Destination Realities: Iceland

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might have read some of my Destination Daydreams posts about the things I really want to do while I'm travelling. Now that the first destination, Iceland, is very much done and dusted, I thought I'd revisit my original ideas and see how it panned out.

1. I planned on 2 weeks

But the cheapest flights out of the country to Halifax, Nova Scotia were on Thursdays and Saturdays and I figured that with the costs in Iceland in general, 10 days should do. And it has.

2. I wanted to see the Golden Circle in summer

Achievement get. This was the first trip I took and it was as wonderful as I imagined. Save for my camera breaking, but we'll ignore that for now.

3. Jokulsarlon and Vatnajokull

I would have loved to see both of these places - Jokulsarlon is a lagoon full of icebergs, Vatnajokull is the glacier they calve from. Unfortunately, day trips there are more expensive than I'd have liked and to do it on public transport would have meant having to stay overnight in somewhere like Hofn where accommodation is extorionate.

4. The North East

I listed Husavik for whale watching, as well as Akureyri and Myvatn. Turns out I could go whale watching from Akureyri, which is easier and cheaper to get to and it was awesome. Myvatn and its famous hot pools was just too awkward to do on public transport and there was plenty to keep me occupied in Akureyri for the couple of days I was there.

5. Snaefellsnes

I'd added a visit to Snaefellsnes onto my original plans as a sort of afterthought. I'm so glad I took a trip there though, even if it did rain all day! It's a beautiful, wild place and so quiet.

Overall, I think I managed to accomplish most of my original goals for Iceland. Now, things to bear in mind for anyone thinking of planning a trip there.

1. If you can go self catering, do it

Eating out is prohibitively expensive, not just in Reykjavik but across the country. I treated myself to a few small meals and every time I winced at the cost. There's a supermarket called Bonus which is incredibly cheap by Icelandic standards - go there instead.

2. Don't just stick to Reykjavik

Iceland feels like a huge place once you get out of the capital. It's worth getting a bus, or a car if you can afford it, and exploring a bit. The public bus to Akureyri works out at about £50-60 one way and it's worth it for the views alone.

3. Visit some of the museums

Reykjavik is dotted with an assortment of museums, as is Akureyri. Just don't expect them to be free - 1500 krona seems to be fairly standard.

4. Get out and walk

There are loads of green spaces in the cities and good footpaths run along the shore in both Reykjavik and Akureyri. Once you're away from the city centre, which is pretty small in both cases, it's super quiet and you might even get the area to yourself, at least for a little while.

5. Embrace the weather

Us Brits famously love talking about the weather. Iceland's weather is changeable - seriously changeable, to the point that the Icelanders like to tell tourists, "don't like the weather? Wait 10 minutes."

When I walked out to the Grotta lighthouse, the weather changed within the space of a couple of minutes from bright sunshine to rolling fog across the bay. By the time I walked back to the city it was blazing hot again. Madness.

Budget

OK, so bearing in mind I'm travelling solo and aiming to be on the road for a year, here's a few figures to give you an idea of cost.

Accommodation: worked out about £25 per night, even staying in hostels. The one in Reykjavik worked out more expensive than my room in Akureyri, despite it being a 24 bed dorm. Also useful to bear in mind is that many (if not all) hostels in Iceland will charge you extra for linen, so it's helpful to take a sleeping bag wih you.

Food: I think I did quite well here and even with eating out 4 or 5 times, my food bill worked out at less than £8 a day. I shopped at Bonus, which is the closest Iceland gets to a discount supermarket, and when I ate out I went for soups, smaller portions (which are still pretty good sizes) and ate during the day instead of the evening when prices tend to go up.

Transport: in the cities, I walked - most of the attractions in Reykjavik are within easy walking distance of the centre and this is even more true of Akureyri. The public bus in Reykjavik costs 400-420 krona for a single trip, which is a bit more than £2. Intercity buses cost 9240 krona one way, which is about £56 at the moment. Not too bad for a 6 hour plus bus trip in a notoriously expensive country. Plus, the scenery is awesome.

