Date: 02/07/2017
From/To: Grindavik – Stora Moerk
Distance: 163 Km
Total Distance: 5211 Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny, Windy
Road: –

Today was a short day, we planned only to ride 150km. There we booked an accommodation and would have another try to get some good pictures of the puffins. The sun was shining and the temperature was warm (for iceland).

After we arrived in our accommodation, we waited before we set off to the puffin cliff. We read that the puffins are more active in the morning or at night. The view from this vista point was marvellous.

When we went to the cliff, we saw the puffins. A bit far away, so I was happy to have the new camera with better zoom. And here they are. It was not possible to get closer, but this was much better than the pictures on the whale & puffin watching tour.

After we finished taking pictures, I noticed that I was a bit short on Petrol. So we went to the next village to fill up my bike again. From the petrol station we had a great view up a small mountain. The moon was just rising and the clouds just opened up, so I took some nice pictures from the church and field.

We were back in accommodation around 24:00. We really have no good feeling for the time when it doesn’t get dark. Tomorrow we will be a bit of millage, there is not too much to see in the south easter part of Iceland, I thought.

Date: 01/07/2017
From/To: Selfoss – Grindavik
Distance:126 Km
Total Distance: 5048 Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny
Road: Paved

Last day with Peter and Gerlind, they fly home today. We had the last breakfast together and were driving towards Reykjavik, maybe we would still manage to visit the blue Lagoon.

First we passed a geyser, so we had to stop and take a look at it.

Previously there were some pipes, not sure what the purpose was. But we could see how aggressive the hot steam is. The picture on the right shows a corroded pipe which leaked steam out all the time.

In Reykiavik we stopped and decided that it would be too late for the blue lagoon. Peter and Gerlind had to return the car before they check in, so we had a last coffee togher and then said good bye.

It is amazing how fast the time has passed. 16 days ago we arrive in Iceland and now Peter and Gerlind have to return. We decided to book for the blue lagoon. As we found out, you can’t just rock up there, the ticket have to be purchased online. There are time slots available, and we got the time slot 20:00..21:00. Since the Blue Lagoon closes at 24:00, we took it. Four hours in a hot bath should be enough. But there was plenty of time until 20:00, so we decided to have a look at another place where the American and Eurasia tectonic plates meet. There was a bridge, each end connected to one side. Sigrid tried to hold he bridge up J

In the middle of the bridge you could stand with one leg on the American and with the other on the Eurasian end.

After taking pictures we continued to our accommodation we booked with Airbnb. The house looked marvellous and it had great kitchen with eating area.

We made sure that we at the Blue Lagoon just before 8PM. The place was still packed.

First we hurried into the warm water, since the outside temperature was semi desirable.

If you belive it or not, in one corner of the large pool was a bar. We couldn’t resist and purchased some bubbly. How did we pay for it? The system is very clever. When you enter you get a blue tag and you lock you locker with it. This is used as well for purchases .

Included in the entrance fee there was a special beauty mask for free. So Sigrid tried it, not that she needed it J. Well, there were no pictures taken when I put the mask on. In my opinion, the beauty mask didn’t work for me J.

Just before 24:00 we had a shower and went out. It was still daylight, a bit dimmer than usual, but bright enough that we needed to close the curtains in our bedroom.

Tomorrow we will make our way to the east.

Date: 30/06/2017
From/To: Selfoss
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 4922Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny, Windy
Road: –

On our way to Reykjavik we passed a geothermal power station and decided to have a look at it.

It was quite interesting how they create electricity and heat for central heating. Below is a very simplistic schematic and on the right a turbine with a generator.

From here we went to the Perlan, a museum build on water container holding the geothermal water for Reykjavik.

After we entered we went to the ice cave. But first we got some thermos jackets, well it took me a moment to figure out where the front and the back is.

The ice cave was amazing, blue ice, ice with different layers, even some cracks where we could see from one cave to the next. I noticed as well that it is extremely difficult to get a picture with details in a snow environment. The details of the pictures were mostly black, and given the temperature I didn’t spent too much time to figure out how to overcome it. Anyway, it was still really fun.

At the top there was a glass dome, and you could make self-portraits on the bottom glass facets.

Next stop is the Hallgrímskirkja church.

