Burning Desire For FIRE

This morning’s short hike was really enjoyable. It was Goldilocks weather… not too hot, not too cold. We were ferried to a rocky little beach, with a hill we climbed to see the view behind.

The medium hikers are in the background, heading off for their 3 hour hike. we stopped halfway up, so the guide could give us some info about the permafrost.

Permafrost is 2m down, underneath our feet. It covers 25% of the Northern Hemisphere. The reason the ground feels so spongy underfoot is because it’s so hard that there’s nowhere for the water to go.

Active permafrost thaws and freezes during the year. This upper layer is so soggy it feels like a sponge. Sometimes it’s like quicksand. We were warned to stick to the vegetation wherever possible and to move quickly when we were walking on rocks or clay.

As the upper layer freezes and thaws, stones get pushed up to the surface, by 1mm a year. This is a slope, so they move downhill in what they call “streaking.” You can see in the photo that it looks like stripes.

I’m walking here by myself. They’ve created a really large perimeter around the lake and we’ve all spread out. Just walking on our own as you can see. This is what I see when I look to the right.

This is what I see when I look straight ahead. You can see the damned cloud cover, which looks all misty and lovely but is stopping the Northern Lights from showing themselves.

And this is what I see when I look to the left. It looks like a little glacier. It’s totally quiet. I’m speaking into my notes in a very hushed tone because I don’t want to disturb anyone else. All you can hear is very low pushing sound of the wind,  there’s no rain. All I can hear is the crunch of my muck boots on the dirt.

Sound travels here. I can hear Mandarin and German floating on the wind.

I came across this wonderful rock. The colours are so saturated it almost seems impossible that they’re natural. A German couple was walking by and they were going to miss it, so I called out to them and they came over to see.

I thought I’d do a quick circuit of the lake and then go back because there seems to be nothing here, but it’s so calm and peaceful. I find myself just aimlessly wandering, prolonging the experience before I go back to the ship.

This is beautiful. It’s almost how I imagine it must look like when the first snow falls. The guides say that there is new snow on the high mountains surrounding us. Winter is on its way.

I found these bones, which I guess proves that there are animals here. If you’re looking for wildlife in Greenland, it seems that September isn’t the time to see much. There are hardly any birds, even.

After an hour, I went back to the ship. It was a quiet walk, full of autumn colours and there was room to process my thoughts and simply be in the space.

After lunch I had a lovely nap with the ship rocking me to sleep, because we were heading towards our next stop, the little village of Ittoqqortoormiit.

This is the view from the zodiac. The buildings here were sent from Denmark and each colour means a different thing.

I suppose it would also make it easier in a blizzard to see where the buildings were, though during winter, the houses are sometimes completely covered by snow.

The sea freezes and they are snowed in for at least 8 months each year.

Puppies! The adult dogs are tied up, like the sledding dogs we saw last year in Juneau, but the pups are allowed to run free.

Here’s the church.

It’s Danish Lutheran. There was a man handing out printed info pages in English, much to the bemusement of the Taiwanese passengers.

One of the Taiwanese women was nice enough to offer to take my picture. “You solo traveller?”

They look like houses kids would draw, don’t they? The roads were pretty rough, and we saw the people getting around on quads. I only saw 2 cars while we were there.

There was fog all around the town.

I noticed this woman’s hand-knitted headband and asked if I could take her picture. She was sitting in the playground with some friends, while children crawled on the play equipment behind them.

Then, excitement! Morgan came down the hill and pointed out 2 Arctic hares. Finally! Wildlife!

They were quite unafraid. I found out later that the people here no longer eat the Arctic hares, though of course they did so in the past.

I stayed so long looking at the hares that I almost forgot about the dog feeding down at the bridge at 6:30.

omg

I started power walking downhill, through the winding streets as quickly as I could.

Look at the polar bear pants on the boy. How warm would they be?

To my disappointment, the dogs were fed pellets of dog food. I was expecting them to be given raw meat.

Dogs always know when it’s dinner time.

Their kennels look incredibly basic, but I remember in Juneau they said that the dogs overheat if they’re brought inside.

I wandered over to join Morgan, who was talking to a young woman called Batheba. Honestly, the Greenland government should pay her a wage. She was so open and friendly and we had a great time talking to her, finding out more about this place.

An interesting thing happened when one of the Taiwanese women gave her a pack of freeze dried peanuts. Batheba didn’t know what they were.