Activities: My biggest expense -  £343, give or take. This covered 3 day trips with Reykjavik Excursions and a whale watching trip from Akureyri, plus several museums and a trip to the cinema. Clearly the biggest expense was the day trips, but if you don't drive, this is the easiest way to get out of the city and see Iceland's beautiful landscapes. Also, whales. I will never say no to whales. I failed to find a single free museum in Iceland. The cheapest was the Akureyri City Museum, at 1200 krona - about £7.25. Most in Reykjavik are 1500 krona, unless you're going to the Phallological Museum which is a bit cheaper and totally worth it for the gift of being able to say you've been to a museum dedicated almost entirely to giant whale penises.

Overall, Iceland met my expectations with regards to price and more than met them with regards to being awesome.

Anyone else been to Iceland and think I've missed something important? Do share.

Iceland: Whales, soup and... penises?

Wow, my time in Iceland went pretty quick. I'm now in Canada, exploring the Atlantic provinces for a few weeks before heading inland. I spent much of my 10 days in Iceland feeling like I was just on holiday and that come the end of my stay, I'd be heading home. Obviously that's not the case and now it feels like this is finally real. Weird sensation.

Anyway, enough of that rambling. Here's what I've been up to over the past week.

The Ring Goes... North

I took a 6 hour bus around the Ring Road to get to Akureyri. This is Iceland's second biggest city after Reykjavik, although city is being generous - there's only about 18,000 people living there. It's a lovely little place though, all spread out down the side of Eyjafjordur and surrounded by mountains.

The drive itself was pretty cool too, given that the weather held out all the way there so I could actually see the scenery. It feels a bit like driving through New Zealand - the landscapes here are huge for such a small island.

FOUR HUMPBACK WHALES!

My first real day in Akureyri, I'd planned to go to the city museum and then to the Botanical Gardens in the afternoon. The gardens are the northernmost botanical gardens in the world, so that would have been good.

However...

Akureyri and the nearby town of Husavik are supposedly the best places in Iceland from which to go whale watching. So, on my way down towards the museum I stopped in at the whale watching companies, thinking to book a trip for the next day. The first place (and the cheapest) turned out to have availability for that afternoon, so I jumped on that instead.

That didn't really give me chance to go to the museum, so I headed back to the hostel, grabbed my cold weather gear and went back down to the harbour.

We spent about an hour motoring down towards the mouth of the fjord in search of whales and were rewarded with sighting 4 humpbacks over the hour or so we spent down there. Unfortunately, I'm still getting the hang of my new camera, so all of my photos are really bad. Here's the best of a bad bunch.

The highlight of the trip, though, was the moment we turned to head for port and caught sight of this.


That, is a pair of humpbacks breaching. Repeatedly. I think they did it 2 or 3 times each. Fortunately, the guide on board the boat filmed that, because I managed to miss every single breach with my camera and eventually gave up in favour of just watching this amazing spectacle.

I didn't get much done for the rest of that day... too busy buzzing about whales.

Wait, I fib. I went for a walk down the fjord. I had intended to walk down as far as the airport, because the runway sticks out into the fjord. I got as far as the end of the runway and gave up because it's actually quite a long way and the wind is very cold and I was wearing the wrong shoes and I should just stop making excuses, right?

Anyway, the fjord is very pretty and full of little families of eider ducks. The ducklings are adorable and I was very tempted to steal them all.

Here there be monsters...

My second day in Akureyri, I did make it to the city museum, which had a fascinating exhibition about the history of Iceland maps. That is, there was a room full of maps of Iceland and I was in heaven. Here there be monsters and a koala called Harold.

Then I went for lunch at the Nordic Bistro and finally tried Icelandic lamb soup. Really delicious and the bread that came with it was just as good. I'm not normally a fan of lamb, but it was so warming and just what I needed after walking back from the museum in the strong winds which blow down the fjord.

#delicious bowl of #icelandic #lamb #soup or #goulash with #fresh #bread in #akureyri, #iceland. #food #travel #rtw #roundtheworld

A photo posted by Zoë Dixon (@kiwifruitpolice) on Jun 21, 2016 at 3:09am PDT

As with all things in Iceland, not exactly cheap, but worth it.

I had intended to spend the afternoon exploring the Botanical Gardens that I'd missed out on the day before, but the wind was picking up and as I left the bistro, a huge black cloud had settled over the length of the fjord and I didn't fancy my chances of a dry afternoon so headed back to the hostel to lounge around - midnight sun isn't entirely conducive to good sleep patterns.