It turned out that tomorrow there would be a concert with a French organist, and she was practicing today. That was quite nice and peaceful in all the hassle and bustle. We sat there for a moment before we went to the top. Walking up was not possible-only via elevator.

The view was nice and you could see some of the nice houses around.

Here is a view back to the Perlan and you can see the huge water container around.

From here we had a stroll through the CBD. It was very educational; you could learn how to bind a tie…

and we meet some people we know, with strange clothing J

I really had to laugh when I saw the sign below, the patio was open and it was well above 5 celsius, hmmm, maybe it was +8.

There was art all around.

Sigrid found a Christmas shop, so she wrote her wish list and send it off. Well, no comments from me here J

And I like both sigs below. After reading the sign on the right, I was asking Sigrid if she want go shopping without me and place me in the ‘Husband day care center’. I tried even with ‘please’ and ‘pretty pretty please’, but Sigrid didn’t like to go shopping. Bummer.

So we went back to our current Selfoss home

Date: 29/06/2017
From/To: Selfoss
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 4922Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny, Windy
Road: –

The weather was ok, so we decided to give the ‘Langjoekull’ glacier a chance. First stop was at a small village where they hat hot springs. They used the hot water for the green houses, so they could grow tomatoes all year long.

The surprise came when we looked into some empty green houses. You could camp inside; even a table and chairs are provided. I thought this is a marvellous idea.

We continued to the glacier but came across a church that looked intreging. Inside was an exhibition about this area, so we had a brief look. We found some wood carvings that was common in front of entrance doors to protect the house or church.

We arrived at the bottom of a glacier, got our rain gear on and started to walk on the snow/ice.

After while there came one of the touring vehicles back, it was an MAN transporter with a cabin at the back. The tires could be de/inflated during driving. It looked quite impressive.

So Peter and I posed for a picture and after a while we saw a group of snow mobiles coming back from a trip.

We enquired quickly how expensive a hour trip would be, and when we heard the price, we decided that we could only afford to pose on one of them.

On the way back we stopped at the ‘Barnafoss’ water fall. The Barnafoss floes out of a lava field, which creates the great scenery.

When we drove around a fjord, we saw the great cloud formation.

So after a hard day of work, we had to relax in the hot tab, even if it is nearly 11PM

So I took the phone out to make some pictures, when it rang. I saw the calling number and couldn’t believe it! it was Sigrids number!. Quickly I picked up the phone and on the other side there was a young guy who found the phone and press the call button. We talked a bit and it turned out that it was bicycle ridesr who found the phone. Unfortunately they were on the opposite side of Island. But they were so great and we arranged that the phone would be dropped of in Seydisfjordur tourist office where we would pick it up on our last day iceland. What champs! That was really good news! Finally we did not need to worry about a replacement or a loan phone.Now we are hoping that the phone is not damaged too much.

Date: 28/06/2017
From/To: Selfoss
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 4922Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny, Windy
Road: –

Today we had a look at the other half of the golden circle, in particular at the area where the ‘American’ and the ‘Eurasian’ tectonic plates meet.

Well, you could think that these are the sides of the plates, they aren’t. Still the picture look great J As we have learned, there is a large gap between both plates, in fact, the gap is a small valley.

Below is the valley between both plates. Apparently further south the plates are closer together. This valley was used by the ‘Althing‘, the first national parliament of Iceland, in 930AD. Amazingly, session where held here until 1798. The flag pole shows the assumed position of the place of the assembly.

In the park was as well a nice church. We hurried to visit it, since it started to rain heavily. We didn’t want to go out into the rain, so we stayed in side when a guide tour came through. We learned a lot about this church J.

In the evening we went out for dinner. This was the only time in Iceland that the food was affordable. We found the place yesterday, when we visited ‘Skalholt’ church. On the side was a beautiful restaurant with reasonable prices. So we decided to have our fare well dinner here. There was grapes growing inside the restaurant, in the ‘wintergarden’Curiosoty got the better of us , so we ask the waitress for a tasting.No problem was the answer, she some for us to try.

On the way home we stopped at Kerid, a volcanic crater.

We were lifting some ‘heavy volcanic’ rocks, as you can see I have to improve my level of fitness.

What a marvellous day. If the weather permits, we will have a look at a glacier tomorrow, this time from the bottom.

