery.
Following a path that came to a dead end we noticed a little cave that we took photos inside.
As we walked back the sheep had now come out of the cave and were wandering around.
We continued up towards one of the main waterfalls we had seen from above, before we had walked down into the valley. Crossing a metal grate across the river to the other side and up to the waterfall.
From here there was another river crossing across steppingstones. My Wife went across first but found her legs not long enough to cross from the final one to the other side, I came across behind her, sneaking past her on the final one to give her my hand to help pull her across to the other side.
Just across here was yet another beautiful waterfall with a lovely swimming hole, which I would have swum in if I were home in Australia, but not in the absolutely freezing cold Icelandic waters.
The walk continued on, and we followed the path up overlooking the river flow, we caught up to a couple in front of us who quickly crossed one of the numerous rope borders (put all over Iceland to protect their delicate ecosystem). We had only been in Iceland the one whole day and we had already seen so many tourists so flagrant with Iceland's requests, I shook my head in frustration.
We continued along the track which split into a walkway towards another carpark, but we followed the other path that led us to an unmanned shack that we assumed must have been out of use for the season. It was getting late in the day now and we slowly walked back through the valley in the rain, breathing in the clean air. "We should move here" my Wife commented, already enamoured with Iceland. I walked slowly, so in love with the location we were in (which even by the end of our trip was still one of the most magical spots we visited in Iceland).
We said goodbye to the sheep as we made our way up the stairs back to the carpark, setting up the GPS to our Hotel in Selfoss (Hotel Selfoss). As we drove through the lava fields, I noticed some of the cars were sedans who had obviously risked coming along the bumpy road in those cars but said the car upgrade for us was worth it just for that location as we would have turned back at the sign had we not been driving our KIA Sportage. It was a little over a 40-minute drive to the Hotel, where we checked in and began looking for dinner options. We decided to head across the road to the Old Dairy Food Hall, which was a food court like setting. Upon entering we found it jam packed with tourists like us looking for a feed. Before deciding on pizza.
Afterwards we went for a walk around the town for a look, walking through and behind the old Dairy and down and across the road some where there was a man at a bus stop outside of a Krónan (supermarket), drinking from a wine bottle looking pretty drunk. We crossed the road making sure to avoid him, and we went to have a look inside the store, buying ourselves some lunch for the following day and buying myself a unique Kombucha to try. On our way back we followed the Ölfusá river along to the back of our hotel, admiring how beautiful the area was.
As we entered our room and I went to drink my Kombucha I realised I didn't have a bottle opener, so used the door hold to our room, which once I did, sent Kombucha shooting all over the wooden floor, which I proceeded to wipe up before trying it, finding it ok but too fizzy for my liking. We laid in bed trying to wind down for the night, still excited by our day and even more excited for the following day where we would head to Þingvellir National Park, to Snorkel at Silfra, e divergent tectonic boundary between the North American and Eurasian plates. I sent my Dad a bunch of the photos of the trip so far, such as Geysir, (my Dad was back home in Australia an undergoing cancer treatment) and looked up the menu of Ísbúð Huppu in English, deciding we would go there the following night.
Day 2 - The following morning, we went down to the breakfast buffet and sat at a table overlooking the river and the massive hill in the distance.
While eating my breakfast I went onto my phone where I had a Facebook message from my brother Scott who said "Dad and Kim think your holiday is a waste of money. Dad said "he could of just went to Kiama to look at a blowhole, I don't know why he had to go to the other side of the world to see stuff we have here."
I read it and got furious, obviously assuming he was referring to Geysir, I knew my Dad was going through his cancer treatment but he had had a super negative and dismissive attitude in his later years, and I was finding him increasingly distasteful to be around even if he was my Dad. After this I no longer sent images or contacted him about my trip and told my brother "Not to tell me this shit." While I focused on just enjoying my holiday.
We headed back to the room to get ready, putting on the thermals we had bought (as they are recommended to wear under your clothing in the dry suit, however we had bought them online and so we found them very tight and itchy and quite irritating to wear.
We left to head to Þingvellir National Park, driving along the Ölfusá river towards Þingvallavatn, the largest natural lake in Iceland. We stopped at Tjaldsvæði to use the rest room there, crossing the road to the campground on our walk back to the car where we tried to befriend a sheep. We headed back to the car and continued on to a carpark near the Silfra meeting point. We arrived early, with our snorkeling booked in at 12.15 with Arctic Adventures Company, so I took us for a walk around the nearby area, following all the paths around the little creeks.
We followed a wooden path alongside these creeks with little information signs I tried to read telling us we were standing at the edge of a parliamentary site.
It said: "Here the Law Speaker recited the laws of Lögberg (Law Rock), and goðar (chieftans) enacted new laws in the Lögrétta (Alþingi's legistaive assembly).
Within the Þinghelgi (parliamentary site), those who attended were immune from vengeance and vendetta. At Alþingi, people lived in shelters or "booths," whose overgrown foundation are visible on the parliamentary site."
As we tried to read a very loud Italian couple came from behind us and we found in very difficult to read with how loud they were being, We ended up just having to try and walk quicker and take quick photos of the information signs as we passed, agreeing we would read them later (I'm only just actually reading the information as I write this). Eventually we walked too far, and my Wife was getting stressed about being late to the meeting point, so we crossed one of the little creeks in an attempt to head to where the meeting point was, however it only ended up taking us to a Church and cemetery, so we had to backtrack and then backtrack again, with my Wife getting cranky with me.
As we arrived one of the guides was in a little disagreement with one of the people who had signed up to do the snorkel (an adult Asian man whose first language was not English), from what we heard when we arrived it seemed like he had mentioned having diabetes, and she had said he wouldn't be allowed to do it without a Doctor's Note, because they would be liable if anything occurred. He seemed to backtrack on his statement with his Wife saying something like "oh no just if his sugar gets low". The lady then said, "So you're telling me you don't, because if you're telling me that Sir, I have to believe you." But reiterated that if anything happened it would be on him. The couple agreed, and the lady turned to address the rest of the group, looking clearly annoyed. She went through safety things with us, asking if we had any issues with our hearts and lungs or anything. We shook our heads with me looking at my Wife who has asthma and me not mentioning the lung damage I have from my chemotherapy.
We then moved to the side to begin the process of getting into the 'dry-suit' and getting everything ready and sealed, which actually, when fully enclosed, began to give me a bit of claustrophobia by how tight it was as I felt like I could not breath.
"Maybe this was a mistake." I said to my Wife, feeling the panic set in. As we were now fully enclosed in our gear, they divided the group between two separate instructors, the lady from Sweden seemed like she wanted to take the group my Wife and I were in but ended up taking the group with the 'nondiabetic.' The guy who took our half 'John' whose actual name was something harder to pronounce as he was Greek. We ended up trudging our way across the road towards the dive point where photos of us were taken. As we lined up to go in waiting for the first half of the group to swim through a bit, John was talking to one couple from America, and discovered the other couple was from New Zealand. He then asked us where we were from. "Australia." I answered.
"Oh really?" He asked surprised.
"Oh, we're neighbours!" Said the lady from New Zealand (who had a British accent).
I put a hand up as a wave and said the most un-Australian greeting ever: "Howdy".
"Kia ora." She responded, which means hello in the Māori language.
John informed us that the water was particularly pure and that if it came into our mouths with the snorkel, we could simply drink it.
As we were preparing our Goggles the man with diabetes was being swam back by someone, because either he had had a panic attack, or could not handle the cold. Soon it was our turn to enter Silfra and we walked into the water in the dry suit, which was a weird feeling experience, but it did the job of not making us absolutely frozen. Once I put my face under the water the pressure of the band holding the water our from around my neck felt less tight, and I felt like I was able to breath, giving me some relief.
As we swam through, I was stuck by how lucky I was to snorkel through and see this beautiful spot, I kept blowing water through my snorkel before I remembered to try drinking a mouthful. I was dubious as I watched little floating pieces of weed or moss or whatever was within the water, but I took a gulp of the icy cold water and it tasted fine, but I didn't want to accidentally swallow any floaties so refrained from drinking anymore while I tried to record and take photos on my GoPro, which I found increasingly difficult as the snorkeling went on as I almost lost all sense of feelings in my hands that went so numb I could barely use them by the end.
As we got to the end, a bit called 'the lagoon' (I was at the very end of our group so could barely hear anything John was saying, and even when I was close, I struggled a little with his thick accent) I tried to make the most of my time in there, but eventually the cold got too much for me as I lost any ability to use my hands at all (and I worried about my low hemoglobin, and any effects from my Stem Cell Transplant). I excited and found the couple from New Zealand there talking to John, and they too were really struggling with the cold, particularly with their hands. Once the rest of the group finished in the lagoon, John led us back to the meeting point where we were able to undress from the drysuit (we had to be careful with them to not cause damage as they are very expensive, so we were told). I put back on my jumped and other clothing and John made us all hot chocolates and gave us biscuits while allowing us to scan a barcode to access any of the photos he had taken of our group.
I needed to go to the toilet, and there was a nearby block of toilets with a sign that explicitly said, 'not a change room', however I couldn't bare wearing the tight thermals anymore so removed my top layer while inside. My Wife however went back to the car to fully get out of her thermals as she could not bear being in them either.
We began to explore the rest of Þingvellir National Park, walking along the rift of high cliffs up to the visitor centre and back down to the waterfall's Flekaskilin and Öxarárfoss stopping at the entry to Stekkjagjá canyon, as we had other spots listed in our Nordic visitor book that we were given and my Wife wanted time to see them (they only filmed Game of Thrones in there) she said. I reluctantly agreed and we did a loop of the park heading back to the car.
Arriving back to the car we set the GPS to the location mentioned in our Nordic Visitor book, and headed out of the park, turning left and driving a short while to the top of a hill to a walk that just ended up taking us to the top of Stekkjagjá canyon. As we looked out over it a group of obnoxious loud American's arrived. As we looked down into the canyon I commented to my Wife that we could have just walked up that little bit and walked through it from where we had just been.
I tried my best to get a photo without people walking through, but it was seeming impossible as it was very busy. We heard the American's loudly laughing and overheard:
"What was that?"
"I mooned her!" One obnoxious one laughed, joking about how obnoxious they obviously were, saying people would probably complain about American's. He continued "Probably never seen a black ass before!"
Everyone around looked annoyed and slowly left the area. Soon the canyon was actually empty, and my Wife told me to quickly run down so she could get a photo of me alone in in, which I did, walking down to the far end of the canyon and back, having only photos of myself in it, and forgetting to snap a photo of it empty.
It was getting late in the day, and we still had on our itinerary to visit the two coastal towns of Eyrarbakki and Stokkseyri that were South of Selfoss and so we decided to stop in to visit these two towns, sad to leave the beautiful national park.
We drove back along the river back through Selfoss and past some farmland until we arrive at the very small fishing village of Eyrarbakki. There wasn't a lot to see here other than Iceland's largest prison 'Litla-Hraun'. We then began discussing crime in Iceland while commenting that the small-town vibe reminded me of little Southern coastal villages back in Australia when I was a kid (back in the 90's). A quick Google search of Iceland's crime revealed to us the major crimes were speeding offenses, "I wonder how many of those are tourists." I commented.
We went for a short drive from here to Stokkseyri. Again it was a small town with not a lot there. We pulled in at Draugasetrið, the Ghost Museum which I thought would have been a niche little thing to visit, unfortunately it was closed by the time we arrived. We decided there wasn't much to do and simply headed back to Selfoss. We dropped our things of at the hotel and headed to Ísbúð Huppu for Ice creams though ended up getting milkshakes, I got a licorice one (to try something different) and my Wife got a sweet chocolate biscuit sort of one. I found the licorice milkshake absolutely delicious.
We rested in our room a little looking for something to get for dinner that night and looking at what the following day would entail.
We decided to go back to Old Dairy Food Hall, halving a truffle pizza, and getting some Korean Gochujang Chicken loaded fries. We sat at a bench outside Krönsí Chicken which had a heater right above us, and we started to feel a little sick from the heat. We started to get very full halfway through and my Wife had to leave the rest for me to finish eating. Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks soon began playing on the speakers and I commented that I couldn't hear the song without thinking about the scene it features in, in the movie School of Rock.
"Such an underrated movie." Said some random American sitting next to my Wife who had overheard me. "I'm glad I'm not the only one that was thinking that." He said.
I finished the fries, and we headed back to our room so shower and get ready for another busy day.
Day 3 - We had listed on our itinerary about going to the Saga Centre at Hvolsvöllur. However we had so much listed to see my Wife didn't want to spend time indoors looking at things, but would prefer to go out and explore all the nature areas we had listed and asked if I would be ok to skip it and head straight to the waterfall Seljalandsfoss (which was actually the picture on a 2024 calendar I was looking at buying int the shops the other day and I was like: "Hey I've been there!")
I agreed, so after our buffet breakfast we headed straight to yet another gorgeous Icelandic waterfall.
I drove again (driver picks the music, and every time my Wife drove, I was forced to listen to Taylor Swift) and found myself getting use to driving on the righthand side now.
We arrived at the waterfall and the weather outside was quite windy, so even from far away the water was blowing over us.
You were able to walk behind and around the back of this waterfall, which was quite muddy, and I was glad that I had spent the money to buy myself some hiking boots before we traveled overseas.
After circling behind the waterfall we had a 560m walk to Gljúfrabúi, a 'secret' waterfall (I don't know how secret it is when it's marked as a destination), there were more little waterfalls along the way and I couldn't get my head around how clear and pure all the little streams of water were.