Sure enough, it pissed down all afternoon. I made up for the wasted time by heading back into town in the evening to catch Finding Dory at the tiny cinema. It's one of those little local places where they still put an interval in, even when it's not needed. Funny seeing the film with Icelandic subtitles and I had great fun trying to work out what all the Icelandic adverts were for.

The Ring Goes South

(and if you're not singing the Lord of the Rings theme... shame)
Tuesday morning I got back on the bus and headed down south to Reykjavik. Fairly uneventful, save for the 5 minutes we had to stop the bus because a huge herd of Iceland's famous horses were crossing the road. They just kept coming! Beautiful animals and my photos don't do them justice.

Oh, and then there was the drunk woman who got on the bus and sat next to me for the last hour into Reykjavik. Very drunk, very loud and at one point randomly burst into tears. I didn't know what to do so I just left her to it.

I then had great fun trying to explain to the bus driver on the local bus that I wanted to get off at Rauðarárstígur. I can't pronounce Rauðarárstígur so I tried asking for the stop before Hlemmur, which it is and at least I can pronounce Hlemmur. He just thought I wanted to get off at Hlemmur. Fortunately, the ticket's the same price regardless. Phew.

It's bigger than me...

On my final full day in Iceland I took a wander to the Phallological Museum. Yes, Iceland has a museum dedicated to the penis. It is bizarre. This is a sperm whale penis. It is definitely longer than I am tall. Which is sort of terrifying.

Perhaps more terrifying is the fact that some crazy Icelander actually donated his own... bits... to the museum when he died. No photos of that. Too freaked out. Also, boar penises are curly. Like pigs' tails.

Moving swiftly on. Having weirded myself out with the museum, I decided to take a walk around the bay to Grotta, which is either the lighthouse or the island the lighthouse is on. Either way, it turned out to be quite a lot further around the bay than I'd anticipated. I did make it though, just in time to see the lighthouse vanish into a fog bank. Going...

Going...

Gone.

It's amazing how quick that fog rolled in. Fortunately it was still quite warm and at least it was dry. Due to this, I was getting thirsty and also hungry because I'd just walked 4 miles and my breakfast had gone a long way down. Lucky for me there's a whole bunch of little cafes and the like down at the harbour.

The harbour was 3 miles away.

So by the time I got there I was starving. Which meant when I crossed the road and a wave of delicious smell hit me, I headed straight into a tiny burger bar. And I mean tiny.

There I had the most deliciously greasy burger and skinny McCains chips. Yes, Iceland uses McCains chips. And while the burger was greasy, it was definitely proper meat. Yum. Not like MacDonalds, which reminds me...

Having stuffed my face and with my legs protesting that I'd just walked a lot further than I have for quite a while, I decided to head back to the hostel. And I finally found where they're keeping it.

See, the Bus Hostel in Reykjavik is the proud owner of the last Big Mac sold in Iceland. They keep it on the bar. Ta-dah!

And then I watched the Iceland-Austria match and cheered when Iceland scored a goal in the closing seconds to set up a meeting with England in the next round. Oh, the conflict - Iceland are the underdog and I love an underdog, but I'm English. Who the hell do I support? Guh.

Nothing to declare

So dawned my final day in Iceland. It began with an argument with the Delta Airlines site when I tried to book a flight from Calgary to Anchorage, just in case I was asked for an onward ticket at the airport. Got that sorted eventually, but I nearly gave up and would have risked it.

Fortunately, the rest of my day in Reykjavik went much better. I had a stroll around the city and finally had a look inside Harpa, the funky looking concert hall on the bay.

Also bought myself a little souvenir in the form of a funky little luggage tag, because I realised after the debacle at the airport on the way in that I should probably have some sort of ID on my rucksack.

Then I grabbed a delicious falafel and feta pita for lunch before heading up to Hallgrimskirkja. This is a huge church on a hill in the city centre. You can see it from all the way across the bay in Akranes. I'd been up it when I visited last year, so I wanted to see whether the view was any better with clearer skies.

Sort of. It was a pretty cloudy day in Reykjavik. After that, it was off to the airport again.

Uneventful airport times (save for a slight delay), uneventful flight in which I finally watched Deadpool (awesome film) and then about 45 minutes later than scheduled, I arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

And promptly had to go and talk to Immigration. Which would have been fine, but my brain thought it was about 1am by this point. I had to show the nice lady my online banking to prove I had the funds for my trip, tried to explain that I had no firm plans except to be in Vancouver on August 12th and that I'd booked a flight that morning to leave Canada on August 29th.