Date: 26-27/06/2017
From/To: Arnarstapi – Selfoss
Distance: 227 Km
Total Distance: 4922Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny, Windy
Road: Paved

In the morning we had a walk along the coast line.

Gerlind did find the rock with a hole that we were looking for a couple of day, but couldn’t find it. It turned out that the rock was to the left from our accommodation, not to the right. So here is a picture of what I was looking for.

We packed up and left direction Selfoss. On our way was a mineral spring on a side of a farm, so we had a short stop there and took something in a bottle. I tasted quite nice, but Peter and Gerlind found later out that might be contaminated with pesticides or fertilisers, so we tost it the next day.

After nice drive we arrived at the new destination, the Borealis Hotel. The setup was nice, it hat even a hot tub, well more pictures to the tub later.

The next day we decided to do the touristy thing, driving the ‘Golden Circle’. On our way to the circle, we found that blue church, it stuck out like a saw thumb, so we had to have a look at it. The interior looked very nice, and it had even a bell tower. Most of Islands churches have a bell tower detached from the church.

The first stop in the golden circle was the “Gullfoss” waterfall. We were happy that we had our raingear when we approached the waterfall. Not only to be protected from the weather, you can see us as well from the distance (the neon yellow points on the right side is us, on the left hand side you have to look a bit harder:-).

In fact it worked so well that Peter and Gerlind borrowed the rain gear.

This is the beginning of a Mexican wave (swirl J)

And it was easy to zoom in when they were at the waterfall (No Zoom, with zoom)

Du to the rain and stormy weather, Sigrid was enquiring using a different type of vehicle, unfortunatelly it came only with four wheels, so we gave it a miss.

The next step in the golden circle were the geysers. The ‘Strokkur’ erupts every 5..10 minutes. Gerlind managed to take a sequence of pictures of it

Here you can see a turquoiuse hot spring and the Strokkur’ erupting at the back. The colours of some geyser looked incredible.

On our way back we stopped at a petrol station, here they not only had tyres, they had as well horse shoes in different sizes, right next to the yoghurt.J.

We stopped at the ‘Skalholt’, which was the bishop’s office and one of the most important places in Iceland from 1056 until 1785.

When Peter and I looked around, we found the passage under the church. It ended on a wooden door which was unfortunately locked. Well, that was the end of our treasure hunt.

On the side of the church was a church build in a traditional way, with wood, stones and grass roof/sides. It was pretty windy and cold outside, but in the church it was quite coszy.

After this strenuous day, we needed some relaxation, so we hopped into the hot tub at night.

Today we did only one half of the golden circle, tomorrow we will have a look at the second half.

Date: 25/06/2017
From/To: Arnastapi
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 4381Km
Weather: Cold, Sunny
Road: –

Today we were contemplating to make a glacier hike. Unfortunately all the hikes were booked, so we decided to do the next best thing- getting up on a snow cat instead. Since the tour started around lunch time, we decided to have a look at the nearby Vulcan tubes beforehand. When we got there, we got the right outfit, hard hat and a torch.

We had to climb down through a spiral staircase to the cave.

There were some interesting stone formation and explanation, how the tubes got created and how it can be identified.

Next stop was the Glacier tour.

A bus drove us up to the foot of the glacier, where the snow cat was waiting. Below you can see the snowcat on the top of the glacier.

The view was stunning. Particular since we couldn’t see the Glacier at all in the last two days, since it was hiding behind clouds.

We promised Silas (our grandson) to send him a picture of snow, so we build a snow man with gummi bears as eyes and a pen as nose. I think he looks marvellous.

Below are some more pictures from the top of the glacier.

We thought after we had it cold, we should have a go at something hot, so Peter drove us to a hot bath nearby. There were three pools, the big one with a nice warm temperature, a smaller one a bit hotter and the last one was really hot. All up it was really relaxing and the picture taken were around 9PM.

On our way back we stopped at a national park sign, so we took some shots and went home.

Peter tries to tame the wild birds around our house. He found out that they only start mock attacks, they don’t really hurt you (at least not on purpose J ).

What a wonderful day, full of sunshine and we made the most out of it. Tomorrow we will change location and move to Selfoss, where Peter and Gerlind stayed when they first arrived in Iceland.

Date: 23-24/06/2017
From/To: Akureyri – Arnarstapi
Distance: 428 Km
Total Distance: 4809 Km
Weather: Cold, Rain, Extremely Windy
Road: Paved Road

Today we would move from Akureyri to Arnastapi, where we booked another cabin for a couple of days. The weather in morning didn’t look very enticing, but we had the right gear.

So we continued over a rainy, cold pass and learned that our boots were not water tight. After a stop in at a petrol station we exchanged the soaked socks for dry ones and continued.

Everything was sort of fine until roughly 30km away from our new accommodation. Here we got very strong sporadic Gail forces winds, it nearly blow us off the road. I think Gerlind and Peter were worried for us as they saw this in their rear view mirror. Anyway, despite this, we made to our new accommodation without any major incidents. When we checked the current weather report, we ralised there was a warning for all Caravans, they should stay where they were because of Gail forced winds.

So it would have been wise to have a look at the weather forecast before we start to travel J Anyway, the accommodation was great. It was close to a cliff, a natural reserve and a stone sculpture, Bardur Snafellas, he is the protector of the Snafellas.

The next day we walked through the natural reserve. There were some amazing stone formation and plenty of birds

Some of the stones looked like faces, you can imagine a Troll was exposed to sun light and then turned into stone. The picture below shows clearly a face.

At the end of the natural reserve was a small village with a pebble beach and rocks with orange sea weed.

When we were sitting on the pebble beach, I saw a fin in the water, so I zoomed in and took a couple of shots. Looking at the long small fin, it must been an Okra. I saw more of a whale on this beach then I saw at whale watching tour.

On our way home, we walk along the path to our house. This was the first time that we realised that birds in the grass would try to attack us to protect their nests. Here’s Gerlind walking along and successfully ignoring the birds 🙂

Tomorrow should be a sunny day, so we might give a Glacier walk a try.

Date: 22/06/2017
From/To: Akureyri
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 4381Km
Weather: Cold, Sunny, Drizzling
Road: –

This was our last day in Akureyri, so we thought we have a look in the town itself. Some colourful houses.

We noticed that all red traffic lights have the shape of a heart. We found out that the hearts were created as a consequence of the finance crash in Iceland in 2008, when there was a need for some positive thinking. They were certainly thinking outside of the square.

In the town, we made some nice tall friends, unfortunately the didn’t fit onto the bike J

And finally we found the government controlled bottle shops in Iceland, they are called Vinbudin and had all this sign shown below.

Nevertheless, the prices were extremely expensive. Strange enough, Champaign (sparkling wine) was one of the cheapest alcoholic beverages that you could get. Anyway, we organized a bottle of red to celebrate, well, our holiday J

Date: 21/06/2017
From/To: Akureyri – Husavik
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 4381Km
Weather: Cloudy, Sunny, Windy
Road: –

Today we booked a Whale and Puffin watching tour in Husavik. Peter and Gerlind took us in their car. This was very convenient, since we had to start early. Sigrid and I even got to snooze in the back of the car until we arrived in Husavik.

The harbour is picturesque, particular with the moored sailing boats.

The museum has some whale skelettons on display, this makes the real size of these animals tangible.

As usual, we spend too much time in the museum, so we had to hurry to get the whale watching tour. When we boarded, we got some nice red thermos overalls, aren’t we looking great in them?

First we stopped on a small Island, where the Puffins were breading. Well, under Puffin watching I expected to get closer to the birds. It is a small bird in the first place, so taking pictures from the distance made them look like black dots. So below are some shots of the puffins we managed.

At one stage I was lucky that a Puffin did swim closer to the boat, so I got at least one closer shot.

From the Puffin Island we continued to a Whale watching spot. There were multiple boats waiting for a whale to surface.

Below are Gerlinds pictures, she got a couple of nice shots.

And here are my pictures, on the right hand side of the beany you can see a black dot in the water, well that is the tail of a whale. And that was my best shot J

On our way back the sea got a bit rougher, and people in the front got rain coats.

Just before we arrived back, we were fed a hot chocolate with a cinnamon bun. That was really nice.

After we came off the boat, we took a picuture of all surviors J Nobody got really sea sick, phew!.

Even if I didn’t got any good shots of the whale, I enjoyed the boat trip.