Just after a sign letting us know there was a 300m walk until that waterfall we saw a little cave that you could walk up and into.
Just to the side of that there was a little walk within the canyon that we explore but it just shortly took you to a dead end.
There was a large rock in there, and while no one was up getting a photo with it I quickly climbed up to get a good vantage point and see the entirety of the waterfall with my Wife taking a candid photo of me in action (which I prefer to a posed one, but it is very rare to get a candid picture).
We walked pretty close to the base of the falls (myself walking closer than my Wife), and proceeded to get soaking wet.
Even I found myself getting exhausted walking up all the stairs and was happy for the times my Wife needed to stop for a breather to rest my legs and told her not to feel bad about it because my legs were burning from the walk too. Finally we reached the top looking out in the distance, with my Wife ready to continue on to our next destinations I argued that we should continue up the river a bit while the windy whipped water at us, blowing straight off the top of the river Skógá.
While looking up the height of the waterfall I learned that many scenes from film and TV shows had been filmed at this waterfall, including Game of Thrones, Vikings and Thor: Dark World.
I could have continued walking up this beautiful river all day, but I could see my Wife getting annoyed and I was all "after we get around that bend over there, we can turn back" pointing in the far distance.
We came to another point along the river that had a small waterfall in the middle with a sign to the side naming it Hestavaðsfoss.
We continued on to another set named Fosstorfufoss.
We continued on until we came to a sign pointing up Skógá towards Fimmvörðuháls letting us know a bridge was in 7.5km, and Þórsmörk (named after the Norse God Thor), was in 24.3km. I knew there was no chance doing that walk with my Wife and agreed to stop but commented that it was could that the signpost had the wording cut out with the light shining through to read the locations.
We made our way down the river back to the stairs and a couple waved at me as we walked past and I realised it was the New Zealand couple we had been snorkeling at Silfra with.
"I wonder if we will keep bumping into them at every destination now, if they're doing and Iceland loop too." I questioned out loud. (We never saw them again).
It was slow moving down the stairs waiting for my very afraid Wife who was in a panic every time we came to a section without a railing, but we eventually got down and began to drive to our next destination, Dyrhólaey.
This took us to a promontory where we drove up a hill to a very small and very tight carpark. We opened the door to howling winds and I tried to not have my beanie blow off the cliff while I took a photo overlooking the black sand beach back West.
We did a walk around Dyrhólaey Lighthouse while keeping a watchful eye out for Puffins (although it was too late in the season). I suggested we walk down to the beach opposite Reynisfjara (which was on the opposite side of the beach) but my Wife said we would be driving around and going to the beach on the side anyway, where she informed me that there was no land mass between that beach and Antarctica so it was prone to wild random waves and that it could be dangerous and you could be swept out to sea.
I agreed and we had to slightly open our car doors and slide in as the parking was not very spacious.
As we turned off towards where the famed black sand beach was located a bunch of tourists had dangerously parked their cars in the middle of the road to go over to a fence where some Cows were nearby. We swerved around them and continued on where I pointed to a carpark. My Wife told me to continue driving as there would be another carpark down closer to the beach. As we arrived in that carpark we were greeted by a camera taking a photo of your number plate in which you had to go to a book and pay for parking (we had also had one of these already at Seljalandsfoss which I forgot to mention), and so we were a little annoyed at having to pay once more, and that our guide book didn't mention anything about these areas and their paid parking. We wondered if we simply drove out quick enough if we wouldn't be charged, but not wanting to risk it we simply found a nearby booth and paid for a ticket (you simply give your car number plate and pay). I had put on a raincoat and began to walk to the beach as it was sprinkling with rain, I told my Wife she should put on hers, but she insisted she would be ok as her coat was a little waterproof. Halfway from the car to the entry way, it began to rain really heavily so my Wife requested to go back to the car to get a proper raincoat (annoying me).
After grabbing her coat, we walked to the entrance to the beach with a big danger sign at the entrance that had 3 flashing lights of different colours depending on the waves at the beach. Red meaning a high hazard and no entry allowed, Yellow meaning do not go into the yellow zone (not that I know where that was), and Green meaning you could wander freely around with caution. It was flashing Yellow for us as we wandered onto the black sands.
We made our way across the black sand beach stopping to view Reynisdrangar, the basalt columns, and Hálsanefshellir Cave.
Contemporary legends note the story of a husband who found his wife taken by the two trolls, frozen at night. The husband made the two trolls swear to never kill anyone ever again. His wife was the love of his life, whose free spirit he was unable to provide a home for; she found her fate out among the trolls, rocks, and sea at Reynisfjara."
We wandered along the cliffs fruitlessly looking for Puffins (I saw one dead seagull in the sand). I ended up walking ahead of my Wife who had stopped to film the waves. As I continued up the beach over a big rock where a man was photographing the stacks, I continued a short way before a large wave came crashing into the beach. I quickly ran back jumping up on top of the big rock with him as the waves crashed around us. "Fucking hell." I commented to myself, turning back to head to my Wife and going no further up the beach in case of any more rogue waves.
We made our way back to the car to head to our next destination, the canyon Fjaðrárgljúfur (with a quick drive into the town of Vík just for a look). I commented that while the black sand was cool, I wouldn't want to spend a day at the beach with it as it was up our shoes and all over the place (as sand does) but was deep black and much more noticeable.
As I drove along towards the canyon, I commented about the scenery of all the mossy rocks as far as the eye could see and about how beautiful it was. I saw a group of cars pulled up at a stop that wasn't on our itinerary but thought it would be cool to see the moss up close so quickly also pulled in at a whim. The place was Mosabreiða, a mossy lava field with a section enclosed in a rope that you were allowed to walk around, which was incredibly cool.
"Why isn't this on the itinerary?" My Wife commented.
This shows that sometimes you need to explore yourself or you can miss things, obviously it was good to have this list of things to see, but if I ever was to return to Iceland, I would like to do free exploring which would also probably limit my tourist exposure too.
As we arrived at the long stretch of road towards Fjaðrárgljúfur, we could see the carpark down the far end looking very full and meaning people pulling up and parking alongside the tight road heading down. I pulled up a long way back, along the side of this road hoping that there would be a toilet (and a free one) as I was busting for a wee, and we walked down to the parking area. Upon arriving we found it was a paid parking area again but could see no camera taking number plates and we decided to not pay because we had parked all the way up the road and not in the area, so if we got a fine, we would contest it.
As we walked to the toilet, in desperate need to wee (because we're stubborn Australian's and refuse to pay to use the loo), however it was out of order, apparently due to a drought.
"It's been fucking non-stop raining!" I said, feeling incredulous.
The sign told us the next toilet was a 10-minute drive away at Kirkjubæjarklaustur.
We decided to walk up and view the canyon, which felt like a long walk with a full bladder, but even so we appreciated the magnificent views of the scenery and the Fjaðrá river flowing through the canyon.
"If this was Australia and they didn't have such a delicate ecosystem here, I'd just walk off the path and whizz." I commented. "Too bad there aren't any trees anywhere to ever go behind."
We had seen a few signs asking tourists to be respectful and not go to the toilet 'in the nature' and even my Wife commented that if they wanted tourists to do the right thing, they need to provide bathrooms and not price gouge on them.
We made our way back to the car busting for a wee, but my Wife asked me to hold it to see if there was a bathroom at our next destination 'Kirkjugólf' in English 'Church Floor' a formation of basalt columns looking like Church tiles.
As we arrived we passed a N1 gas station (that often offer fuel and food), it was a bit of an awkward place to turn so we ended up pulling up at a small farm field and heading through some gate and up to the Church Floor, being followed by a loud group of either teens or 'young adults'. We passed a mound with a info sign to get ahead and away from them, viewing the interesting pattern of the columns.
"Do you want a picture with them?"
"Nah, I'm happy just taking a photo of them." I replied, wandering around and looking at them as the group now reached us.
We made our way back along the path to the mound, which was 'Hildishaugur' or 'Hildir's Grave Mound'.
Apparently the first inhabitants at Kirkjubær were Irish hermits and the story goes that heathens were forbidden to live there. The Christian settle Ketill lived all his life at Kirkjubær but when the pagan Hildir Eysteinsson planned to move there, "he fell down dead as soon as he set foot on the estate and is buried in Hildishaugur".
"Who fell down dead? The monk or the pagan?" I asked confused by the wording until I realised it was Hildir's Grave so it must have been the pagan.
We made our way back to the N1 petrol station, filling up with fuel, which is interesting in Iceland, because you put your card in first before filling up, and it charges your credit/debit card, and a lot are unmanned by any people at all. We then ducked in to use the loo and continued onwards to Dverghamrar.
On our way there I pulled in at Foss á Síðu a little waterfall on the back of someone's property you can view from outside the front of their driveway.
"It's cool to have a waterfall in your yard, but I'd fucking hate all these people pulling up at my house all the time." I jested.
Not very far up the road we pulled in at Dverghamrar, the 'Dwarf Cliffs'. We knew from our Nordic Visitor guide that legend said Dwarfs lived within the cliffs. However, a signpost with information as we arrived was able to fill us in on the details.
"The striking rock formations below this point are called Dverghamrar ("Dwarf Cliffs"). From time immemorial, tales have been told about their being the dwelling place of supernatural beings, either elves or dwarves, and this is believed to be the origin of the name. Though many of these stories have probably been lost, some have been preserved. Here is one that was told by a young girl, Ólafía Pálsdóttir from the farm Foss, as recorded in the book "Íslenskar þjóðsögur og sagnir". In 1904 Ólafía had a strange experience. One evening in summer, she was sent out to drive in the ewes, and walked part Dverghamrar. "She said she heard some beautiful singing. This struck her as odd, because she didn't expect there to be anyone there, and it was also not likely that it could be anyone she didn't know. She says she sat down for a while to listen to the singing. It was the hymn "Faðir á himna hæð" ("Father in Heaven") that was sung. When she was quite sure that she had heard this correctly, she turned and set off home, and says that she heard the sound of singing going on for a long while behind her. But as it was known that there was not likely to have been anyone there, some people believed that it was the dwarves in the cliffs who had sung, and to judge by this, they must be Christian beings of the race of the Light Elves."
I found it interesting that the obvious Pagan belief systems of the old Norse that had occupied Iceland had continued to exist within the culture even with i's conversion to Christianity, similar to the Celtic nation of Ireland even though these beliefs so obviously go against Christian religious teachings. I wondered to myself what these places would have been like today if their religions and beliefs had been allowed to continue into this day and age without the introduction and indoctrination of Christianity.
As we wander through 'the halls' of Dverghamrar I could see how mounds of stone looked like something mythical creatures would reside in and I hummed 'Misty Mountains Cold' from The Hobbit in my head. As we rounded the corner I was struck by a random stone sticking out from the side of the mound, with a sign in front saying: Eirikslundur, with no further explanation of why it was there, or what that meant, and a Google search once home did little to help this enigma.
Around the bend led us back to the carpark where it was another very short drive to Fossálar Waterfall. Which were little falls running down a stream alongside the road.
After this it was a short drive to our accommodation at Fosshótel Núpar. We checked in, removing our luggage to our room, having a quick rinse and heading to the restaurant here for dinner, enjoying a burger and a drink each. Myself, trying an Einstök Toasted Porter and my Wife trying a shot of Ópal which I tried to and found delicious (as we both love licorice).
Day 4 - Once more we were up early in the morning to head to Skaftafell for our planned walk as this was a big destination for hikes, so with a lot to do in the day my Wife had selected a moderate walk for us to do, allowing us 3 hours of time before needing to move on to the next destination. As we arrived we wandered around the area near Saatvik Restaurant, trying to find the start of the walk with no clear directions and a lot of different trails leading from all over the place. As I entered into the men's bathroom, I noticed 8 printed pieces of paper on the wall each detailing a different walk, and though I wanted to do all of them, I snapped of photo of the walk we had planned to do, the walk to Svartifoss.
I showed my Wife that it said the walk said it left from a campground which I thought I had seen further over on our left, and we began heading that way, however before we did I had to stop and take off my right hiking boot, as the soul inside kept sliding around and was not staying in position, causing either my toes to rub on the rougher boot bottom, or to ride up the back of my ankle. This was an ongoing issue the rest of the time in Iceland, and needless to say I got very annoyed by it, but this shall be the last I speak of it, but I had to stop numerous times to adjust and untie and retie my boot laces.
"You'd think for 200-dollar shoes they'd stay in fucking place." I grumbled angrily. "I'll fucking glue them down when I get home."
As we passed the campground we found a signpost marking the start of the walk and began following the trail uphill.
As we huffed and puffed up the hill we began to overheat, once more removing our jackets and guzzling some water while we eyed a glacier in the distance.
We continued up coming across a stream and then a lookout over the waterfall, Hundafoss.
As we continued on, we walked past the group who had been at the 'Church Floor' at the same time as us, and I think they recognised us too as there was an awkward slight nod of head as we passed. We followed the stream getting our first look at Svartifoss and its basalt columns from a distance.
We followed the path up to the end zone right in front of the waterfall, while I wiped water from the handrails to dampen my overheating face. While appreciating yet another magnificent Icelandic waterfall.
The cold water continued to spray off while we stood and admired it. Many people coming simply turned and returned the way they had come but I wanted to follow the loop trail and cross the bridge over the river (having some weird fascination with bridges over rivers, particularly suspension bridges, maybe from watching too many adventure movies/shows as a kid)
After crossing the bridge and beginning uphill on the opposite side, a signpost marking the distance to other locations appeared.