It probably didn't take as long as I think it did, but I was getting seriously concerned they weren't going to let me stay as long as I needed. And I could feel myself going pink, guilt complex kicking in. Maybe I had done something wrong? What other proof did they need? What the hell was I going to do if they didn't let me have my 2 and a half months?

Yeah. That wasn't a great way to arrive.

Fortunately, after much babbling about my very vague plans ("how're you getting around?" -"umm... I'm going to take buses and trains. I think... I'm told they're all right. Umm... I don't drive."), the nice lady finally stamped my passport and let me in.

Phew.

Then I just had to wait another hour to get the shuttle into the city. Lovely friendly chap gave me directions, just in case the driver couldn't drop me outside the hostel. And then I drank a huge cup of tea because OH MY GOD I NEEDED THE CAFFEINE.

And so, I am now in Canada for 2 and a half months. Ish. More adventure awaits.

Anyone else had fun with Immigration before? Do share!

Iceland: Waterfalls, volcanoes and rain

OH MY GOD THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.

Ahem. Anyway. In magical events this week, my Grand Tour which has been in the planning for the best part of 18 months (if not longer) has finally begun. I've spent the last few days in the beautiful city of Rekjavik. Well, actually, I've only really been in Reykjavik to sleep. Here's a quick recap of what I've been up to so far.

My trip started with the usual farting about with trains and then a lovely afternoon in London with Claire who gifted me this little chap

His name is Harold. He is now my mascot.

From London, I had to head to Gatwick to catch a flight the next day. All went well until I arrived in Reykjavik on Monday morning. See, EasyJet have these new-fangled bag drop machines so you don't even get to talk to someone when you dump your bag. All well and good, but when I arrived in Reykjavik my bag was nowhere to be seen. An hour and a half later, I thought, fuck it, I'm going to go and complain to the baggage people. Which took me past the oversized baggage area (which is just a dumping ground next to the carousels) and lo and behold, there was my bag. Fuming.

Aside from that, my first day in Reykjavik was lovely, if a little marred by sleep deprivation. I took a walk along the bay front.

And then, because I was still feeling a bit grouchy, I treated myself to fish and chips instead of cooking. Lovely little restaurant near the harbour provided me with ling, crispy potatoes and a mango flavoured dip. Different, but pretty good. Sorry, Grimsby!

The Golden Circle

My first real day in Iceland began much too early for my liking. Don't ask me why, but I clearly thought it was a great idea to book a tour that started at 7am when I'd had very little sleep and a very long day the day before.

That said, my trip to the Golden Circle was great fun. There were only 2 other people on the tour - everyone else was presumeably sensible enough to decide against such an early start - so we had the minibus to ourselves. Also, as I noticed at our first stop, setting off so early meant we got most of the sites to ourselves as well.

Said first stop was Fridheimar, a farm which grows tomatoes, mostly. I should maybe point out that I actually did the Golden Circle tour 18 months ago, so the idea of Icelanders growing tomatoes year round is no longer new to me, but it's interesting nonetheless. Also, a box of bees, which they get shipped from Holland every week to keep the tomatoes pollinated. Woo for bees.

From there, we headed to Gullfoss. I was especially looking forward to this because 18 months ago, the waterfall was mostly frozen over. Not so this time.

All of the pretties. There isn't much else to say about Gullfoss, so let's move on to the next stop, which was Geysir, the geyser from which all other geysers get their name. Geysir itself doesn't go off much any more, but its younger neighbour Strokkur does.

I should have quit while I was ahead with geyser photographs. Because just after I took that one, I decided to have another go. And the wind caught the plume just at the wrong moment. And poured it over me. Pretty sure I spent the rest of the day smelling of rotten eggs.

From there, we drove down to Thingvellir National Park, where Iceland's parliament, the Althingi, used to meet for about 700 years. Beautiful place.

Unfortunately, just after I took that photograph, I took this one.

And realised there was something seriously wrong with my camera, which after that shot just took pictures of funny coloured lines and splotches. This meant I spent much of the drive back to Reykjavik frantically trying to connect to the minibus WiFi to work out what was wrong and then had to traipse around the city to find a camera shop.

