Iceland - Day 2 - Waterfalls, Glaciers and Fog.

We woke to yet another spectacular day of driving through Iceland. Today, we were supposed to drive from the Southeast through the Eastern Fjords, ending up in the North-central part of the Ireland. The weather was perfect, things were green, the sky was blue the roads were long and we couldn't wait to get going.

The perfect drive

This is the cutest thing about Iceland - we found Middle Earth! Don't let Peter Jackson fool you into thinking it was in New Zealand. Tell me you don't think these were hobbit homes:

Actually they are little turf houses with grass roofs because it kept the building warm, albeit a little "earthy-smelling".
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Jokes aside, we were headed today towards Þórsmörk (pronounced Thorsmork), or Thor's Forest, which is supposed to be "one of Iceland's spectacular but inaccessible wilderness", according to my guidebook. Ahem. Remember the rivers from the day before? So we crossed a couple of them and felt awesome:

This is really us, and really our rental car. No, we did not get paid for product placement.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

But seriously, after being passed by a few monster trucks, we chickened out after the 4th river, and carried on our touristy ways. The guidebook did say it was inaccessible... 

Our first tourist stop was Seljalandsfoss, a small-ish waterfall by Iceland's standards, but we got to walk around the back of the waterfall, and that was pretty fun. 

Seljalandsfoss
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Just to give a sense of the scale of this thing - see the people behind the water?
Photo Credit: Chour Thong Goh

.. and that's the view from behind the waterfall

Some close up macro-shots for good measure. The moisture behind the waterfall gave great nature-dew drop photo opportunities: 

Our second day also brought new lessons about Iceland. They have the cutest little churches. And horses. And cows that desperately needed milking.  

This was called the Storadalskirkja church

At this point, we were passing pretty close to Eyjafjallajokull - the volcano that erupted and caused massive air travel difficulties not too long ago. Guess the ash from that eruption has been more or less covered, because we didn't see too much evidence of the eruption. There was however more lovely fog-covered scenery. 

Our next stop was the magnificent Skogafoss - a 62m high waterfall - and we climbed it all the way to the top. 

Skogafoss

That's me running bravely into the waterfall. Note to potential travelers: Bring a rain jacket to Iceland.
Photo Credit: Goh Chour Thong

That's how far we had to climb to get up to the top
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

The view from the top

The surrounding scenery viewed from the top - everything's just so green!

Rainbows are beautiful. Check out the face-profile on the cliff side.

Some of our friends think it is fun to give others heart attacks. 

Leaving the waterfalls, we turned towards the sea, to Dyrholaey nature area, where we were promised dramatic cliffs, black sand beaches, and maybe, just maybe, a puffin or two (we saw none, boo!) 

Dramatic sea cliffs, check!

Black sand beaches, check!

 Golgotha-looking caves lined the black sand beaches

Looking from the inside out

No puffins, but Sharon found a sealion! or seal? Um.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Pebbles polished by the pounding waves.

Some people found fun things to do by the beach.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Back on our way, we drove past Skeidarsandur, one of the largest sandurs - which our guidebook defined as "great wastelands of black sand and glacial debris carried out by volcanic eruptions". This particular sandur was linked to to the largest icecap in all of Europe: Vatnajokull. All the other glaciers we see today are fingers of this massive glacier which dominates all of Southeastern Iceland. 

Part of the Skeidarsandur
Photo Credit: Chour Thong Goh

Can you see a little of Vatnajokull?
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Standing where two fingers of the glacier are creeping out to sea.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Our next stop was the Skaftatell National Park, which includes part of the Vatnajokull glacier, for a spot of hiking. 

A-hiking we went. Check out the glacier in the distance, and the sandur/volcanic wasteland
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

This was one of the stops - Svartifoss.

Svartifoss up-close. Distinctive because of the vertical basalt columns.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Some greenery on the way:

We stumbled upon the tiny farming village of Sel, where there were these quaint turf houses. Check out the sandur in the distance. The extent of the sandur is impressive. 

Photo Credit: Chour Thong Goh

See, Hobbit Houses! Note that CT is a tall, tall person.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Inside the turf house.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Exercise done, we got back into the car and drove to one of the most breathtaking and memorable sites of our trip: the iceberg lake of Jokulsarlon. The ice broke off from a nearby glacier and the lake was apparently formed when the glacier's passage to the sea was blocked by land movements (Source: Insight Guides/Iceland). If you're a James Bond fan, this is where the opening scenes of A View to Kill were shot. 