There were big wet squarish rocks acting like stairs as way made our way up, looking towards a big split hill in the distance that we made our way towards. With the S2 path marking our trail splitting and going in opposite directions, one heading back down the mountain, presumably the loop back to the campground, and the other heading towards the big mountain. I convinced my Wife to continue up towards the mountain a little as I could see something atop the hill. As we made our way up, I kept pointing to little berries in the scrub that I identified as 'blueberries' however my Wife once more would not let me try them, arguing that they looked different to the blueberry plant we are growing at home. I told her they were like artic wild blueberries like we would see them harvest on the survival TV series 'Alone'.
As we reached the thing I could see from below, it was a survey marker on a built platform with three more walks leading from it.
I agreed we would not take any more paths, though dying inside to walk them all as we made our way back down to continue along the S2 track, pointing out little red berries low to the ground.
"I think that is the Stone Brambleberry we didn't but the jam for." I said, pointing to it and referring to a small tasting jar of stone brambleberry jam we had come across in the supermarket, but I didn't buy. I decided if I saw it again in a store I could purchase it, but annoyingly never encountered the small jars again.
I also pointed out some large soggy mushrooms, commenting that they looked like Kombucha SCOBY.
As we continued down the trail, I commented that it was nice to actually have trees around us, as for the majority of Iceland we scarcely saw any trees. These closed in on us, and the wet leaves brushed against us, wetting out clothes as we continued down, coming out on the opposite side of the waterfall we had encountered before Svartifoss.
There was a split in the path with a wooden post marking the trail Lambhagi, which I wanted to go down, but my Wife by now was just wanting to get to our next destination; Fjallsárlón. I put my foot down "We're here let's explore."
It led to what looked like something out of an American summer camp swimming spot, pristine and empty, and I could imagine it being packed with people going for a swim during summer.
We continued down to the campground, passing a signpost marking the distance back to the camp and up to Svartifoss and Sjónarsker, the area with the directional dial.
We continued down to level ground turning right to head back towards the campground, crossing another little bridge over a stream.
There was a split in the trail on our left, which I quickly ran up to read some information signs, learning it was the track for Gömlutún, the Visitor trail. We continued back to the camp, and through to the parking spot, and on towards Fjallsárlón, a glacial lagoon.
After about 40 minutes of driving we arrived, walking past a restaurant (and quickly checking online to see if it offered anything interesting on the menu before walking up to the lagoon.
We were in awe of its beauty, and the nerdy gamer that I am I couldn't help but referencing ice levels of video games with the floating chucks of blue ice.
Soon a massive group arrived and one of them instantly set up his drone to begin flying over the destination (even though this, and many other destinations have signs requesting you don't use drones). It was obnoxiously loud, but it soon flew out far enough over the lagoon that we could no longer hear it as we sat down to eat our storebought wraps (that were actually really tasty). We sat looking over the lagoon, as the group passed us walking further onwards. We finished our wraps, and I hoped up to touch some small pieces of ice that had washed up. I proceeded to place my hand in the water for a few seconds, turning and commenting that it doesn't feel as cold as I thought it would."
We stood up to go for a walk around the lagoon, viewing it from different angles. As we were walking around suddenly the guy who had been flying the drone bolted past us and we could hear his drone controller franticly beeping. "Probably flew it too far away and lost control." I said, "Hope he loses it." However shortly after he was walking back past us, holding his drone.
We headed to the car after a solid walk around to head to an even bigger glacial lagoon shortly down the road; Jökulsárlón.
It was another paid parking area, and it was very busy. We pulled up in the parking closer to the Diamond Beach and were surprised to be charged a reduced fee.
"I think it's cause we're here later in the day." My Wife said.
We followed the water from the ocean into the entrance of the lagoon watching small icebergs trying to float out to the ocean. There was a bench here, so we sat and ate another wrap watching the water flow and keeping an eye on the distant seals.
Soon someone stood in front of us smoking a cigarette and we coughed loudly and continued inwards along the shoreline of the lagoon.
We both felt like we needed to use the toilet and walked in amongst the carpark with tourism stores for boating in the lagoon as well as numerous food trucks. We were able to beat a bit of a queue and afterwards wandered along the trucks looking for a snack. We ended up buying a donut and a coffee, feeling tired from very full-on days of activity, we took them back and sat on the lagoon pebble beach watching the seals and feeling ourselves get angry at a couple watching their kids actively throw rocks into the lagoon and not telling them off.
"God I hate people." I said.
But at least it was a kid, soon loud obnoxious adults came along and started doing it and it took all my willpower not to turn into some psycho screaming tourist yelling at other tourists and inevitably ending up on social media. "Let's get away from these fucking degenerates." I said pretty loudly, but English was not their main language, so I have no idea whether or not they comprehended, but they settled down afterwards.
We went for a walk along the lagoon watching the seals, commenting that it might have been cool to have done one of those boat tours, but we had not wanted to book too much because we would need to be places at certain times.
We followed lagoon down to where our path to our right ended, and we walked across and followed that path on our way back to the carpark, where we once more went under the bridge walking onto another black sand beach, the famed Diamond Beach.
It didn't take long to figure out the name, with all the block of ice washed up on shore looking like glistening diamonds.
After this we made our way to the car and drove an hour to our accommodation, the Seljavellir guesthouse. It was a small guesthouse along the road, and there was no one waiting when we arrived. We went to the reception and hit a buzzer that called someone who gave us the code to our room and let us know what time breakfast was. We wandered around the outside of the guesthouse with its glass windows. so that our room was overlooking farmland.
"This is quaint." I commented about it, finding it really quiet and lovely.
We put the stuff from the car in our room, showering and getting ready to drive into the nearby town, Höfn where we planned to go out to Pakkhús Restaurant to try a horse steak for the first time, after actually stumbling upon a YouTube channel called STUFR who went there. We sat in the cute little restaurant and ordered our Horse Tenderloin. As it arrived on a plate it looked and smelled so good, and I tried some vegetables served around the meat first. I pulled a face.
"Holy shit, this is delicious." I said.
The food was cooked perfectly, and everything was so flavourful. Succulent and delicious, so I cut a little into the Horse, and took a bite.
"Wow." I said in ecstasy. "That's the best steak I've ever eaten."
We ate slowly, savouring the flavours on our plates. While eating two Americans sat at the table next to us. I assumed they were a couple but my Wife thought they were mother and son by how they were behaving. The lady pretty loudly scolding the menu and the man sitting there, not saying much but looking down and seeming miserable. I could hear them complaining about the horse on the menu, also commenting that they didn't 'eat fish'. They discussed leaving, while at the same time looking awkward about it. Soon the lovely young waitress who was serving us asked about their order, and they loudly complained about the horse.
"We don't eat horse in the states!" She said loudly, before getting up and leaving the restaurant.
"Why fucking even travel if you won't try new things." I said to my Wife as they left. Soon the waitress collected our plates asking how everything was. We told her it was the best steak we'd ever eaten, before ordering a licorice crème brûlée each for dessert.
While we were awaiting or dessert a new Amercian couple took the table next to us. We could overhear them, and it was obvious the man was curious about trying the horse but was feeling slightly culture shamed out of doing so. Soon the waitress came to them to take their order, and the man commented he was thinking about eating the horse but 'felt bad.'
"Why?" The Icelandic waitress asked. "It's the circle of life, it's nature." She said, confused by the hesitance to something that was obviously so culturally accepted and not even thought about in Iceland.
I could see the man still hesitating.
"Get the horse mate." I leant over and said. "It's the best steak I've ever had."
The man seemed a little shocked but the waitress pointed to us and said "Yes they had it.."
"It's good?" The man asked. We guaranteed him it was, and he decided to order it.
"I don't even know why I care," he said. "I don't even like horses."
Soon our crème brûlée arrived and it was less licorice than I had anticipated, with small little flecks of licorice through it giving it a very delicate mild licorice flavour that might be able to be enjoyed by people who don't love licorice. (Can't guarantee if you hate black licorice though).
"Physalis must be a really big thing in Scandanavia." I noted about the Gooseberry on top that we had first tried in Finland.
We finished our dessert, and I was keen to leave just in case the American's didn't like the horse, or got all in their head about it, so we paid and headed to the car where we were going to drive to the beach and go for a little stroll before heading back to our accommodation, however it started pouring with rain out of nowhere. We ended up driving to a Netto and buying some lunch for the following day along with some 'candy sushi' as a treat and heading back to our accommodation for some sleep and yet another early morning.
Day 5 - I drank a lot of coffee this morning and we didn't have too many destinations to stop at, with a drive time of almost 6 hours I needed to stay caffeinated. We packed once more and set off to our first destination in our itinerary, Djúpivogur, to see the Eggs of Merry Bay, 34 granite eggs representing various bird species created by local artist Sigurður Guðmundsson. It was about 1 hour 20 minutes to get here as we arrived in a very small industrial town with not a lot to see. We headed to the harbour as it drizzled with rain. As we hopped out to view the eggs, I was really feeling the cold in this spot with an icy cold wind chill. My Wife wanted to walk the whole way up reading the little plaques indicating with bird species they were meant to represent, I wasn't that keen, feeling slightly off. She told me I could wait in the car, but I walked beside her the whole way reading about which bird egg they were (in Icelandic).
Occasionally a tourist car would drive in and look for a short second without getting out of their car and then simply driving off. When we reached the far end the rain began to get heavier and we made our way back to the car to continue on our long road journey, with our next listed item to visit being Búlandstindur, a pyramid shaped mountain. However, the spot Google maps took us had no place to pull up and we ended up just viewing it as we drove along the road to Borgarfjörður eystri, where nearby the 'Elf City' Álfaborg was located. This was almost a 3-hour drive. But that's the thing with a road trip, a lot of things you witness are from the car as you drive along the road, which gives you time to just view and appreciate the views sometimes without thinking about taking a picture, you can just enjoy it, and there was a lot of natural beauty to just view from behind the driver's seat (which I was no very comfortable in, even on the wrong side of the road).
At some point along the journey, we began the drive up a very steep, winding road to the top of a mountain, when I pulled up for a little break from driving, with a view over the ocean, and while stretching our legs it began to sprinkle little pieces of ice down around us.
We drove down the mountain and made our way to the small village of Bakkagerði. We pulled up at Álfaborg. It wasn't what I was expecting, thinking in my mind along the lines of the little Elf Homes I had seen in the American movie 'Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga'. Learning that was a fictional creation, and Álfaborg was more like what we had seen at Dverghamrar.
We exited the car in the rain and made our way up the top of the Elf City, while I kept an eye out for Elves (which in my mind were small, similar to the Minish in the Legend of Zelda video game series).
We walked to the top in the rain, looking around every nook and cranny. As we got back down, I read the information sign about Álfaborg.
"According to regional folklore, Borgarfjörður eystri is home to a large population of elves. The fjord derives its name from Álfaborg (Palace of the Elves), which is the residence of the Icelandic elf-queen Borghildur. An easy path leads to the top of Álfaborg, which has a panoramic viewpoint. Álfaborg is a reserved area since 1976 and an interesting place to visit, especially if you believe in the hidden people. They don't mind passers-by as long as one respects their residence. In Icelandic folklore, the elves are often described as similar to humans, but taller, fairer and more beautiful. Elves in Iceland are often called "hidden people" because of how difficult it is to see them. Their homes (inside the rocks) are similar to those of 19th century Iceland, just a bit nicer."
"Well, that's not what I thought at all." I said, feeling stupid and misled by film once more (for years I believed Dilophosaurus spat poison and had a frill, the difference between fiction and reality).
There was a little cafe nearby, and I asked my Wife if she wished to stop for some lunch, but she wanted to continue on to Borgarfjörður eystri in the hops of seeing some wild puffins.
It was a short drive to this little harbour, and as we approached there was a sign saying the Puffins seasons, which was a month earlier then we had read online, which was a month later than any tourism stuff had told us. But we still had hope we might spot a rouge one that had not flown out to see. There was a cafe/restaurant here which had opening hours and dates out the front, however was closed even though we were there between the dates and times. They had left a door open with access to the toilets however. But my Wife got annoyed at it not being open and saying it should be (I should say hangry), it didn't help there was not a puffin in sight and so we looked at the empty holes they had burrowed and walked around the little harbour looking at jellyfish.
We had to drive back through Bakkagerði for about 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to our accommodation at Hótel Hallormsstaður. I suggested we stop in at the cafe I had seen near Álfaborg, named Álfacafé.
As we entered it was a cute rustic looking cafe with some stuffed puffins, ("We finally see a Puffin!" I joked), and decorated with local artifacts which I thought was really cool. We looked at the menu and I noticed the 'Taste of Iceland' which was a coffee with a shot of brennivín in it. I ordered that for something a little different and started reading the little stones on each table that had a mythological name and description. Our table said 'Snotra' - the mysterious Elf Lady.
As we drove back up the mountain (going back the direction we had come to get to Hallormsstaður, we found the hillsides now covered in snow.
We continued the long drive to Hallormsstaður, where I should comment now, a lot of these Icelandic names, whose pronunciations you can look up how they were actually meant to be said. But along our Iceland trip I just glanced at the name a lot of the time and made up my own word pretty much for them, calling this destination 'Hal-mor-sted' or 'Hal-more-sted-or' which is in no way how the place is said, but I'm uncultured swine.
As we drove our way, there, we encountered some sheep crossing the round. Once more in a group of three. We had to be careful the entire way around Iceland as we were sent a 'driving in Iceland' video for tourists about farmers free range sheep, and if you hit one you had to fork up the cash for it, it was a quirky and odd video giving us our very first impressions of Iceland.