That was pretty surprising, right? Peanuts are everywhere. She tried them and then shared them around with us all, so I don’t know that she really liked them.

She was telling us how, when the sea freezes, you have to be careful on the ice because polar bears appear so silently, and there’s no surviving an attack.

A few months ago, a friend of hers was sitting on the ice and a polar bear cub walked right by her. She kept so still. As you would. She said that she thinks it was able to smell the dog food and not her.

Today was a very good day. We have only 2 more excursion days left in this leg of the trip before we head back to Iceland.

Dad joke of the day:

Last night was an absolute blast! It was an Arctic barbecue on the deck, followed by dancing.

This may have happened…

… followed shortly after by this:

It’s amazing what some fun tracks and mulled wine will do.

The morning was dull, with light rain. I chose to do the short hike again, which is basically code for “stick within the perimeter and go wherever you want.”

This suits me very well. I can enjoy the colour of the seaweed at my leisure.

This landing spot had a house and shed on it. The house was built in 1946 by a Dutch man with a wife from Greenland. They were intending to live here, but the story goes that after a year, she felt too lonely so they moved to a town.

He did a good job as it’s still standing. See the little greenhouse at the front? I could feel the plans they had from that thing alone. Hunters and trappers use the house now.

In such a rocky landscape, there are so many little pictures. It was still raining, but there was little wind. A small group climbed to the top of a rocky outcrop, where there was a cairn.

One of the guides told us about Svalbard, the place where you can never die. You are literally not allowed to be buried there.

Back in the day, when whalers died, the red of them would dig a grave and bury them. But winters are very cold, so as the ground contracted, the coffins were pushed up to the surface, with the very well preserved corpses still in them! Yikes.

Zoom in on the hiker in the pale blue jacket in the bottom right of the photo. This will give you an idea of how high the cliffs are.

The shed. It’s pretty much gutted on the inside. I can understand why the wife wanted some company. It would be pretty bleak to have to live here all the time.

Look! Wildlife! So far the long hikers have seen a lemming and an arctic hare. Clearly, you don’t come to Greenland for the wildlife pictures.

But then something very exciting happened. I was waiting on the beach for a zodiac pickup, having just missed one by the skin of my teeth. As I was waiting, I sat on a rocky outcrop and was staring out to sea.

Suddenly, I heard a roar of thunder. As I watched, a whole section of this massive iceberg broke off and fell into the sea. I think I was the only one who was looking in the right direction.

I was absolutely thrilled. This is the third time I’ve seen this. Once in Antarctica, once in Alaska and now here in Greenland.

Juan, one of the guides, said that he saw this iceberg last season. It’s anchored to the bottom of the sea, and “Do you see the height of it on the left? It’s twice the length of that, under the water. I saw it when I was on the cliff.”

You can see that it’s much bigger than our ship.

I went for a nap after lunch , and boy, was it a good one! I was so comfy and relaxed that I didn’t want to move, so the announcement that the wind had picked up and that activities on shore were cancelled was very good news for me! I rolled over and grabbed another hour of snooze time.

Natalie came back and said, “ You’re not missing out on anything, unless you want to hear lots of people speaking Mandarin very loudly!”

At least half the passengers are a contingent from Taiwan. I wish they spoke English because I want to go to Taiwan next year and it would be good to get some ideas.

We had a very interesting lecture about the Inuit culture.

 No roads in Greenland.

They use sleighs and snowmobiles. The ferry only operates from April to December, and only from the west, where most of the cities are. There are small planes and helicopters as well.

We’ve been asked not to shop in the supermarket at the town we’re visiting, because we’ll be taking food from them. We’re on the east side, which is very sparsely populated.

Pragmatic. If animals were scarce and the communities were hungry, they’d sacrifice the baby girls and the old people. The old people would quietly walk away and freeze to death once they were no longer useful.

This was interesting. The hunters used to catch a seal, carefully gut it while keeping the skin intact, and then inflate it. They’d attach this ‘balloon’ to a harpoon, which would keep a wounded seal or whale from getting away from them because it couldn’t dive.

Women would sometimes leave their husbands to live for a time in another community, have babies, then come back home. This stopped inbreeding. The church from Denmark wasn’t happy about this, but it was a very practical way to keep genetic diversity in such a small population.