Which I did. And discovered that, as I feared, the camera was beyond help. So I bought a new one. At Icelandic prices, that's money I'd rather not have spent, but I can't be doing without a camera. Ugh.

My day was significantly improved by the lovely Icelandic chap who'd been in the camera shop at the same time and caught up with me as I was leaving. He gave me some suggestions for cool places to photograph, complete with directions and suggestions of the best times to be there to exploit Iceland's weird summer light. I'll say this - so far, I've found the Icelanders to be very friendly people.

South Shore Adventure

In the second of my early starts (although not as early as the day before) I headed off on another trip, this time to Iceland's beautiful south coast. Yet more hours stuck on a bus were more than made up for by the wonderful sights. Take Solheimajokull for a start.

It's a glacier. Coming off a volcano. Hence the black colour, I presume - from the ash? And then there's the tiny town of Vik and it's amazing black sand beach. I made the nistake of getting a bit too close to the sea and ended up with soggy boots. Fortunately said boots are waterproof so at least my feet were dry.

Vik was the furthest point of the trip from Reykjavik, so from there we headed back the way we came, stopping first at Reynisfjara, also a black sand beach. It also has these wonderful basalt columns - a bit like the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

While we were at the beach a lovely Canadian lady collared me after overhearing me mention going to Canada and proceeded to give me some suggestions on where to visit. Apparently I am capable of having conversations with strangers!

Then on to the little village of Skogar and its folk museum. Very interesting and I would have liked to have spent a bit more time there. Lots of information about traditional life in Iceland, including these funky two-thumbed mittens the fishermen used to wear.

They have two thumbs because their hands would get warm rowing and they could just flip them round to the cool side. Or something like that... Or maybe the thumbs wore out quick? It was something to do with rowing at any rate.

They also had a tub of bezoars, so if anyone gets poisoned, Skogar is the place to go.

Then just around the corner is beautiful Skogarfoss. It's a single drop waterfall and I couldn't resist the temptation to get as close as possible without getting soaked.

Which was going great until the wind changed and all the spray came in my direction. Oops. But hey, it was an experience.

I also got a bit drippy at the next stop, which was another waterfall called Seljalandsfoss. This one was especially cool, because you can actually walk behind the waterfall. Unfortunately, behind the waterfall is also spray-central, but at least this time I was wearing my waterproof. Clever me.

And from there, home. Well, back to the hostel.

Wonders of Snaefellsnes

Day three proper in Iceland dawned horribly early again. Fortunately, the tour I took turned out to be another minibus one with a lovely guide up to the Snaefellsnes peninsula. First stop proper was at Ytri Tunga where we attempted to do some seal-spotting. Unfortunately, the rain had set in and there were no seals to be found, although we did get divebombed by a couple of angry arctic terns.

Then the tiny settlement, if you can call it that, of Budir where there's a lava field and a pretty old church. And more rain, if you must know.

With the rain showing no sign of letting up, we hurried off to our next stop at Arnarstapi where we took a walk along the cliff top to admire the basalt formations. And get rained on some more. And shrieked at by more terns. I will admit that at this point my attempts to stay positive were beginning to falter.

Oh, and there's a troll on the hill.

Fortunately for my flagging morale, the next stop was lunch. I've been trying not to buy meals in Iceland because it's so very expensive, but at this point I didn't give a damn any more, so treated myself (ha) to a bowl of mushroom soup which came to 1500 krona. In case you're wondering, that's bloody expensive for a bowl of soup.

However, the soup was delicious and came with lovely fresh bread and really, it was just what I needed. That and a chat with the Irish chap on the tour who later kept me updated with the England-Wales Euro score. Nice chap.

After lunch, the stops became shorter - quick little photo stops along the north coast of the peninsula. The first of these was inside a volcano. Well... a pseudo-volcano.

You have to admit, it does look quite... volcano-ish. And it did form because of all the volcanism. And sod it, I just want to say I've been inside a volcano. So there.

Then we stopped at another lovely black sand beach, complete with surrounding lava field at Djupalonssandur. I had a bit of a moment on the beach when I realised the bits of old wreck lying about on the sand were from a Grimsby trawler. If anyone knows anything about a trawler called Epine, can you let me know?