We eventually arrived at Hótel Hallormsstaður, checking in while I eyed of a deer head hanging on the wall in the reception area. We headed down to a room down the hallway, to rinse of and relax, really admiring the view from our room window while my Wife relaxed with a cup of tea and I looked up restaurants in the nearest town, Egilsstaðir, a 23-minute drive from our hotel which was situated in the Hallormsstaður National Forest.
My Wife had wanted to go to Skálinn Diner, an American diner of burgers and chips, that she had also seen in the video by STUFR. I didn't want to eat boring food, having come to a foreign country, I wanted to try interesting things. I found the Salt Café & Bistro and we went there instead, enjoying some deep-fried white cheese with red currant jelly as an entree and having a reindeer burger with brie, red currant jam, red onion in balsamic and horseradish sauce.
However when we first entered, we were told they couldn't do burger as they were 'out of beef'.
"So I can't get the reindeer burger?" I asked.
"Oh yes we can do that!" The waitress responded, evidently excited I wasn't another disappointed customer.
The burger and entree were both absolutely delicious, and I felt mentally better knowing I hadn't eaten some boring meal. "We don't eat horse in the states." I mocked in an American accent to my Wife.
Afterwards we crossed the road to the Netto to buy some lunch for we had planned a lot of bushwalking/hiking or whatever name you wish to use for the act of getting out and walking in nature, which was why we were excited to come to Hallormsstaður National Forest, as it was the largest forest in the whole of Iceland.
As we headed to the Netto there was a pop-up food truck selling game (a lot of venison), with warnings about buckshot in the food. It had a few interesting food options, and I told my Wife if there were still there tomorrow, we would grab that for dinner (though I think she was slightly disappointed to not go to the American diner).
Day 6 - Once more we were up early to have breakfast, I again ate bacon, eggs and more processed meat and commenting that I thought eating it every morning was starting to catch up with me, and that I could 'feel it'. We got set in our gear to head off to walk up to our first destination, the waterfalls called Hengifoss and Litlanesfoss. As we walked to our car I heard a crack, I looked down and found I had stepped on a small puddle of water that had frozen over overnight. When we reached the car we found also, that or windscreen had frozen, and so we removed the ice scraped that had come with the car from the boot and began chiseling away at the ice. I told my Wife to turn the car on, to put the heating on to help from the inside, eventually getting it clear enough that we could see, we headed to our destination to begin our walk.
The drive there winded all through the forests of Hallormsstaður, which had a series of walks all through it that we also planned to do after our walk up to these waterfalls.
As we arrived and looked at the long, steep walk up to the waterfalls, my Wife joked "Do we really need to see more waterfalls?" Jokingly wanting to get out of the uphill walk. Before we began our uphill walk, we noticed a food truck, walking over to it, it had a sign claiming to sell the only sheep's milk ice cream in Iceland, unfortunately it was not yet open. "Maybe when we get back down." I commented.
There were actually two different sides you could walk up to the waterfall, and we ended up walking up on the left side, which seemed steeper, but less winding.
We both struggled up the hill, either less fit then we thought we were, or the cumulative effect of doing so many walks catching up to us. "It's probably all the processed meat and cheese." I once more iterated as we struggled up the side and stopping to catch our breath, looking out over the Lagarfljót river, a river which a mythic serpent, the Lagarfljót Worm (Lagarfljótsormur) is said to reside.
As we continued up we could see Litlanesfoss with Hengifoss in the far distance.
As we got to Litlanesfoss, we found there was no good view from this side of it.
"Hopefully there is a trail over, letting it loop, and then we can walk down the other side." I said.
After a short walk down the path you had to walk along a shallow section of uneven creek rocks.
As we got closer to Hengifoss there was a boardwalk to a lookout section with giant rocks on top of it, with plaques on them saying that the stone fell in Spring of 2021, and that they remind that nature is ever changing.
The boardwalk came to an end, that was where the lookout for Hengifoss was, with rope around it signifying that you were obviously not meant to walk any closer towards the waterfall, which was still a short distance away. We chose to respect the wishes of Iceland, but of course as we sat watching the waterfall, people simply walked underneath and began heading up to the waterfall. In principle I have against this, but when you're asked by a foreign country not to, for whatever reasons, you simply respect that. There are plenty of waterfalls around the would you can walk right up to, and I frequently do this in Australia.
After a while more and more people started reaching the lookout, so as it began to crowd we decided to head back down the opposite side, hoping that the food truck would be open now. However as we took the opposite side back down, which was longer, but less steep, we arrived at an unopen food truck, and had to just head off to the next thing on our itinerary, Skriðuklaustur.
As we drove down the road we ended up pulling up at Snæfellsstofa Visitor Center, (it's taking all my willpower not to spell that as Centre).
It was a short walk from here, and we passed Leiktæki, or 'Playground' with a giant billboard with artificial 'indoor' rock climbing holds on it. I ended up climbing my way across this with my Wife getting cranky with me. "It's for kids." She said scolding me.
"I'm just a big kid." I retorted.
We walked down the path between the neatly lined trees towards Skriðuklaustur (Former scenic farmstead of acclaimed author Gunnar Gunnarsson, featuring exhibits & a charming cafe.
As we entered the little cafe, we found it empty and an older lady was there.
I enquired about getting the reindeer pie, as there were no physical copies of menus to be seen.
"Yes, I'm thinking of doing the meat balls first." She responded. A very confusing answer to me.
She continued that food would be available from 11am onwards. I replied in a way implying we would come back, however her confusing answer, and the time spent waiting around (and the pie itself was very expensive), so we decided to just leave and head to the forest and begin our day of walks.
However, on our way back, it looked like the food truck was now open, and so we pulled in at the Hengifoss carpark and bought two little tubs of the sheep milk ice cream. A Rhubarb flavoured one, and a blueberry one.
We drove back across the Lagarfljót river, pulling up in a carpark along the side of the road, with a walk headed to Guttormslundur a grove with the tallest tree in Iceland.
However, while looking at it, we couldn't distinguish a notable height difference to the other trees around. "Actually some of the others look taller." We said bemused.
I wanted to continue along this path but my Wife said it just led 'to a campground' and that she had looked it up before and that there was a series of walks and made me load up a maps of the 11 different trails in Hallormsstadhur Forest. These had different names, and we marked with different colour tags throughout. We looked at where we were on this map, deciding to walk along the road and do the Purple trail (The Partglacier Stream), a short 200m trail set in between the looping Yellow trail (The Part) a 3km trail.
We walked this to the end where there was a little picnic table where we sat and enjoyed the quiet serenity of the woods.
Before heading back and doing the light Yellow trail (Light River Slope) which was 850m.
While walking through an enjoying the beautiful forests of Pine, Birch, Firs, and Beech, there was an assortment of different mushrooms, and a cute little bird called a Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) that made the forest it's home.
The Yellow trail seemed to take a long while and after completing it we both thought it felt longer than the 3kms.
We looked at our map PDF we had downloaded, reading little bits of info, when I suggested we do the Red trail next, as it had ruins of a Viking age horse corral. We moved the car to the carpark on the road up from the Arboretum, deciding that we would do the red trail looping down to Guttormslundur once more, but continue on to the campground Atlavík, and follow that through to the Arboretum and back up to the car.
One of the things I usually do when writing my hiking/bushwalking blogs is take ample photos, many of which I never end up using. On occasion I say to myself while hiking that I want to 'take less pictures' and just enjoy doing that walk, but often find when it comes to writing it up, I don't have the recall, and due to the lack of pictures, including the ones I wouldn't have used anyway, I can't recall any some of the information in regards to the walks, which I found while looking through the pictures I took doing the Yellow and Red trails, finding it hard to distinguish when one walk became the other.
On the red trail, hoping to see the Viking age horse corral, we were never able to spot it, and as we came to the end of the trail (with stars on the PDF map marking scenic vistas) I assumed it wasn't too far back and really wanted to walk back in and try to find it, but my Wife reminded me there was still a lot of walks left and time was running out if I wanted to do them, so sad and upset we made our way down to the campground that was along the side of the Lagarfljót river.
As we arrived in the campground there was a big information board telling the folktale about the Lagarfljót Worm.
"The Folktale
A long, long time ago, a young maiden living at the farm Hof acquired a golden ring.
She hid the ring under a snail and kept both in a box, for she heard that this was the way to increase gold. After a week had passed the girl decided to see how her ring was faring. When she looked, she saw the snail had grown so quickly that it was on the verge of bursting the box. Terrified, the girl took the box and threw it as far as she could into Lagarfljót lake. Time passed and the worm-monster grew in the waters until it became known, even infamous. Powerless against the creature's ravages, the farmers of the region asked for the aid of widely reputed sorcerers from Finland. The Finns came to Iceland, appraised the situation, and concluded that the worm-monster might prove too strong for them. Nonetheless, they prepared for a struggle with the creature in the depths of the lake. The Finns remained submerged a long time, while the people on the land noticed tremors in the earth and turbulence in the water, evidencing the fierceness of the battle. Finally, the Finns resurfaced, weak and weary, and declared that they had managed to chain the worm-monster's head and tail to the bottom of the lake. There the creature would like until the end of days, unable to harm anyone. That is why no one need fear the worm-monster, though its humps occasionally be seen rising from the lake."
As the trail along the lake got a bit steep I pushed my way up to the top, where there was a little natural break wall blocking the wind, that I collapsed upon, panting, unable to catch my breath, feeling the amount of walking or exertion, or just the inability to breath from the lung damage caused by my Stem Cell Transplant. I eventually was able to catch my breath and we continued that walk around until we arrived back at the car.
There were still so many more trails left, many of them longer, and we still had to drive in to town and get dinner, (and I think my Wife was getting over the walks now). I pushed for one more, and looking through the PDF we agreed to do the Brown trail (Road Forest). The map showed this heading in two directions from the road, one towards Lagarfljót and the other side that linked on to the Blue trail. We could not find a starting path heading towards Lagarfljót, so simply followed the path the other way, walking through some beautiful forest that I commented made me think of Japan (though we had never been there, but from what I had seen in pictures).
We followed this up until it linked onto the Blue trail but I pushed to go just that little bit further, to where the Blue, Orange and Light Green trail met. My Wife allowed this, and we reached that. Heading back down to the car, and back to the hotel for a shower before we drove into town for dinner (hoping that the food truck would be there.
Upon arrival in town, we found the food truck was not there, and so I told my Wife that we could go to the Skálinn Diner as she had planned (but first checking out the N1 petrol station food prices (as we had yet to get servo food in Iceland), however for the price and portions the diner actually seemed cheaper, so we ended up heading there. I ended up ordering the 'Harry Pepper' burger, that was pretty decent that came with a huge side of fries. As we ate, more and more American families began arriving and I didn't even feel like I was in Iceland. After finishing the burger that was great I started snacking on the fries... I added some more salt... and more salt... and then started covering them in tabasco sauce that was on the table. It felt like the fries had been sitting out for 3 days, and they were pretty awful and I struggled digesting them, but tried to make myself eat them all so that food and money didn't go to waste (and so I didn't end up hungry later).
"Well, those were the worst fries I've ever eaten in my life." I commented as we left. "At least the burger was good."
We headed back to our hotel, opening the curtain and looking out over Lagarfljót until it was too dark to see it any longer, and we drew the curtain and went to bed, to repeated the cycle of early mornings.
Day 7 - Once more we were up early to head to our breakfast buffet, (I tried to eat some fruit this time, but still ended up eating the same heavy stuff), and we began the drive towards Stuðlagil Canyon. Witnessing one of many waterfalls in a distance from the road as we drove.
It was a bit of an iffy drive out to the canyon, and seeing a bit of it my Wife tried to turn around on the road but down herself panicking as the dirt road wasn't so firm and their we edges of each side for her to do a 3 point turn so I had to swap over and drive for her (I felt more comfortable driving in situations like this than I did in a busy city where my Wife felt more comfortable). We headed to our next destination, another crater known as Krafla which was on our way to a new region of Iceland situated around Lake Mývatn. However, on our way there we began to see smoke rising from the mountains in the distance as we drove past lava fields. It began to stink up the car with the smell of sulphur (rotten egg/fart smell). As we reached the turn of to Krafla there was a back carpark with steam or smoke rising from it, I decided to pull in where there were cameras snapping your number plate and so we had to pay once more. I learned we had pulled in at Hverir, a geothermal area filled with bubbling pools of mud and steaming fumaroles emitting sulphur gas. My Wife absolutely hated it, barely wanting to get out of the car, she found the smell too strong and repugnant that she felt like she would throw up.
"Maybe I don't find it too bad because I grew up around my brother David doing disgusting farts all the time, and although it stinks, at least I know it isn't coming out of someone else's ass, which makes it less gross."
None of this helped my Wife who just wanted to leave as I wandered around the area seeing why Iceland would be a great filming destination for films/TV Shows set on Mars or in space.
Eventually my Wife went back to the car, even inside it having her face covered and absolutely disgusted and sensitive to the smell.
I quickly rushed around exploring the area before heading back to the car to drive out past the Krafla power plant until we reached the crater. Where we did a walk around with the slight smell of sulphur still lingering in the air, or on my clothes.
From here we headed to Lake Mývatn, stopping nearby a fish and chip shop to use the public toilet there. I was lucky to go straight away at the men's, but there was a bit of a line for the female toilet. As I came out my Wife was away not in line anymore.
"Are you not going to go?" I asked.