If you did something wrong, you would be asked to leave. This would mean death. This happens in Australia, too.

This iceberg was HUGE. Easily the biggest we’ve yet seen. The ship had to change course to get around it.

 No roads in Greenland.

They use sleighs and snowmobiles. The ferry only operates from April to December, and only from the west, where most of the cities are.

We’ve been asked not to shop in the supermarket at the town we’re visiting, because we’ll be taking food from them. We’re on the east side, which is very sparsely populated.

Pragmatic. If animals were scarce and the communities were hungry, they’d sacrifice the baby girls and the old people.

Women would sometimes leave their husbands to live for a time in another community, have babies, then come back home. This stopped inbreeding.

If you did something wrong, you would be asked to leave. This would mean death.

Dad joke of the day:

It’s a good breakfast when you can sip your excellent coffee and watch icebergs float by the window.

Soon after breakfast, we were getting ready for a zodiac excursion around the icebergs’ graveyard.

I didn’t have the best start to the day. I was in a rush to get ready for the zodiac, so I put on my fleece jacket, didn’t zip it up ( big mistake) and the put my waterproof jacket over the top.

When I went to zip it up, I intelligently matched one jacket’s half of the zip to the other’s. They jammed together. I was in trouble. Of course, you can’t get on a zodiac without being weather-proof.

Morgan was an absolute star. It took a few minutes of him wrestling with the jammed zips, but he managed to get them free without breaking anything. I owe that man a drink.

Then, once that was dealt with, I couldn’t find my room key. Every time you leave the ship, you surrender your room key so they can see who’s out and who has come back.

I tore apart my backpack and then went back to my room and did the same.

“Last call for the zodiacs” came over the loudspeaker. Natalie, who was going kayaking after the zodiacs, ran out to tell them I was coming, then she ran back to say they’d take me without the room key.

Bloody hell! Thank goodness!

I was the last one on board. Here’s the view as we set off.

See those dots at the top of the ridge? Musk Ox.

We saw this old, very compressed iceberg. The more compacted ice is in a glacier, the clearer it becomes, as air is removed from it.

At one end, under the golf ball section, you can see the movement of the waves as it changes colour. Amazing.

It’s incredible to think that 90% of these huge icebergs are under water.

Just like in Antarctica, we were served hot chocolate with brandy. It was so good, especially because soon after this, the weather took a turn.

You can see where the iceberg is by the blue line underneath the water.

Same iceberg, but look at the Organ pipes, or flutes. Fresh water from the iceberg moves up towards the top of the sea if there are any gaps.This iceberg has been underwater at some stage.

Two different kinds of ice in the one chunk.

Compressed air bubbles.

A duck!!!! Natalie saw ducklings as well, when she was kayaking, but they went closer to the shore than we did.

Here I am in Greenland, my left hand warm, and my right hand gloveless to be able to take pictures. The weather was getting worse by this stage.

The stripe!

This was the last photo I took. I needed to get my hand into its glove, and water was splashing over us every now and then. I was toasty warm everywhere else but my right hand.

I said I’d do the Polar Plunge this afternoon, but I’m rethinking it. It was bad enough in Antarctica with sunny skies. This is going to be a different beast altogether…

After lunch, we went out again. The weather was better, I was wearing my bathers under my clothes, so I decided to complete the set of possible Polar Plunges.

I’m so very pleased that I did it. It was easier this time to get in quick, because it was on sand instead of rocks. But yeah, once you go under and then stand up, you realise, Fuck it’s cold!

Tonight we’re having a barbecue out on the deck. In Antarctica it was warm and sunny, beautiful barbecue weather, even with icebergs floating by. Here, we definitely won’t be in t shirts and shorts!

But it’ll be fun, nonetheless.

Dad joke of the day:

This is the scene outside the ship this morning. Icebergs mean we’re now in Greenland.

The storm disappeared once the ship reached the fjord in the middle of the night. I woke up at around 3 and realised that the ship had stopped rolling. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. I liked the feeling of being rocked to sleep.

Not a bad view to walk out and see after breakfast. More people are emerging from their cabins, and after lunch today, we hit the zodiacs and go ashore.

I’m writing this part of the post while I’m standing on the stern, watching the icebergs float by. 

It’s so beautiful and so calm.

I was just about to go inside when I saw the blue stripes on this iceberg.