And then I fell asleep and we stopped at Kirkjufell, which is a funny pointy mountain. My new camera, which had been behaving up until this point, decided it didn't like the light conditions so I've only got a couple of sort-of-decent photos from here.

From there, a quick stop to use the facilities at Grundafjordur and another at a place I couldn't pronounce (and can't even guess at) to see some more basalt columns. As Xavier, our guide, liked to keep pointing out - "this is not in the programme."

And then home. I think I might have fallen asleep again. During the drop offs, Xavier informed me that my hostel appears to own the last Big Mac sold in Iceland before MacDonalds pulled out. I'll have to see if I can find it.

In Cod We Trust

Or so went the saying at the Maritime Museum when I visited earlier today. They have an exhibition on at the moment about the cod wars, which my hometown was rather involved in. So I got to playing the game of "how many references to Grimsby can I find?"

Turns out to be quite a few. Overall, a great little exhibition, if understandably Iceland-biased. I spent the hour after that watching a great documentary about fishing in Iceland in the late 1800s, and then enjoyed the rest of the museum. Some funky little bits.

Basically, I've had a great start to my trip, even with the few little mishaps. Aside from yesterday, the weather's been great too, which I wasn't expecting. And, importantly, I've managed to have conversations with people. They might have been short and mostly someone else instigated them, but I don't care.

Tomorrow I have yet another early start because I've got to catch a bus up to Akureyri on the north coast where I'll be staying for the next few days before heading back to Reykjavik on Tuesday in time to catch my flight to Canada on Thursday.

So far, so good.

Destination Daydreams: Iceland

Iceland is the first planned stop on my Grand Tour next year. I've already visited once but only really saw Reykjavik and the classic "Golden Circle" of Geysir, Gullfoss and Thingvellir National Park. So, given that I've set aside 2 weeks for the whole country, what should I go and see?

Well, first up I'd like to see more of Reykjavik. I covered a few of the museums when I visited before but it'd be nice to see more of it. Visiting in summer probably has its advantages in that I won't be worrying about slipping over on the ice all the time.

On that note, I'd like to do the Golden Circle again and see how much it changes between the seasons. Gullfoss, the waterfall, was frozen over when I saw it, so it'd be pretty cool to see it in full flow.

Jokulsarlon is another place I really want to visit. I wanted to see it when I visited before but it being the middle of winter made getting there a bit of a problem. The Grand Tour kicks off next summer, so I won't be having that problem this time. I can get a bus out there and then spend some time gawping over the pretties. Just imagine: a lake full of icebergs. Going to be awesome and I can get there from Reykjavik on the bus. Even better.

In fact, I can get pretty much all the way round the country on the bus. In the same sort of area as Jokulsarlon is Vatnajokull National Park, containing Iceland's biggest ice sheet. That also sounds awesome, especially given that there's a few rather large volcanoes underneath it. Fun times.

From there, there's a number of places I could stop and chill out for a few days along the south and east coasts but the next place I really want to go is Husavik on the north east coast, supposedly one of the best places on the island to go whale watching. After the disappointment of no whales on our whale watch in Ireland, I really want to see whales again and Husavik looks like a good bet.

Not far from Husavik is Akureyri, Iceland's second biggest settlement, which looks like a quaint little place to spend a day or two exploring. There's also Myvatn not too far away which has all sorts of scrummy geothermal things to see (and bathe in if the whim takes me).

From there... well, there's not a whole lot that I've picked out on the way back between Akureyri and Reykjavik unless I can find a way to get out to Snaefellsnes, a peninsula on the west coast which supposedly has some of the island's best bird watching. Can't resist a bit of bird watching.

And then back to Reykjavik. Tempted to take a trip to the Blue Lagoon on my way to the airport given how pleasantly I was surprised when I went there in January. I'm not really a spa sort of person but bobbing about in lovely warm water with the stars overhead was amazing.

Well, I think that covers the main things. All the touristy highlights. I'm giving myself 2 weeks and I think that's enough time to cover what I want to see. Always open to detours though - what would you recommend as Iceland's top sights?

Iceland: "It's still better than the average Icelandic pavement."

Hurray for massive continental breakfast selection at hotels. Just what we needed to keep us going in the bitingly cold Icelandic weather.