"We were lined up and the woman in front let a bunch of old people go first. Like, we don't all need to go, so I said 'well fuck it then' and walked off." I could tell she'd gotten the toilet anger (when you're busting to wee and it makes you angry)
I suggested we head to the hotel to check in or just use the toilet there if we were too early to check in, I set the GPS to the hotel, Hótel Laxá, and we began the drive around the beautiful lake, while my Wife looked up our check in hours.
However we were too early to check in, and my Wife angrily just said she would hold it, but commented that you don't allow people to jump a line to a toilet because you have no idea how badly someone else lining up needed to go. "Like if that woman (the one who let the old lady go) didn't really need to go she should have just got out of the line."
I couldn't fault her logic, knowing how frustrating the urge to wee can be with no avenue, and as a guy I am privileged in my ability with this too.
We came to a spot with parking right by thew lake so I suggested we randomly pull up and eat our lunch here as it was such a beautiful spot. So we pulled up and sat by the side of the lake eating (once more) store-bought wraps.
I found on the map Mývatn Visitor Center which was meant to have toilets and we set off that way passing the gorgeous Laxárdalur and our hotel.
As we entered and my Wife went to the toilet I read up about the lake, with the information inside. We left from here to follow a walking path along the lake leading to Skútustaðagígar a series of pseudocraters.
We walked all the way up to Skipaskurður, before deciding to walk back, not knowing how long the walk continued on for as we were going to go to Dimmuborgir ("Hey that's a black metal band!" I exclaimed after seeing the name).
 |
| *touches water again* |
On our way to Dimmuborgir, I noticed the areas around the lake were stunning, and saw a random location that was too gorgeous I made us pull in. It was a nature reserve named Höfði.
As we followed the path along, I commented that this place was much too beautiful to be such an unmarked spot in Iceland. The waters were crystal clear, beckoning me to dive in and take a swim (though I knew how cold it would be), but with the sun shining and the pristine nature around me I was very tempted. A set of stairs led off to our right, but we continued straight along the path to the other end of this promontory, following the path around to the right, all high up along the cliff edge, overlooking the waters of Lake Mývatn.
The path soon led us to a man-made garden on the outskirts of a small property on the nature reserve, we continued past that leading to the path back towards the car. We passed the stairs that we had encountered on our entry to the area, my Wife was wanting to get a move on, but she could tell I was annoyed about not being able to explore up them so told me to just go while she went to wait at the car.
As I walked to the top, I found a lookout overlooking the carpark, and on the opposite side a snowcapped mountain.
I headed back to the car, telling my Wife she had missed a great view and we set of towards Dimmuborgir, name meaning 'Dark Castles'.
"In Icelandic folklore, Dimmuborgir is said to connect earth with the infernal regions. In Nordic Christian lore, it is also said that Dimmuborgir is the place where Satan landed when he was cast from the heavens and created the apparent "Helvetes katakomber" which is Norwegian for "The Catacombs of Hell".
As we walked through there was a sign informing us about the 'Yule Lads'.
"Who are they?
The Icelandic Yule Lads live here, in Dimmuborgir. We refer to them as our Santa Clauses! They are the 13 sons of Grýla and Leppalúði, vicious trolls that live in a big cave in Lúdentarborgir. The brothers all have funny names that refer to their interests or food preferences. Their names are Sheep-Cote Clod, Gully Gawk, Stubby, Spoon Licker, Pot Scraper, Bow Licker, Door Slammer, Skyr Gobbler, Sausage Swiper, Window Peeper, Doorway Sniffer, Meat Hook and Candle Beggar. The Yule Lads are rarely seen during summer as they use the summer season to rest in their caves, but they might show up on special occasions. As winter approaches, they become more active and start preparing for Christmas. The best time to meet them in Dimmuborgir is during the month of December, when they are busy preparing for the holidays, their favourite time of the year! In order to find them, it is best to walk the path to Hallarflöt and loudly shout: Jólasveinn!"
We spent the day wandering through the beautiful, and very distinctive lava fields, with the hot sun beating down on us, and the unique barren landscape all around, we were in I felt like this was the closest place in Iceland to resembling Australia. We continued around, encountering more Yule Lad dens.
At the end of the day, and with pretty sore feet we headed back to our accommodation to figure out a dinner option. I found the Sel Hotel on the map (as it was across from the visitor centre we had visited earlier in the day), and I was pretty keen to go there as they offered slow cooked pulled Goose on the menu (I have never eaten Goose). We headed there for dinner. As we got in we got shown the option of the buffet dinner (which included some interesting things such as Hákarl (fermented Shark), and Sheepshead Jelly. However, we were already planning to try these things when we were back in Reykjavík at Café Loki, and I was pretty keen to try the Goose, so we sat down at the table to order from the menu.
However, upon ordering we learned that they had no Goose, as it was 'out of season', and so we each ordered the slow cooked pulled lamb with rhubarb jam, red cabbage, green peas, coleslaw and french fries, which was delicious, and I actually started really devouring the coleslaw, my body evidently craving some vegetables.
Afterwards we headed out to go to the Orkan unmanned fuel station that was just outside and we learned first-hand why the areas was known as Mývatn, translating as Lake of Midges, which are small flies, and they were everywhere. I spasmed and flung my hands, shaking my head while I tried to fill the car, as hundreds upon thousands of these tiny little flies got in my eyes and up my nose and underneath my sunglasses, they were everywhere as night approached. We had encountered a few while at Dimmuborgir, but no worse than flies in Australia (probably helping the area remind us of home).
As it was Autumn at the time we learned these midges were even worse during Summer and Spring, which I couldn't image dealing with.
We headed back to the accommodation to wind down, escape the midges and try to get to bed early. While getting ready to go to sleep, dressed up in pyjamas and ready to sleep, there was a bang at our door. "What the fuck was that?" I asked, and we heard noise shuffling through the hallway. "A drunk?" I asked.
"Maybe it's knocking on the door for Northern Lights." My Wife said.
However the hotel hadn't asked if we had wanted that, like how we got asked on our stay in Finland.
"Should we go out and see them?" I commented, as we were literally about to go to sleep.
"We've already seen them in Finland." My Wife said, tired and not wanting to get changed to go out in the cold.
I was tired too, but we were in Iceland, and most people would love to see the Northern Lights in their lifetime, so I mad us throw some normal clothes on to go out into the freezing cold and look up at the night sky.
The light were pretty diluted, with flashing waving moments of green but not too powerful. I tried to take a photo with my phone, but doing so was as bad, if not worse, than when you take a beautiful photo of a full moon and it looks like a lifeless light amongst black on your phone.
"I think you need a better quality camera for this." I said. After watching for about half and hour, and freezing cold we retreated inside, burnt out, very tired, and went to sleep.
Day 8 - Originally we had planned to do this day the opposite direction, but we had learned Iceland was a country of late risers, and things were scarcely open in the morning and so we swapped around the direction of our plans, and after a breakfast buffet (I promise I tried to have less processed meat and cheese) and we headed off people anyone else in our hotel towards Dettifoss, the second most powerful waterfall in Europe.
We arrived at a barren looking landscape (perfect for a science fiction film, and I later learned the movie 'Prometheus' by Ridley Scott filmed a scene at Dettifoss). We were one of the first cars there and I was eager to get to the falls before it become flooded with tourists, having long since given up on escaping them anywhere around Iceland.
After walking down to as close to the waterfall as you were allowed and watching some attractive influencers jump past the ripe to make her photographer boyfriend take styled pictures of her posing in front of it we continued on a path leading up to a lookout to view from waterfall from higher up.
There was a platform up here that was wheelchair friendly that must have led from the carpark, and as I walked to the far side of it to look further up the canyon I almost slipped and fell as the wood below me was so slippery with ice, it was like one of those low-traction ice levels in a video game.
We walked back down to Dettifoss that was now beginning to get busy and followed the trail high up along the Jökulsá á Fjöllum river toward another waterfall, Hafragilsfoss.
As we returned to Dettifoss carpark I entered the toilets there, that really reminded me of the Australian bush toilet you can encounter on a bushwalk, the 'hole in the ground' style toilet with a laminated piece of paper stuck up explaining that it was a 'composting toilet' and that the human waste inside would be composted and recycled for land reclamation.
From here we drove a short distance to Vesturdalur Valley. We pulled up here and began our walk towards Hljóðaklettar.
As we wandered through the alien looking shapes protruding from the earth, we learned that they were 'crater plugs', the remains of ancient volcanos.
"Look at the basalt pattern in that one! It looks like a beehive." My Wife commented.
As we clambered up over the uneven rocky surface my Wife worried she was taking too long and I told her we were in no rush and just to enjoy the views.
As we followed the path along there was one dark piece of rock protruding from a cliff side in the distance, and my Wife commented that it 'looked like a Wizard'. With me looking and being instantly reminded of 'Tim the Enchanter' from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The path began leading us to 'Kirkjan'.
"Wasn't that the name of a place in Dimmuborgir?" I asked, looking it up. "No that was Kirkja".
I learned that the name meant 'The Church' (sometimes known as 'The Lava Church') and could see the similarities between the shape of it and the one at Dimmuborgir, and realised the connection in etymology to Kirkjufell the basalt column 'Church Floor' we had visited.
We sat inside the 'Church' cave and ate some lunch before continuing on with the walk where I pointed to a cliff face commenting that it 'looked like a Dog'.
 |
| 'Clifford' the Big Cliff Dog |
As we came to a bend in the road, I wanted to push on, walking all the way to the end but my Wife wanted to do what seemed to be the loop back. Having agreed to not be 'pushy' on holiday before we went overseas and pushing her too much physically, I relented and we made our way back towards the carpark, passing along a cliff face with a walk up inside a little cave that we explored.
When we arrived back at the carpark, I saw there were some walks heading the other way, and wished to explore up that was a little, heading back down the Jökulsá á Fjöllum river towards Dettifoss.
On our way along the path we passed a man jogging, which was an unexpected site out this way as we hadn't encountered any other people yet. The path continued uphill eventually giving us a view over the river.
As we found a nice rock to sit on watching the river flow and eating a bag of corn chips with salsa we noticed a plaque on a rock dedicated to a Peter Spörl from Germany. A passionate hiker, travelling across Iceland who fell off these cliffs to his death in 2017, with the circumstances of the accident remaining unclear. We wondered what those circumstances were, an accident, a slip? A suicide?
"Hopefully he wasn't a dumb shit who fell trying to get a selfie." I said, as the frequencies of that happening since social media had skyrocketed, though I doubt they would have placed a plaque had that been the case.
As we continued eating our corn chips, we would see the winding road down into the valley carpark and a giant packed tour bus making it's way to the car park.
"Whelp time to go." I said, after we finished the chips and dip, and began heading uphill still.
"Isn't it back that way?" My Wife asked.
"Up a bit further the path loops back." I said, sure I had seen the path.
As we continued on my Wife began to doubt me and I hoped I wasn't wrong, however soon we came across the joining in, taking the other path down and back to the car. Quickly driving to Hljóðaklettar viewpoint, overlooking the valley and then continuing on towards Ásbyrgi.
Ásbyrgi is a horseshoe shaped canyon which our Nordic visitor guidebook informed us: "Legend has it that the canyon acquired it's distinctive horseshoe shape thanks to Sleipnir, the legged flying horse of Norse God Odin. While Odin was out on a joy ride with Sleipnir one fine day, the horse accidentally touched one of its giant hooves onto the Earth, creating the mighty canyon".
Now as a lover of history, mythology and folklore anything associated with the Norse Gods I was going to be right into, and if you don't know the Norse myth involving the birth of Odin's Horse Sleipnir I would recommend looking it up, because it's a banger.
As we arrived there were a few different paths for us to travel, and we ended up walking to the far side from where we parked where we read some information signs.
"The Ás Hollow
Established during the settlement. Ás was a prosperous estate for centuries. The hollow Ásbyrgi, was originally part of the estate, but eventually became a separate small farmstead, Byrgi. The farmhouses were at the mouth of the hollow, but further in the land was farmed, wood gathered and sheep grazed. The dramatic cliffs evoked stories, could there be something hidden within?"
"Hidden People and a Beast
The locals tell the story of the poor farmer's son from Byrgi and a girl from the estate who were not allowed to marry. In a dream a fairy told them that her lover had been turned into a beast by a creature living in the cliffs. The beast lived in Ásbyrgi pond and could surface when the midnight sun gilded the cliffs. By confronting the beast and throwing their dearest possessions into its jaws the girl could break the spell freeing the fairy's lover. And the fairy saw to it that the young couple could marry.
Icelandic folklore abounds with the stories of hidden people in cliffs. Those who have seen the hidden people say that they are like us but more beautiful and well-to-do. They also say that the hidden people's capital is in Ásbyrgi, with many homes, public buildings and concert halls. One never knows what can happen during a quiet walk in Ásbyrgi!"
We headed down our first trail, 'The Flowers' also known as the Visitor trail, wandering through the beautiful birch forests.
The path came to a split, with one to our left leading0.1km to 'Lindin' which we followed to the end before following the opposite trail 0.3km to Botnstjörn Pond, which I assumed was the pond talked about in the beast myth.
I was ever mindful on this holiday not to take too many photo's and to try and appreciate where I was and the scenery around me, and even so look at home many I already have shared! Just such a beautiful country. We continued following the path through the forest, heading up some stairs to a view looking over the valley.
We headed back down following the path and doing a full loop back to the carpark, but there was a little trail to our left I followed down to a large slab of concrete that I assumed was a helipad. As we came out of the direction back towards the carpark a group of American women were coming out from the path, they turned to go to the carpark, before doing a double take at us and then asking "Anything interesting down that way?"