After lunch it was out on the zodiacs for the first time since Antarctica 2022. The water we’re on is part of a Narwhal sanctuary, so we could only go at 5km/hr.

We were going to hike on Bear Island. It’s aptly named, as polar bears are known to live here. Every winter, the sea between the islands freezes over, so the animals can wander wherever they like.
The crew organised long, medium and short hikes. At first, being a lazy person, I was going to do the short hike, but in the end I went on the medium hike.
It turned out to be perilously close to a long hike, but it was a nice way to get to know Greenland. Each hike had a rifle at the beginning and end of each group, just in case.

”This is the tallest forest you’ll see today,” said KJ, our guide for the day.

I don’t normally take pictures of flowers, but these took my fancy.

After an hour and a half, we stopped for a rest. These mountains look like a dragon’s backbone, don’t they?

We sat without talking, simply listening to the Arctic silence.

I spent it gazing at this magnificent iceberg.

When we did the silence in Antarctica, all I heard was water and ice. Here, it was water and wind.

The lichen and moss on the rocks are the first things to grow. Plants come later.

This was no easy hike. We were walking through streams, over rocks, stepping into peat beds that squelched underneath our feet… but we saw a lot.

This is a very beautiful, if harsh, place.

During dinner, there was an announcement to go out on deck and take pictures of the sunset.

I love love love this one.

I’m so glad I left my dessert and went out on deck. It was truly stunning.

Dad joke of the day:

Today was a sailing day with huge waves and rotten weather. Half of the passengers were miserably waiting it out in their cabins. It was either the seasickness patch I bought the night before, or my natural abilities as a sailor, but I felt no queasiness at all.

It was probably the patch. Either way, no complaints from me!

Someone from the Vietnam WhatsApp group asked if Wanda was still with me, so I sent this photo. Proof of life.

And we think Australia has a lot of people living at the edges! Looks like Greenlanders have no option.

This is the largest island in the world, with the inner ice ending way below sea level. There’s so much of it that if it all melts, every sea will rise by 6 metres.

I’m now part of the Crossing the Arctic Circle club.

Natalie, my cabin mate, gave me a birthday present. How nice is that?

We’ll be about 1,000 kms from the North Pole. The ship will be directly level with the red line, but further east in the fjord.

This video was taken after dinner, when the ship changed direction and cut across the storm, causing many people to hastily leave dinner.

Ghostly …

Meanwhile, this was happening.

Morgan was so nice and bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate the glory that is my birthday.

All in all, it was a lovely day. I had a 2 hour nap, read half a book, celebrated with new friends and saw tumultuous waves.

If the weather’s good, tomorrow we go ashore for some hiking.

Dad joke of the day:

Corinna, Baptiste and James left in the wee hours to catch their planes back to reality. I’ll be seeing James in a month on the last leg of this trip, when I visit Liga in Latvia, but I don’t know when I’ll see the other two.

Maybe a trip to France is on the cards??

Today was a 6 hour bus ride to meet the ship to Greenland.

Here’s the Polarsteps map of the Icelandic leg.

Trees are sparse here. Morgan says that there’s a saying in Iceland. “If you’re lost in the forest, stand up!”

These are all taken from the bus window. I spent most of the bus ride dozing. Morgan was happy because he got a lot of work done.

What a fantastic omen for the trip!

We arrived over an hour early at the dock.

Who would have ever thought that I’d be travelling on the Hondius again?

Another rainbow! This trip is looking better and better!

And here it is. I paid for a quad cabin and got upgraded to a twin.

omg

I’m sharing with a Canadian woman called Natalie. She seems lovely.

Morgan made us laugh. I texted him who I was staying with and his phone autocorrected always to almost.

“Everyone called Natalie are almost nice.” 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Dad joke of the day:

I’ve never had a slice of bread as delicious as this one. Topped with strawberry jam, this was a delight to chow down on. Highly recommended.

Our first stop of the day was a very pretty beach called Black Beach, so called because of the sand. It had the wonderfully shaped cliffs around the cave that I remember seeing in Ireland.

It’s also well known for its sneaky waves. Before I came over here, I saw videos of oblivious people suddenly being knocked off their feet by a wave which swept way past all the other ones before. I warned James, but he didn’t listen and escaped having wet feet by a millimetre.

No wonder there are so many myths and legends about trolls here. It’s the landscape for them.

Outside the cave.