After said hearty breakfast (and rather large quantities of tea) we headed out into the city. We had nothing planned, so just aimed to wander about till we found something interesting. A few metres outside the hotel we discovered something very interesting.

Well, I say interesting. Dangerous might be more appropriate. Namely that pavements don't get gritted in Iceland. Not as far as we could see. Even with our walking boots we were slipping and sliding all over the place.

Eventually we managed to make it to one of the bridges over the lake in the middle of the city, Reykjavikurtjorn. I think I've missed some accents off that... Umm... Anyhoo. Looked like a nice stroll across the bridge. Really not. The Storm came back again. In fact, it came back so strong that we decided not to argue with it and went a different way. Believe me, ice rain smacking you in the face is not a pleasant sensation.

So we fled from the Storm and took refuge, eventually, in the tourist information centre. I acquired a whole assortment of leaflets and Gemma suggested maybe we should head to the harbour and see if we could go whale-watching. This sounded like a wonderful plan to me (even if I rather suspected it was going to be too windy).

As I suspected the two main operators of the whale-watching boats both said it was too rough to go out today but if we came back tomorrow or Friday we might be able to go. Tomorrow (Thursday) we were going on a full-day tour and Friday... well, the boats went out in the afternoon and we were heading off for a nice relaxing spa trip at just the wrong time. Ah well. Whales will have to wait.

---

At this point, it still being rather cold and both of us struggling to stay upright, we decided to find lunch. Which took us to the Laundromat Cafe, a nice little place which really does function partially as a laundromat. Amazing potato wedges and a pretty damn good burger followed. Om nom nom.

Energy stores replenished (if a little sluggish after all the stodge), we wandered up the road and found our way, largely by accident, to the Settlement Exhibition. Amazing. Really amazing. It's below street level, the result of an excavation while they were widening the street (or something). The centrepiece is an original Norse longhouse. I love stuff like this - I grew up watching Time Team - and this, this was just awesome. There's not a huge amount to the exhibition itself, but there's plenty of information about the early settlement of Iceland, plus a whole bunch of little interactive bits. Hurray for touchscreen technology in museums.

Seriously, if you end up in Reykjavik, go check it out. Moving on.

Geekery fulfilled, we decided to brave the weather again and headed for a walk along the bayfront at which point I finally took my first decent photos of the trip. ALL THE PRETTIES.

This delightfully ridiculous looking building is Harpa, home of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. It lights up at night. I think it's supposed to be the Northern Lights. Just looks trippy to me.

Iceland has different traditions regarding when to take down Christmas trees to the UK. Which meant this straggly looking specimen was still up and Gemma wanted a photo.

And then we slipped and slid around up the road for a bit. I say a bit - it decided to shower ice from the heavens again so we took refuge in the side streets where it was less blustery. Even more slipping and sliding later, we made it back to the park which surrounds Reykjavikurtjorn and discovered that walking on the sodden, frozen grass was easier than walking on the path. Better than the average Icelandic pavement, that grass, according to Gemma.

Chilly and a bit bored, we left the park and aimed for Listasafn Islands, the National Gallery of Iceland. Partly for the art, but mostly because we needed to warm up. Nice big cup of tea in the cafe fixed that. The Gallery itself... not to my taste. Largely "modern" art (yes, I'm sure there's a more accurate term, but I'm not an artist) which I don't get. Ah well.

Now that I'm writing this up it looks like we did more than I thought we had... how odd. Anyhoos, we decided after leaving the Gallery we'd head back to the hotel - after all, the Northern Lights tour might be going ahead. Snapped a few pics of the lake and downtown Reykjavik on the way past.

Still slidy as hell on the way back. Mitigated slightly by a trip to a lovely little bakery on the corner near the hotel where we picked up some pastries for tea. We'd had a big lunch. Pastries seemed like a wonderful idea.

Aaaaand... then the Northern Lights tour didn't go ahead. Bugger it. Try again tomorrow.

Iceland: "It's like Taranaki all over again!"

After taking 6 hours to get to Gatwick and then getting a relatively good night's sleep at the hotel, we set off again, this time to the airport proper. Check in was possibly the easiest I've ever dealt with - the advantage here of taking cabin baggage only. Early morning tiredness and grouchy mood seriously helped by the little baggage labels which proudly proclaim "YOU SHALL PASS" in happy letters. Aww.