"Just a helipad." I answered, not even sure if that's what it was as there were no marking on it.
"Oh for the important people." She joked and the group continued on back to the carpark.
"That's not what I would have thought." My Wife said, referring to the helicopter pads use.
"No probably for all the dumb shits that have accidents in here." Getting a flashback of the rock climbing accident that caused my Dad to be airlifted to hospital.
From here we headed of to the city of Húsavík, probably most well known outside of Iceland for being the setting of the Will Ferrell film 'Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga' and for the song titled Húsavík that featured in that movie, which I made sure to play in the car Bluetooth as we drove into town.
From here we walked up the street to another bar, Jaja Ding Dong Húsavík. Named for the song in the Will Ferrell film that was also having a 'Eurovision' museum exhibition inside (that was pretty expensive). Made after the success and popularity of the film (evidently the only reason we were there), I bought my Wife a cocktail and we sat down inside the bar.
While waiting for the barkeep to create her cocktail, he had walked off, (maybe to get ingredients? But he was gone a while). Americans started coming in, and looking at the exhibit entry clearly saying you had to buy a ticket, but entering and walking through anyway.
Soon another group of Americans came, and the bartender came back and finally finished my Wife's cocktail.
The American's began loudly asking for 'seniors discounts', and saying that the song 'Jaja Dingdong' had better play over the speakers.
After she finished her cocktail we decided to go for a walk around Húsavík, while I pointed to the Elf House's outside the bar (that where like the ones in the film) saying that it was lots of them that I had been expecting in Álfaborg.
Afterwards heading back to the car and deciding to head straight to Vogafjós Farm back in Lake Mývatn, a farm-to-table restaurant that had the Cows on site, which was about a 50 minute drive away.
As we arrived I learned it was also a resort. "Are you sure we can eat here?" I asked, learning through some Google searches of some restaurants that some hotel restaurants would not serve customers who weren't staying there. She assured me it was fine and we found we could walk straight into the barn that was full of Cows and baby cows that we began to pet and feed.
Afterwards we entered the restaurant, and I questioned whether what we were doing was morbid, but also knowing in myself that you can love animals but still eat meat, as we ourselves are animals and it is the circle of life (however I was secretly hoping to eat something on the menu that was cow).
As we went inside, stinking of walking all day, we found the restaurant area pretty fancy, and I was worried we were underdressed (until I saw a man in shorts and thongs and thought for sure he was Australian). Once I saw the smoked Goose on the menu I got instantly excited, having missed out the night before on trying Goose. We ordered that as an entry and ended up both getting a beef burger for dinner, that was topped with the farms cheese. For dessert we tried the Geysir-bread ice cream which was the star of the show by a long shot, I could have had it for the entrée main and dessert (and I prefer savoury!)
After a filling meal we exited the restaurant to find it now dark outside, heading back to the hotel to hopefully get an early night sleep...
However, late at night, another bang on our door.
"We saw it last night." Commented my exhausted Wife.
I debated not going out, but in the end I commented we could 'rest at home' and made us dress and head out into the cold to watch the lights.
This night they were slightly more powerful than the last, and even with my terrible phone camera I was able to capture some of the green in the sky. (It was actually easier to photograph on my phone when it hid behind the clouds, I guess contrasting the light)
After standing in the cold a while, once more frozen and sore we we about to head back inside when 'WHOOSH' a giant green light light up across the sky making a loud noise. We both jumped, lamost thinking we were getting bombed as we watched the comet fly through the air.
Everyone around us had also jumped and were now laughing.
While I didn't get any photo's or footage of this, I looked it up after getting home from Iceland and found someone else who was lucky enough to get the incredible sight on camera, someone on the same night looking up at Iceland's night sky.
Day 9 - Once more we were up early and the first at breakfast. As people began to get up the frustrations began, first a woman put a piece of toast that didn't fit through the conveyor belt toaster, (even though it had a sign), causing it to block all toasting that anyone else wanted to do, it was also here that there was a waffle maker, with some guy unable to make waffles, being shown how by a lady, then when another lady came along he proceeded to mansplain to her how the thing worked even though we literally had just seen him get shown.
We packed everything into our car, hitting the road again, us and one of couple obviously keen to get out for an early start, and we headed to Goðafoss (Waterfall of the Gods).
"Historical Notes
History tells us that in the year 1000, Þorgeir, chieftain of Ljósavatn district, and Lawspeaker of the Allthing, was entrusted with the momentous task of deciding whether Icelanders would adopt the Christian faith. When his decision was formally accepted, he went home and threw his statues of the pagan gods into the waterfall. Goðafoss (Waterfall of the gods) is said to derive its name from this event.
It is 12 metres high. Skjálfandafljót (180km) is the country's fourth longest river."
As I read this, looking out at the beautiful waterfall, I couldn't help but feel sadness. Another belief system crushed by the powerhouse that was Christianity.
"Should have stayed Pagan." I said out loud while reading it.
From here we travelled out to Akureyri, which my Wife told me was Iceland's second largest city (though apparently it is its fifth, though largest outside of the capital region).
As we entered the city and stopped at a red light, I pointed out to my Wife the curious fact that the red light was a heart shape.
We found a free spot to park within the city (as many areas are paid parking), right by the Hof Cultural and Conference Centre. From here we made our way through the city to head to the Akureyri Botanical Garden (Lystigarðurinn) the worlds northernmost botanic garden, where we found the cute city had more quirks, such as knitted animal/monster bin covers.
As we passed a large group of tourists randomly photographing a local home, I commented to my Wife that all these tourists would drive me insane if I lived here, especially if they were to stand outside for no reason taking photos of my home.
We spent some time wandering around the botanic garden (which wasn't too huge), before heading back into the city to head to a bakery my Wife had heard was good called Kristjáns’ Bakery.
It was weird to be in something that felt like a city again, but it was interesting to explore all it's strange quirks without it being too busy (though I had a feeling as the day went on it would begin to be).
The bakery was very small and very crowded, so I ordered a coffee (which was still just peculated, no barista coffee here!) and some pastries, quickly leaving the very busy store to go and eat and drink at what seemed like a kids play area, surrounded by a ring road.
After this we walked down to a Krónan supermarket to buy some lunch for later and for the following day, before walking down to the Port of Akureyri and following as close as we could get to the water and back around to Hof Cultural and Conference Centre (which had nice clean toilets).
Not sure what to do in Akureyri (and we had been debating whether or not to head to Árskógssandur and catch the ferry over to Hrísey, but deciding not to due to infrequent ferry times), I looked up nearby walks on my phone, deciding to head to Krossanesborgir a nature reserve just north of Akureyri.
"The area of Krossanesborgir
Krossanesborgir was designated as a natural park in the year 2004.
The area has versatile plant- and birdlife which the intention is to preserve as well as provide access for public education and leisure. Emphasis is on providing access to the area without disturbing the natural setting.
The area is distinctively marked with rock formations or cliffs in irregular groupings with direction north-south. The rocks generally have a whaleback formation; evenly formed to the south with steep cliffs on the north and east side. The marks of the ice-age glacier can clearly be seen on the rocks, including glacial stria.
The area has not been drained much for agriculture over time. Therefore it has marshlands and ponds with unique vegetation and wildlife. The main ponds are Dáknatjörn, Startjörn and Hundatjörn.
Around 170 plant species have been found in the area including 16 types of sedge (Carex) as well as 5 types of pondweed (Potamogeton).
According to a thorough bird count made 2003 at least 27 species breed here. Among species found here are: Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea); Black-headed Gull (Larus ridibundus), Herring Gull (Larus argentatus), Lesser black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus) and Mew Gull (Larus canus); Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa); various Ducks and Geese such as Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) and Greylag Goose (Anser anser) as well as many other species of birds.
Trails have been laid to make it easier for visitors to enjoy nature in the area."
We followed the trail along doing a big loop of the area, getting quite warm once more and removing our jackets.
As we began circling back, doing a big loop we came to a lookout over:
"The Desolate Farm of Lónsgerði
The farm of Lónsgerði or Óskarsgerði was abandoned in the year 1931. According to the public records most of its inhabitants did not reside for a long time at the farm. The reason probably being limited and poor pastures. The ruins of the farm can be seen today."
There wasn't much to see other than some mounds in a field, and from the distance we even struggled to see them, so we continued on arriving back at the car.
My Wife wanted to bypass the next two stops heading straight to Sauðárkrókur, where our accommodation was, as Sauðárkrókur was marked as a feature destination in our travel book by Nordic Visitor. However, I thought that we were only in Iceland once, and even if we weren't interested in the fishing villages (which were our next two stops, Siglufjörður and Hofsós, two small fishing villages that would add 2 and a half hours' worth of driving) that we would miss part of Iceland by road. Offering to drive, we set out towards Siglufjörður
When we finally arrived at the small village and had a look around we stopped at a bench to have some water and food and looking at a local art piece called 'The Herring Girls'.
“At its height, there were approximately a thousand herring girls in Siglufjörður, ready to save herring day and night, regardless of the weather. Their income was dependent on whether the herring was caught, and only salted barrels were paid for, but there was no guarantee of purchase.”
From here we crossed the main road, walking over to a warehouse, that turned out to be a Herring Museum. My Wife kept insisting we would 'have to pay to enter', but as we entered, we found no one there and walked around looking inside the museum,
After doing a loop through we exited and continue back to where we parked the car, where we walked past a second warehouse, also the Herring Museum. As we entered this one there was someone there who asked if we would like to buy a ticket. "No thanks." I replied and we walked out.
"I'm not interested in Herrings enough to pay for it." I said to my Wife as we walked back to the car. "Like, at home little museums for things like that that people only go to are usually either free, or so cheap that people don't mind paying, but a lot of it gets its funding from government grants and stuff."
We returned to the car and set off for a long drive, continuing around the coast towards Hofsós. This road was actually pretty treacherous, often gravel, and slippery, next to cliff faces overlooking the ocean and it was hard to see at points as we were surrounded by mist. There was even a long stretch of a one-way tunnel with bays you had to pull up in to let oncoming traffic through. There were also occasion crests on these roads that seemed like they had sharp turns off, and we went at a much slower pace than we anticipated taking much longer than expected. In the end, it had taken that long, and we were that tired and stressed that as we passed the turn off to Hofsós, we simply continued on to Sauðárkrókur.
We arrived in this very small town that didn't have much to do either, and we found our accommodation at the Hótel Tindastóll & Annex. The place put my Wife on edge as a suspicious looking character pulled up in his car, blasting music to visit the vape shop just across from the hotel.
"I'm sure it's fine." I said, as we checked into the hotel, which had no elevators, and just to carry all out luggage upstairs. As we entered our room we could hear the music from the car at the vape shop still, and I could see my Wife visible annoyed. "Why would they want us to come here? There's nothing here." She said.
"Well just be thankful we didn't bypass the coast track and just come here." I said, which would have taken only an hour and a half not driving around the coast.
My Wife continued to complain about it. "Like if we knew there was nothing to do here, we could have organised something for today in Akureyri, or done the horse riding today (we had horse riding booked for the following morning), and then we would have missed less tomorrow."
I placated her, trying to not have a bad experience, and decided I would have a shower. "Well this is the oldest hotel in Iceland, so that's sort of cool." I said.
But then the smell came, the sulphur smell from natural heating of the shower. My Wife, unable to bare the smell continued to get worse, complaining that now she can't shower, or she'd throw up.
I noticed a sign on the door about the sulphur, saying the cold water was safe to drink, but not to drink the heated water. "Would have been good to know that back at Hotel Fron." I said, not that I had drank any hot water from any taps.
I looked up food on the town map, finding two locations for dinner, but we went for a walk down water, doing a little loop before going out to dinner at Kaffi Krókur. I ordered fish and chips (after visiting a Herring Museum, I felt the craving), and it came as a massive portion that was really good as well as trying an Icelandic beer and my Wife having a cocktail, deciding to just enjoy the most of our night here,
Day 10 - The following morning we had our Icelandic horse riding booked in at 9.45am, so there wasn't a lot we could do before then, so we took the opportunity to have a bit of a sleep in, feeling the fatigue of our long days of either walking or driving. Before we had come to Iceland my Wife had wanted to ride Icelandic horses while looking through a series of activities you could book through the provider (Silfra being the one other thing we booked). She had grown up riding horses in Australia and loved horses, and was fascinated that, while most horses have three gaits Icelandic horses had five with the addition of the tölt and flying pace. "Yeah you can do it, I might explore while you do." I had said back at home before booking it, having done guided horse rides a few times in my life and knowing that you are never allowed to go fast, and might do something a little faster than a walk, having found them to be pretty boring. In the end I ended up agreeing to do it with my Wife so I could take some photos of her.
We headed down to the breakfast hall of Hótel Tindastóll & Annex, which as we had gone to breakfast later then any other time on our trip, we found very busy and squishy, but I thought it was a cool aesthetic down there. I made sure to not have any processed meat, as I was feeling a decline in my body with I believed was due to these breakfasts, so instead I loaded up some rye bread with salads, trying to fill my body with healthy nutrition, as well as vigorously drinking as much coffee as possible to shake my fatigue.
My Wife didn't have to strength to lift out suitcases and carry them down the stairs so I did multiple trips for us, when she once more began the complaints about 'accessibility issues'. "How could old people be expected to do this?" She asked.