Inside the cave. I stood for a while watching seagulls soar and swing around the towering cliffs. Corinna walked way down the beach. It wasn’t sunny, but there was still something about it that made us all happy to linger.

Apparently Iceland is known for growing bananas. Here’s how they do it. Massive greenhouses.

The one thing I asked Morgan that I wanted to do was to bob around in a geothermal pool. Seriously, you can’t go to Iceland without doing this. I’m definitely not a lover of going swimming, but this is different.

When we were in Reykjavik, we went to a fancy place, but both Baptiste and I baulked at paying $200 AUD to basically sit in a warm bath. Morgan found the Secret Lagoon, which is the oldest public swimming pool in Iceland. It wasn’t as fancy, but there was still price was far more reasonable at $60.

It was so nice.
I met a nice American couple from Wisconsin, who have 3 trans daughters, so of course we bonded instantly. They’re extremely worried about what’s happening in the US, to the degree that they’re filling out asylum paperwork for Canada for their daughters.
“When Trump ordered troops into Washington, I could see which way things were headed, and it’s not anywhere good,” the wife said.

There was a cold plunge pool. I went into it, but only once.
Sure, you feel all tingly and alive when you pop back into the warm pool, but it’s not worth it.

Then, after geothermalling ourselves, we went off to see some geothermal activity in the ground.

People were gathered all around this geyser, which goes off every 5 minutes or so. Fortunate Frogdancer struck again – we got a double whammy!
”I’ve never seen it do twice in a row,” said Morgan.

Big thanks to James for this video. I stopped filming just before the second one went off.

I think I said it all in the video.

This is the geyser that gave the name to all others. It’s pretty much dormant now, but occasionally it goes off, just to keep things alive.

This boiling hot water was right beside another pool that was calmly doing nothing at all.

It wouldn’t be a day in Iceland with Morgan without a couple of waterfalls.

We saw the mist from this one rising above the road as we drove up to it, so we knew it was going to be powerful. This part is only at the side, but it was my favourite part of the waterfall.

Here’s the main part. In the 1930’s, well before money from tourism was a thing, politicians wanted to build a dam here.

This woman, a local farmer’s daughter, threatened to throw herself into the river if they went through with it. She’s credited with being Iceland’s first eco-warrior.

This one is Morgan’s favourite waterfall in Iceland. I loved the blue water. There was so much to look at here. Every direction I focused on, there was something interesting and/or beautiful happening.

Our last day in Iceland.

This shot was from yesterday at the glacier. Isn’t it fantastic? Morgan posted it on the WhatsApp after I’d finished my post.

Rainbow street.

Tomorrow, we have a 6 hour bus ride to the boat.

Dad joke of the day:

We left our place in Vik, where we’re staying for 2 nights, and set off. Our first stop was a place where we could see the moss growing on a fairly recent lava flow. Obviously this is a very fragile first step at vegetation beginning to reclaim the land, so they’re not keen to let tourists trample all over it.

The next stop was – you guessed it – another waterfall. We had a walk up a hill, thankfully not with steps, and we could see it from up high at the back as well.

This is a ridiculously beautiful place.

On the way back to the car park.

Our next stop was a thing called’The Churches Floor’, because the people who discovered it couldn’t believe that it was a natural phenomenon.
Anyone who’s seen The Giant’s Causeway in Ireland will know that it’s basalt blocks.

Not bad for taking a photo on.

Look at the clouds kissing the mountaintop.

Ice! I thought it was snow, but it’s actually a glacier.

We drove through a very desolate patch where there was nothing but lava and mud. It was as flat as a pancake. When the nearby volcano erupts, the glacier melts and there’s kind of like an inland tsunami and this is what happens. There’s just nothing left. 

There’s no wildlife here in Iceland, apart from Arctic foxes. No crows, even, which seems so unusual when you think about it. Crows are everywhere you go in the rest of the world.

It was odd to me to see a glacier end in green. The others I’ve seen were either in snowfields, or ended in the sea.

This was all taken from the side of the road.

Then came the biggest surprise so far of the trip. I didn’t research anything before jumping on the plane. I’d never heard of Diamonds Beach.

So beautiful… until James in his footie shorts wandered across! 😂😂

This place is around the corner from the icebergs’ graveyard, which we caught a glimpse of from the road.

The tide washes the icebergs around the corner and onto this beach, where they wash up onto the sand and gradually melt.