A leisurely stop at Costa for breakfast (mmm, bacon buns) and then a massively uneventful flight to Keflavik Airport. The view was gorgeous on the descent, but unfortunately I have no photos.

Only downside of the nice view was that I could quite clearly see the army of snowploughs trundling merrily around the runway. I imagine it goes something like this: plough runway, plane lands, plough runway again. Repeatedly. All day.

By this time it was about 2 in the afternoon. It near enough took us less time to get from London to Keflavik than it did to get from Grimsby to London. Why is that? WHY, UK? Why?

Ahem. Moving on.

Quick airport lunch and then a shuttle to Reykjavik proper which is about 45 minutes' drive away. It started snowing while we were waiting on the bus. It did not stop.

I fell asleep on the bus and by the time I woke up again it was properly dark and we were almost into Reykjavik. Considering it's not that big a city (200,000+ people), it spreads a bloody long way. Passing through the outskirts I started imagining the nice comfy hotel waiting for us. Suffice to say said hotel was actually almost another hour away.

Reykjavik is pretty at night. I have no photos of this. Bugger it.

The hotel was also rather nice. Having spent three weeks hostelling round New Zealand, this was a nice change. You know, no low-lying bunk-beds out to give you concussion, no queue for the bathroom... Mmm.

Anyways, the receptionist was also super awesome and pointed us in the direction of a Thai place down the road to grab some tea. So we wrapped up, by now realising just how cold it is in Iceland, and trudged off down the road in search of food.

I should point out here that the Icelanders don't seem to have discovered the concept of gritting pavements. Or roads for that matter. It's a good job we took walking boots.

The Thai place was a little take away with a tiny little bar to sit if you wanted to eat in. Despite initial appearances it was actually really rather good (and massively filling) and lulled me at least into a false sense of security regarding Icelandic prices.

Nicely full of spring rolls and noodles, we turned to brave the cold again. Which was fine - layer upon layer of clothes was keeping that out. We weren't so prepared for the sudden onslaught of the ice rain which hit us part way back to the hotel. I can but presume I was a bit delirious with tiredness by this point because I just kept giggling and telling Gemma it was like Taranaki all over again and I'd have to tell my sister when we got back. I'm not sure she heard me - too wrapped up in her scarf and whatnot. See this post 'yur regarding the adventure at Taranaki. Bloody storm, following me around the world. Gah.

Any vague plans we'd had to do a little exploration round Reykjavik went on hold and after the planned trip to see the Northern Lights got cancelled because of that damn storm we ended up spending the evening channel hopping.

Great, aside from the fact that the only English-language channels in the hotel room were news channels and Cartoon Network. I introduced Gemma to the Powerpuff Girls. It was glorious.

Jetting off again

So, I'm still missing the last two posts for our New Zealand trip. It's only... oooh, four months or so since we got back to the UK. I'll sling up a couple of posts with pictures in a bit, but you can blame Amy and Claire for the lack of actual text.

Anyways, moving on. I'm commandeering the blog to be a general travel blog. It's a new year, I have loads of places I want to go and I figured I wanted to share some of it with folks.

First up is a trip to Iceland next week with my friend Gemma. Four days in Reykjavik. With it being the middle of winter, we've got a pretty good chance of seeing the Northern Lights, which would be most awesome. Itinerary so far is as follows:

• 6th January - Fly out to Reykjavik in the morning, explore Reykjavik in the afternoon, Northern Lights spotting trip in the evening.
• 7th January - More Reykjavik exploration? Yeah.
• 8th January - Golden Circle Tour - height of geographical and geological geekery. Pretty lakes, pretty geysers (including the original, helpfully named Geysir) and the point where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet in Thingvellir National Park. Woo.
• 9th January - Even more Reykjavik exploration? Maybe. And then a late afternoon trip to the super-famous Blue Lagoon to relax in lovely warm pools. Ahh.
• 10th January - annoyingly early flight back to the UK, perhaps with a couple of hours in London before we get the train back up North.

Hoping that we'll also squidge in a spot of whale-watching, because after New Zealand and the joy of seeing so many whales and dolphins I will take whatever opportunity I can to do it again.

I'm hoping I'll be able to do a blog a day as with the New Zealand epicness. There should be plenty of photos at least. Now, to work out how to keep my packing to a minimum and how to take reasonable photos of the Northern Lights...