We set the GPS to the horse riding located in Skagafjörður with the company Hestasport. As we made our way to the reception area, filling in all our details, we got told we could go to the wait room downstairs with a comfy couch and free tea and coffee. I once more started helping myself to the coffee, trying to wash away my brain fog, but instead just gave myself the instant urge to poop. Soon the lady from reception came to tell us they were ready for us now, and gave us the location to head to to begin our horse riding, however with my urge to poop I found the toilets located in a different room upstairs while my Wife was frustrated by my timing. As I finished my business and exited, my Wife pointed at the door saying "You pick the right toilet at least." I turned around to find a drawing of a horse pooing on my door.
On the door next to it a horse weeing.
We made our way to the stable, and were greeted by two ladies (ladies makes them sound old, they were probably younger than me), and told we were waiting on one more person to rock up who was running late. Soon that person finally arrived, and we were given all the general safety instructions and a walkthrough on how to get on and ride the horses.
We were informed we would be told the name of our horse, and that in Iceland it was bad luck to forget the name of your horse. I was told I would be riding 'Björn'. I forget the name of my Wife's horse, but it's ok because I remember the name of mine!
When the time came for me to get up on my horse, I stretched my leg up over it and heard an almighty ripping sound, and I knew immediately what it was. I looked down and saw a massive tear in the crouch of my cargo pants. Luckily I was on a horse and no one could see the huge tear or my underwear. But it was an awkward start to our ride.
We travelled some way, and it was as I thought with mostly walking and the occasional slow run (the exact gait I can't recall). But I just enjoyed myself, patting Björn, who was a much nicer horse than the Australian horses I'd ridden before. As we took this horse ride their pet Dog ran alongside us to, and I imaged having the free open space for my own Dog, Orla, to run around and explore, imagining how happy that would make her.
We crossed a river on them, allowing them to stop and drink the fresh flowing Icelandic water, before following the side of a hill up along the river. Although it wasn't necessarily dangerous, I knew my life was in the hands of Björn, for is he was to lose footing or slip, and roll, I would probably be crushed and die, which for some reason increased the thrill for me.
As we reached the top we approached the waterfall, Fosslaug.
We made our way back to the stables were we got some photos with our horses, and gave them some pats, cuddles and food (I hoped off quick when no one was looking to as not to expose myself).
I said goodbye to Björn and we headed off to a service station we had passed on our way to the Hestasport reception, to use the bathroom (and change into non torn cargo pants), as well as buying ourselves a chocolate milk, before beginning the rest of our day, and heading of to our destination of Vatnsdalshólar, which according to our guide was:
"a lush, green area. Dotted around the mouth of the valley are innumerable hills, created by an enormous landslide at the end of the last Ice Age."
We were told on the route we were taking that we would find Þrístapar, the site of the last execution in Iceland in 1830 (a beheading). Which apparently were written about in a popular novel 'Burial Rites' by Australian author Hannah Kent.
"Hey, my friend from work talked about that book to me before we came to Iceland." I said.
As we drove a long winding dirt road with no markers overlooking a valley filled with hills, there was no place for us to pull up, or signs or stops and google maps was not helping us at all. We did a giant loop around the lake and creek, before arriving at the Vatnsdalshólar View Point.
"Maybe this is where the execution happened?" I said, with no idea.
A nearby Dog ran up to our car as we opened the door and my Wife was more than excited to give it some cuddles.
We walked up the stairs of the big mound up to the lookout over the lake, "this would be a cool execution spot", I thought unaware that it was not the location at all.
As we left we quickly pulled in at a bathroom we saw at an area named Ólafslundur, which also had a nature reserve walking area (similar to how the front of Höfði had looked). I wanted to go for a walk through, but as we had started late in the day with horse riding, and spent so much time driving around the lake (when we could have driven 2 minutes down the road and turned left), my Wife wanted to just hurry to our next destination Kolugljúfur Canyon, so we headed off towards the canyon, no idea we passed Þrístapar literally 2-minutes down the road we took to the canyon. (Moral of the story, sometimes invest more time looking where you need to go instead of a general location and google maps).
As we arrived at Kolugljúfur Canyon, the grass parking bay was almost full but a few spot at the ends, and as I drove down I pulled up next to a car with people sitting beside it having a picnic.
They said something to me, which I didn't comprehend at all as I wasn't expecting anyone to speak to me, so I didn't take it in at all.
"What was that?" I replied.
They commented something about following them or something, and I sort of awkwardly, semi-aggressively replied saying that I didn't understand, just completely caught off guard, and not fully understanding the accent.
Soon it became clear they were among the group of people who had been on the horse guide tour with us, so I awkwardly nodded, and continued over the nearby bridge to view the canyon and waterfall (Kolufoss), painstakingly taking the effort to try to get a photo without people in it. (Because social media, and photography is inherently disingenuous).
After this we made our way out to Borgarvirki Fortress. This volcanic plug was created when magma hardens within a vent on an active volcano. Used as a natural fortress over the years, it was apparently fortified further of time by the people of the Húna district.
"It is believed they used it to stave off the constant attacks of the armies of the Borgarfjörður cheiftans."
This was again, one of the coolest spots for me and my Wife in Iceland, made better by the fact we were the only two people there, able to wander around outside and in on our own, and I could picture epic sword and archery scenes happening around it.
"It looks just like castle ruins." I said.
From here it was meant to be a 25 minutes drive to our next scenic location, Hvitserkur, however we found ourselves behind a truck creating a gravel road, (that was very thin) that added an extra 15 minutes to our drive, even with being able to get around him at one point, we still had to drive so slowly along the loose and spot gravel.
We finally arrived walking over to a lookout over Hvitserkur, a basalt rock stack of the Vatnsnes peninsula.
"The impressive 15 metre rock formation is said to be a troll who got caught in the sunlight on its way to tear down the bells of a nearby convent. It resembles a dragon crouching down to drink from the ocean.
The stack is home to many nesting birds, whose guano have stained the rock white giving it its name. Hvitserkur translates to 'white shirt'."
There was a walk down, to the stack, however we still had three destinations left (and two others listed as optional) and one included a 30 minute total walk, so with no time to spare we set of to our next destination, Grábrók crater.
As we arrived here, it was now beginning to rain. It was fine, not heavy, but consistent enough to make us very wet and so we put on our raincoats and made or way up the side of the crater.
As we continued up, I could see down behind us some ruins, and I wondered if they were Viking ruins (because everyone who wants to go to Scandinavia loves Vikings).
We did a loop around the top of the crater while looking to another large crater in the distance that you could also walk to.
Before walking down and exploring the ruins (that were much more modern than Viking age), but where still cool to look at.
As we got back to the car, sodden and wet, and I felt my mood dropping and myself getting very depressed and I couldn't understand why, my Wife made a comment about my attitude, and after a short little argument we reconciled, just wanting to have a good time. So we set of towards Deildartunguhver, a hot spring (you could pay to go in a swimming section if you wanted).
"I just want to see the natural hot-spring." I said. "I don't need to pay to try and get a selfie in a bath when all the showers here are also heated by geothermal energy."
We pulled up at the section of the hot spring that were free to view, getting as close as we could to try and get some residual warmth as it rained heavily and we were really feeling the cold in our bodies.
From here it was about a 30-minute drive to our accommodation at Hótel Hamar. We were unable to find anywhere nearby to go out for dinner, searching for interesting foods nearby as we drove and decided we would simply eat there. We arrived wet and cold and were asked if we wanted to eat at the Hamarinn Restaurant (the hotel restaurant), needing to select a time. We agreed to have dinner in about 25 minutes, giving us time to take our belonging to our room and have a nice warm shower and dress for dinner. (I'll also note the lady asked if we would like to be notified about any Aurora sightings rather then a random knock on our door, this time my Wife told her no.)
We looked through the menu deciding to just go all out for dinner, and getting a baked brie as an entrée, which was coated in honey, roasted nuts, jam and came with crispy bread. It was a huge bowl full (and though we don't usually like soft cheese like brie, we had had some friend soft cheese in Iceland and loved them, and this was no different). It was sweet, and savoury, and runny, and delectable and such a large serving we thought we might fill up on it alone but were blown away by how utterly delicious it was. We both got drinks to wash it down with, I thought about getting a wine but ended up going with another Icelandic beer I hadn't tried. Then for the main, Duck confit, which I had eaten duck a few times before and only thought it a 'meh' dish, but this was delicious and crunchy and melty and just another one of the best meals we had in Iceland.
Day 11 - The next morning I woke up feeling like crap. I had a runny nose, a cold, but just felt incredibly shit. We headed to our breakfast buffet and I tried to take it off by once more having a nutritious breakfast and ample coffee.
We set off to our first destination, Eldborg crater. As we drove this 30-minute drive to the start of the trailhead I was feeling worse and worse, with cold chills and fevers. We hopped out of the car into the rain and began walking past a farm, with all the sheep rushing over to say hello to us.
As we made it past the side of the farm heading towards the crater, I was feeling rotten, I was shivering with fevers and cold, I had zero energy and all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball in a warm bed. I looked at the distance to the crater, 2.5km.
"Honey, I'm sorry. I don't think I can." I said, feeling the worst I had felt in years, and definitely the sickest since my cancer treatment. My Wife was upset, wanting to do the walk and see the crater, and I told her I could wait in the car, because I was simply too sick to walk all that way (which is saying a lot for me who usually pushes through anything, including sickness for some adventure).
A lot of this day is a blur to me, as I wasn't looking out the windows at sights, I was curled up with the seat heating on maximum, blasting my side of the car with heating, shivering in a ball feeling like absolute death. Our printed itinerary has at least 8 destinations after Eldborg crater, and I could only remember two without really looking into it.
We started heading to wherever the next location was pulling up at a little scenic stop along the way to enjoy the view, but getting drenched in rain which didn't help with the way I was feeling.
The next thing I remember is stopping in at a town (which I think was Grundarfjörður), as we needed to use the loo, and we decided to buy ourselves a hot chocolate at a local store, I pointed to a man-made Viking-ship nearby and said we should get a selfie in it together, but in the pouring rain I couldn't muster the energy to bother. I noticed a few people in the stores wearing masks and it hit me. "Covid." I began looking in my phone about covid outbreaks in Iceland, but in this day and age with all restrictions lifted, no one cared about covid anymore and I could find no information.
I told my Wife that I thought I had it, as I had not felt this sick or awful and I began to get teary eyed and almost cry because I thought it was going to ruin the rest of out holiday, which was a celebration of not being sick from cancer anymore and the whole reason of going to Iceland as we though it less likely to get covid then Japan.
We found a toilet and drove to look at Kirkjufell in the rain from the car at the side of the water.
From here we continued driving along the coast, with the next destination I remember stopping at being Skarðsvík Beach, where the rain had died down a little, and with hot chocolate in hand we went for the short walk down to the beach, where in the 1960's a Viking gravesite was discovered.
I pushed through to explore this beach, feeling a break in the waves of intense sickness (or just forcing them down). After exploring this beach, and getting back in the car we headed to Djúpalónssandur, a beach scattered with the wreckage of the fishing trawler Epine which was shipwrecked in 1948.
As we arrived here parking was scarce and the wind had really picked up. We were lucky to get a park and as we opened the door the large gusts almost blew our doors off. We struggled to open the back doors to retrieve our raincoats, getting blown around by intense winds we struggled to put them on as thick rain fell and was blown into us, hitting us so hard it felt like hailstones.
We attempted to walk to a lookout and view, stopping in at the public toilet with the wind raging so badly that we couldn't close the door, and each of us had to stand there and put our fully body weight against the toilet door to hold it just while each other went.
It was unrelenting and even with raincoats, we couldn't hand the sheer force of the wind and rain, and even my Wife agreed to call a quits to our adventures for the day and head back to our accommodation, which was fortunate for me as I sure could not take anymore.
The only other stop I recall that day was a quick stop a distance away from Lóndrangar, where my Wife simply pulled up a took a photo from the car with the window down (as rain proceeded to fly vigorously in through the window).
I was out of it for the rest of the day, huddled in the car trying to feel warm. As we arrived back in our accommodation, I had a hot shower and went to bed and simply slept, hoping to feel better by the next day, where I had planned one of the hikes I had been looking forward to the most on our trip to Iceland.
Day 12 - The next day I woke up still feeling like absolute crap, and we went to breakfast in the morning, and I struggled to eat, trying to have some healthy Icelandic yoghurt as I watched an elderly Asian gentlemen sneeze of the buffet bacon without covering his nose and continue on like nothing happened.
"Whelp, that's why I'm sick." I commented. I told my Wife I wanted to try and push through and try this hike, even though I felt the worst I had felt in years.
We began loading our bags into our car and noticed a bunch of Ptarmigan wandering around outside our accommodation, we laughed because we had spent the entire time at Krossanesborgir keeping an eye out for them without seeing one, and now just here they were!
It was about a 50-minute drive from our hotel to the start of our walk to Glymur, the highest waterfall in Iceland. As we arrived there was a group just getting out of their cars and setting out ahead of us. I stopped over and read the information sign and looked at the map.
We started the walk, following the trail along for a short while where the path split, I lead the way to the left trail which was the more adventurous path with the river crossings.
Soon we came to Þvottahellir, a cave the I referred to as the 'Skull Cave' as once we descended down the stairs into it the exit on the other side was two gaping holes, like eyes reminding me of the Monster Strongholds in the Legend of Zelda games 'Breath of the Wild' and 'Tears of the Kingdom'.
My Wife was terrified taking the stairs down into the cave in the dark, which completely blew my mind and made no sense to me, but I kept my cool helping her down and through the cave, and continuing up the Botnsá river, where we came to our first river crossing.
This completely panicked my Wife who didn't feel comfortable at all doing it. The family who had left the carpark before us were there taking their shoes off to cross and they said it seemed a little dangerous (it looked fine to me). I tried to calm my Wife down as the American family crossed. I tied my shoes to my backpack, half crossing the log while a couple appeared behind us ready to also cross (also American), my Wife was yelling "No, you go!." Saying she would go back to the car, obviously not comfortable crossing the log while holding the wobbling wire that was next to it, so I walked through the water halfway across to try and show that she could cross that way. She said it wasn't 'her thing' but insisted I go on as I had been looking forward to this the most of the entire trip, and she began heading back to the car. Not wanting her to wait for me too long I quickly crossed the log, with the American mum (or should I spell it 'mom'?) commented that I made it 'look easy'.
"This sort of thing is right up my alley." I replied. "Just not hers." Referring to my Wife.
I quickly put my socks and hiking boots on and started off ahead of the American family who were still drying their feet.
I continued uphill, pushing my body, coughing up phlegm and struggling to breath but pushing through and charging up towards the top of the waterfall, stopping a few times to catch my breath and appreciate the scenery (but a ticking clock in my head as I didn't want my Wife to be too upset that I had gone on).
At one point while resting the American couple who had arrived behind me continued on past me, there was no way I could go at that level in my current state of sickness, and wondered if I even could which my lung damage. I soon came to a lookout where I took some photo's and had another short rest.
As I continued up further I passed that American couple who were heading back down.
"Going back the same way?" I asked. :"Not crossing the river."
The lady commented that it got too dodgy and her fear of heights got to her and she was too afraid of falling. I was determined to push on and reach the top, finding the section they meant of rocks you could easily slip on and go over the edge, but all you needed was too not rush or be stupid and it was actually pretty safe. A helicopter started flying overhead and I wondered if they were doing flyovers of the waterfall for tourists or keeping an eye out of injuries and accidents.
Soon I reached the top, feeling a great sense of satisfaction that even in my incredibly sick state, and with my lung damage I was able to push through.
As I wandered along on top of the waterfall I tried numerous spots to cross the river, with the water freezing cold, the rocks underneath super slippery, and the water flowing pretty strongly, and every time I tried, I'd get to a spot that just got too deep.
I was up there for maybe 30-minutes walking back and forth, up and down the river attempting crossing at various spots, but it either got too deep, too slippery or it just wasn't safe. I was getting annoyed, wishing there was some spot marking the location that you were meant to cross. I was beginning to think about just heading back down the way I had come up, aware of my Wife waiting in the car.
Just when I was about to turn around, I noticed the American family arrive, and I watched them at a distance as they attempted to cross a few spots too. I wandered closer to see what they were doing, to follow if they found a way.
I wandered too close to them and they greeted me. I told them I was watching to see if they made it, as I had been trying multiple times to get across. The Mum and her Daughter almost seemed ready to give up, but the Dad seemed determined to cross. "Gene!" They called out to him, suggesting maybe going back, but the man kept his footing, and we watched the way he crossed, when he was almost halfway over the Mum had a slip and almost fell completely into the water, pulled up quick by either her son, or her daughter's husband/boyfriend (from what I could tell by my short interactions with them). The Dad continued and he soon made it to the other side, so we all followed the road he's paved watching the slippery rocks, just making it across where it wasn't too deep.
Reaching the other side my body was frozen and I sat to put my socks and shoes on once more and thanked them for helping me cross as I quickly jumped up to speed down the opposite side and back to my Wife.
This way down, though longer and more winding, was less steep and dodgy, and as I arrived back at the car to my Wife I said she could have walked that way up to the waterfall, which annoyed her as she had wandered partway up due to being bored but had assumed it didn't lead up to the waterfall.
We began the hour and a half drive out to the Reykjanes Peninsula, near the Keflavík International Airport where we had first arrived in Iceland, our first destination was meant to be Krýsuvík, another geothermal area, however once my Wife realised what it was she asked if we could bypass it as the smell would make her sick, and given I had just made her sit in the car while I hiked to Glymur, I agreed.
Instead, driving to Reykjanes Lighthouse.
As we began the walk up the stairs to the lighthouse, I got ungodly cramps in my legs and I had to sit down on the stairs, trying to message away the awful cramps, while my Wife waited for me at the base of the lighthouse. We did a walk around the lighthouse, as well as following a trail up there a short way North to a lookout, where we could see the geothermal sulphur billowing into the air.
Here was also a statue of the Great Auk. The statue is located near the that is believed to be the point where the last mating pair was killed in 1844. Which made us feel sad and remember the utter destructive force that is humans upon the natural world. (Not to get preachy, but stop destroying nature).
As we followed the paths along, we came to what we thought were the ruins of the old lighthouse storage building.
From here we drove out to Leif the Lucky Bridge, or the 'Bridge Between Continents'.
"The Mid-Atlantic Ridge that crossed Iceland is an impressive rift between active continental plates.
The ridge is the meeting-point of the North American and Eurasian plates and the Leif the Lucky Bridge acts to symbolically connect the two land masses while treating visitors to a view of the rift from the small footbridge."
From here we were reaching the endpoint of our Icelandic journey, as we drove back in to Reykjavík to return our Kia Sportage to the Hertz car yard, which was closed. We pulled up in a pay, emptying the car and grabbing our belongings, and dropping the key into a drop box. Rather then pay for a lift, we lugged all our stuff on a 30-minute walk through the streets of Reykjavík, and back to Hótel Frón to check in again.
This time we were in a much nicer and bigger room and we set out to enjoy the rest of our time in Reykjavík, as we would be picked up early the following morning and taken to Keflavík International Airport to return to Copenhagen, Denmark.
We headed up the road across from Hallgrimskirkja to Café Loki to get some dinner.
We got a seat upstairs, and I had waited to the end of the trip to try some of these more 'exotic' Icelandic foods.
"I hope I'll be alright." I said, feeling that it was unfortunate I had to be feeling ill during our last night in Iceland. We looked through the menu, deciding to order the 'Must try-Tasting' of Fermented shark (Hákarl) & Brennivín shot, homemade flatbread with sheep-head jelly, turnips & bean salad, and homemade rye bread with lamb pâté.
We started with the Hákarl, which we were told it was customary to chew the piece 7 times. My Wife ate a piece first, saying that if I gagged, she would not be able to try it.
We started sharing the sheep head jelly and lamb pâté and were surprised both were actually really tasty.
We decided to get desert afterwards, each getting 'Loki’s unique Rye bread ice cream with cream & rhubarb syrup'. Which we were told was made here and that other places do knock-off but this was the place that invented it, we took them at their word.
With a belly full of food we went back to the hotel to relax a little, stopping in first at a store to buy a flavoured drink each (each getting one we had never tried). I thought mine would be a sort of non-alcoholic beer sort of drink as it was a wheat drink, however it was so sickly sweet that to me it tasted like when I was a kid and to make myself eat the breakfast cereal 'Weet-Bix' I would absolutely cover in sugar, so it tasted liked, when you would get to the end, and drink up that sugary, wheat milk, but without the milk. Sugary wheat drink. Needless to say I couldn't finish it, and my Wife's drink? Bubble-gum flavoured, and she doesn't like bubble-gum. Needless to say it was a bit of a bust and I ended up having to duck out to the store to buy her another drink as she got upset about it 'ruining' our last night.
After a relax we went for a night walk down the street and around Tjörnin Pond and back, relaxing in our room, while I suggested getting licorice coffee's from 'Te & Kaffi' a coffee shop just up the road from our hotel in the morning.
However, it seemed that the licorice coffee syrup was no more as when order the man said the manufacturer had stopped making the syrup, as we tried another coffee shop that also had it on the menu, and to no avail. I had also wanted to get to Borg Brugghús to try a beer that had been smoked with sheep poo that I had read about in my book 'Brewed with Balls' about weird beers from all over the world that I had bought back when my Wife and I were first dating, however we never go the time to go here.
Day 13 - There was nothing planned this day, we awoke, having our buffet breakfast in Hótel Frón, slowly making our way back to our rooms to make sure everything was packed, and heading down to the foyer to await our lift to the airport. (I was expecting the lady who got us our first day).
However it was another man who led us up the street to a van, and we hopped in and began our way to the airport, a tinge of sadness in our hearts. He asked us if we had eaten anything interesting in Iceland.
We told him we had had the fermented shark and told him it wasn't too bad. We also told him we ate horse, he told us that it was his favourite.
We thanked him for the lift, and proceeded in making our way through the airport, now having to have a look in duty-free. (As you cannot take alcohol in your carry-on to Australia, as we learned on our Europe trip, and it would be too late in Copenhagen's airport so we had to do it here).
We bought two large bottle's of the licorice drink 'Opal' (one for us, one for my Wife's parents for Christmas), a bottle of Icelandic Schnapps with Icelandic moss in it, and 6 little tasting bottles that we thought we would try at our hotel in Copenhagen, including a small bottle or regular Opal, wild berry flavoured Opal, Lava Icelandic Bitter (that was filtered through lava!), Björk Liqueur from Icelandic Birch, Crowberry Liqueur, and finally Birkir Snaps from Icelandic Birch.
It was a pretty long wait for our flight, but eventually we watched our plane land, quickly empty, quickly load our stuff and begin boarding. We masked up for our flight with once more no entertainment and commented that with the quick turn around with flights, there's no way they would have disinfected things adequality, once more accusing something of getting me sick.
After what seemed like a really long flight we made it back to Copenhagen and were once more surprised that no one even checked our passports. It was a weird feeling as we headed towards the Andersen Boutique Hotel, as Copenhagen was feeling like home.
After checking in we proceeded to our room, having some cup of soups for dinner with some bread and getting an early night, with the plan to head to Tivoli Gardens theme park the following day, with my Wife now also starting to feel ill.
Epilogue - Copenhagen Part 2
We had planned originally to hire bikes upon our return to Copenhagen and spend the morning riding around to the Little Mermaid Statue to view it from land, and to venture out to the mysterious Christianshavn and the street-food area, Reffen.
Unfortunately, we were far too unwell, and so we slept in the following morning, having to eventually force ourselves to get up in the morning and head down for breakfast, drinking a lot of juice and coffee to shake off the sickness and fatigue.
We had also planned to go back to the museum to by the mead, and still eager to buy it we set off to the museum, stopping in at a pharmacy at the train station and stocking up on some paracetamol to get us through. We bought the mead, which I am yet to drink (wanting to save if, both until I had finished this blog, and for Winter, whether or not we can hold off time will tell)
 |
| Sea Wolf Mead photo from Nationalmuseet |
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel, to try and rest up. We had wanted to visit Tivoli Gardens to go on all the rides, but we were questioning whether or not we were well enough. After some resting and paracetamol, we decided we'd feel really sad if we missed going, and so made our way over shortly after it opened at 11am.
We spent the entire day there, going around and making sure we went on all the rides (some multiple times).
 |
| 'Hans Christian Anderson' from a ride based on his fairytales |
All the way into the night, continuing to go on rides as the park now lit up with all the colourful lights.
We wanted to stay to watch the Tivoli Illuminations a light show. After we were done with rides (a solid effort of going on them all day while sick), we made our way into the Tivoli Food Hall for dinner.
I ended up getting the spicy duck ramen, which was one of the best Ramen I'd ever had and was exactly what I felt like while feeling under the weather, and the flavour worked so much nicer than the ramen I had eaten at the Wagamama.
We continued back inside Tivoli to away the spectacular laser show, and brilliant send of for our final night in Denmark. We wandered back to our hotel holding hands, and went inside for a hot shower, and some sleep.
The following morning, after enjoying our final breakfast, we left our hotel for the airport runaround and awful flight home while feeling absolutely horrible. I felt in my heart a desire to explore more of Denmark, and my Wife a desire to explore more of Iceland (though where our next overseas holiday will take us, maybe Japan? Time will tell).
Stuck on the flight, we masked up while listening to everyone else on the plane cough, sniffle and splutter. I was curded into a ball the most I could and watched a few things (finishing that climbing reality series I had begun), but I didn't feel the motivation, too ill and eager to get home and rest.
After 23 hours, we finally got through all the security at Sydney airport, with my Father-in-law picking us up to drive us home. We wore masks again in the car and I could feel the straps hurting the backs of my ears. Getting home I realised both of my legs were swollen and sore from not moving around enough on the flight, and they didn't go back down to regular size until a whole 48 hours later.
Before having a shower and getting ready for bed we did a covid test (RAT) just to check, as these were not readily available anywhere overseas. Sure enough, it came up positive, our first time contracting covid-19. Now that we were home and not pushing ourselves to do things the sickness hit us, and I ended up taking a week off from work (my Wife lost her sense of taste for almost that entire time too). Finally, it cleared up, though even now, almost two months later as I finish writing this blog (which I struggled with covid brain fog for) we still feel some of the effects of the fatigue. (My immune issues with my cancer and stem cell transplant probably didn't help even though I'd had 6 shots of covid vaccine).
Sometimes I question writing my blog, as I see others, more well read, more popular. But then I remember I never started it for fame, for attention. I began it to remember my adventures, my stories, and more than ever I realise why that was a good idea, even as little as two months after this holiday I found myself forgetting things, and forcing myself to go through, bit by bit, and remember my holiday, helped me appreciate it more. To stay in that moment a little while longer. For it not to just be a passing moment but a fond memory I can return to again and again.
So, the writing will continue, and if you, (or myself if I'm reading this once more) can come back, for another, Steventure.
 |
| Steventure Logo by Stuart Karindjias |