Lots of happy people.

James was the only one of us, apart from Morgan, obviously, who knew what we were going to see. He brought a bottle of gin and some tonic and we toasted to friendship.

Just one more shot. I loved this place.

Then we went over the bridge and walked back to see the icebergs’ graveyard. It was like a little memory of Antarctica.

We have been so lucky with the weather. I had a jumper with me, but it was too warm to wear it. You can see I’m travelling with my trusty merino tops again.

I was so happy to see blue ice again!

This guy had the biggest selfie stick I’ve ever seen.

Kayakers.

Obviously we had to see a glacier up close. Morgan took us to two.

This first one was an easy 5 minute walk to get to. The next one?

Around 40 minutes of walking, mainly over rocks like this. Fortunately for me, it was all pretty flat, so it was an adventure.

Here is the end of this glacier. I didn’t realise it was ice until Corinna told me. (Morgan had told her.)

Morgan first visited the glacier in 2015 and it was quite a bit bigger than it is today.
We drove back to Vik after this, stopping at what turned out to be a fantastic restaurant beside a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. Everyone enjoyed dinner.
My pizza and 2 tiny wines cost $90 AUD. ouch. I’m looking forward to getting onto the Hondius, where all food is included.

One more day with Corinna and James, and then Morgan and I will be heading up to the top of Iceland to join the Greenland cruise.

Dad joke of the day:

Morgan is obsessed by waterfalls. The name of this Iceland tour on the YPT website is ‘Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls.’ For a tour telling us not to chase them, we certainly ignored that directive! At the end of the day, as we were walking towards the black sand beach, he proudly told us that we’d visited 9 waterfalls that day.

I believe him. I mean, we’d all lost count long ago, but why would he lie?

I’ll preface this by saying that unlike my usual travel blogs where I have the names of everything down pat, this isn’t going to happen this time. The Icelandic spelling is really hard, plus we saw a LOT of water being affected by gravity today. These waterfalls are nameless. Some are way famous, while others are secret little ones that only the locals know about.
Anyway, here’s what we saw today.

1.

The first one of the day. The water was a little murky with sediment, but it was strong and powerful.

2.

This one had it all. Swans, the glacier in the background where all the water came from, and a beautiful vista as the river rolls away. Big thumbs up for this one.

3.

This one was a crowd favourite. The water has etched its way through the rock and it looks spectacular as it hides away within the mountain, then appears. The grotto it’s in is wonderful, and everyone was sure that this would be the one.
However, Morgan had a few tricks up his sleeve…

4. This one is one of the way famous ones. There was a massive car park, parking attendants and food shops there.
We put

Amazingly beautiful, and you can walk behind it.

See?

As we were walking around to the next waterfall, I saw these horses being taken out. Icelandic horses are everywhere. I think I’ve seen more horses than sheep.

5.

This one was stunning. You get a tantalising glimpse from outside, then have to hop through the stream, rock by rock, to get to see it in its full glory.

I was lucky on the way back through the stream. There was a gridlock of people, some going in, others going out. I hesitated, balancing on a rock, and someone’s hand shot out to mine just as I was about to overcorrect and step into the water. Then, other hands helped me all the way along the line.

”Thanks everyone!” I called out as I reached dry land.

Next was a drive towards lunch. Morgan was taking us to the best fish and chips in Iceland. I was happy, because I have now gotten rid of most of my Icelandic money.

Don’t bring cash when you come here. Iceland is pretty much completely cashless.

6.

How impressive is this?

Though look at those steps running up the hill beside the waterfall. Those were nearly the end of me. I knew that there’d be a lot of physical activity on this trip. Everyone else on this tour is decades younger and much fitter than me. But oof. Those steps were HARD, especially after a few days of racing around and climbing things.

”How are you going?” asked Baptiste at one stage.
“Ok, but I’m sure my Apple Watch thinks it’s been stolen!”

This waterfall attracted some interesting tourists…

Once at the top, we walked along a path and saw another couple of waterfalls.

7 and 8.

9.

This one was very special. We walked through an amazingly beautiful canyon, with the waterfall at the end.

Again, we could walk behind this one. It was fantastic.

My legs were hurting, so I walked back before the others, enjoying the quiet time on my own. All I could hear was the babbling of the little stream beside the path.

.

I made some new friends.