Photo Credit: Goh Chour Thong

The cold makes people do funny things.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

We were speechless at the beauty of this place (minus almost-naked men), and spent a good chunk of time here before finally pulling ourselves away to get a-driving. There was to be a long, foggy drive ahead of us through the Eastern Fjords. Watch the fog roll in a series of photos courtesy of Sharon Chan:

That foggy, diffused sunset marked the end of our second day. We we finally made it to our hotel near Egilsstadir that night, totally, absolutely exhausted, but we couldn't wait for the next day. 

The Circumnavigation of Iceland... Sort of. (Day 1)

Iceland - there are not enough words or letters in the English language to describe this country. No, seriously, have you ever seen the Icelandic language? Remember Eyjafjallajokull, the volcanic eruption that spewed ash in the air? 

All jokes aside, two friends and I decided last August to try to drive around Iceland. There's a ring road that goes around the entire country/island of Iceland. 

Iceland is a remarkable country. It isa first world country in all ways -- Even the road side bathrooms were clean! The scenery was gorgeous and picture-postcard perfect. 

Day 1

After meeting my pals at the airport at 8 am, we hopped on to a car and drove. Our first stop was the famous Blue Lagoon, less than 13 km away from the airport. It's actually a man-made lagoon that was formed by the discharge of hot water from the nearby geothermal power plant. The water is clean, and it contains silica deposits which turn the water a milky blue. We didn't get to go in for a swim because the lagoon wasn't open that early in the morning.

We then moved on towards Krysuvik, an area known for its geothermal features (one of many many in Iceland)

The scenery was just... grand. (that's me in the middle) -
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Krysuvik-Seltun Steam Vents and Mud Pots

You usually smell the geothermal activity of a region before you get there. The sulphur emitted in the gases give off an egg-y smell. Like a really overcooked hard-boiled egg. By the end of this trip, we were all a little afraid of eating hard boiled eggs. 

Birdcliffs are a big attraction in Iceland, and we were in search of one called the Krisuvikurbjarg (you see what I mean about the Icelandic language?). We somehow failed in our search, but ended up wandering through even more spectacular scenery. 

That was NOT the bird cliff
Photo Credit: Chour Thong Goh

 The greenery was also beautiful. and I couldn't resist a few macro shots.

Next stope was Lake Kleifarvatn, where there is supposedly a legendary monster residing in the waters. We took photos, disturbed no monsters, and drove off. 

Lake Kleifarvatn
Photo Credit: Chour Thong Goh

Our next stop was Þingvellir (pronounced Thing-vellier), the site of Iceland's first parliament, assembled in the year 930 and which lasted until the 17th century. 

This is the actual site of the assembly

This is also where the North American and European tectonic plates are pulling apart from each other at a rate of 2.5 cm per year.  So literally, the earth was moving under my feet... 

The first of many waterfalls we were to see during the trip

Our next stops were major tourist attractions in Iceland - Geyser (for which all other geysers are named), and then to Gulfoss, one of Iceland's best known waterfalls.

This is the original Geysir, which hasn't really erupted with great regularity in recent times. Now it just bubbles a little.

On the other hand, Strokkur reliably erupts every 10 mins or so. It was fun watching the heaving of the water as the geyser gathered its geothermal energy before erupting. Every eruption brought along many "oohs" and "aahs" from spectators.

Gullfoss "Golden Falls", a 32 m drop into a 2.5 km ravine. Look at the people on the left to get a sense of the size of this thing!



View from the other side of the falls. The force of the water was astounding. 

Rainbows in the mist of Gullfoss. Just spectacular.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

The above are the major tourist sites most visitors to Iceland/Reykjavik see in their entire vacation, and we checked them off our list on the first day!  We even pushed forward into the off-road interior of Landmannalaugar. It was fun going off-road, and even trying to cross some rivers! (Caution: don't do this unless your rental company says you can do it in the vehicle you rented)

The desolate and quiet interior

As the sun dropped below the horizon, the rainbows came out to play

Check out the river we had to cross!!! There were many of these, and they were stressful. Involved us checking out the depth of the river to and the shallowest way for the car to cross. It sounds a lot more fun than it is.

The fog also started rolling in...

And finally the sun set behind a soft pastel curtain of clouds.

We finally ended our first day in the town of Vik, late at night!  In one day, we had gone through 16 hours of driving, photography, standing speechless in awe and being completely blown away by Iceland. Just the first day, and we already thought we had had our money's worth. We couldn't wait to see what Day 2 would bring....