Driving through this country is an absolute feast for the eyes. It’s so varied too. On one side of the car are things like mountains and glaciers, while the other side is a lunar landscape.

We parked at the top of a big hill with hairpin curves on the road and saw the black sand beach. It was around 5 pm and it was still perfectly sunny.

The legend here is that this is a family of trolls who were attracted to the shore. They got caught by the sunrise and were turned to stone.

I love how the land is around half of the house. It must be so warm in winter.

This church is perched above Vik, the town we’re staying in for the next 2 nights. Vik has a population of 400.

Before dinner, the guys decided to go and walk on the black sand beach. Corinna wisely decided to stay in the room. Morgan snapped this photo of me emerging from the “short cut” they took.

I was starting to feel slightly grumpy. My thigh muscles were killing me and I was over the walking.

But look at how glorious it was. I couldn’t stay grumpy. I love these guys!

This morning, after a quick detour for coffee,breakfast ( for the others – I had another  Frogdancer’s Sad Breakfast), and a quick stop at the supermarket to buy lunches, we jumped in the car and started heading out in search of waterfalls. It turns out that Morgan loves waterfalls, so seeing as he designed this little Iceland pre-tour for us, we’ll be seeing a lot of water affected by gravity. 

This one was what he described as “ a nice enough little thing.” We had to clamber down an embankment with slippery stones, where I slipped and grazed my leg. Needless to say, I courageously carried on.

There was also a little stream to cross, but the waterfall was worth it. Here are the other 3 in front of it.

We headed off again. “I love to drive in Iceland,” said Morgan. “ You can point the car anywhere and it’s always beautiful.”

I can see what he means.

An hour’s drive later, we arrived at Morgan’s favourite waterfall. Unfortunately, it was a 3 hour hike. My blistered toe wasn’t up for such things, as well as my lifelong avoidance of bush walking, so I looked at the map and decided to go as far as the cave. 

1.2 kms each way was quite enough for me! They walked to number 6 on the map, while I walked to number 2.

It was enjoyable, though I have to admit that I was more than ready to see the cave when it finally appeared. We said our goodbyes, Morgan handed over the car key and, after I videoed them crossing the river further downstream by walking along a log, I turned back.

One thing about Iceland is that there are not a lot of public toilets. I can’t remember the last time I did a bush wee, or as we said in Africa earlier this year… “picked some flowers.” Remember? For guys it was “checking the tyres.” 😂

It was a lovely walk back to the car. There were goats in the area. I heard them bleating as I was almost back at the car park. 

I sat in the car, ate lunch, read a novel and wrote this blog post up to this point. Baptiste promised to take shots of the waterfall so we can all see what I elected to miss.

***

Morgan sent me this one. 😀

We popped into the War and Peace museum for a look around. To be honest, the outside art was better than what was inside.

As soon as we walked in, I did a Queen Mother and ducked into the loo. The guys walked into the main entrance and were told that the museum was closed for the winter, but it was open for a private function that day.

Not being privy to this information, Corinna and I went all over the museum.

It was pretty bad. It was full of fusty old things, with mannequins posing as radio operators and random soldiers. It reminded me of those antique warehouses, with little stalls full of absolute garbage. I was glad that we didn’t pay for admission.

Corinna sampled a few of the desserts from the function. She came back to the car raving about how good they were, and the next thing I know, Baptiste is back in there with her, to sample things for himself.

On the road again. Once you leave the city, Iceland is very empty. There are little houses and churches scattered in the most picturesque places.

Morgan turned up a little dirt road and promised to show us something unique that no other tours have on their itineraries.

And here it is. Corinna and I thought this rock looked like a hand, but the information board likened it to a goblet.

We were getting hungry, so we headed back through the park to get back to the car.

Suddenly hundreds of women clutching Prosecco glasses burst out onto the pathway. They kept coming past us in a constant stream.

” I feel like a salmon!” Baptiste whispered to me. Some of them had empty glasses, others had a gliding stride as they tried to avoid spilling any wine.

James from Ireland/North Korea 2018 had landed. We agreed we’d all meet up for dinner at Morgan’s favourite burger bar. They adjust the numbers here every time someone dies or has a baby.

And now the Iceland crew is complete!

I didn’t post yesterday because James, Baptiste and I had a few drinks that night. James brought some delicious duty free gin with him.
The next morning, all I could think of was coffee…

Dad joke of the day: