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:

Here we are! The Antarctica 2022 crew (almost) all together again. Morgan, Baptiste, Corinna and I. The boys arrived in the middle of the night, while we swung by the airport after lunch and picked up Corinna.

The boys and I met at 9 for breakfast, but unknown to them, I’d already had Frogdancer’s sad breakie, so I joined them in a coffee. We walked to the rental car place, picked up the car we’ll be driving for the next few days, then off we went to the supermarket to pick up lunch. I was relieved that they didn’t want to go to town with lunches – you never know how precious people will be about food.

Then we headed off.

We stopped by a lake for a photo, and this group of bike riders swished by. Just like Beach Road on a Sunday morning!

It was beautiful.

Morgan was saying that outside of the cities, there’s only 1 person per square kilometre here.

Our next stop was a place where there was steam coming out of the ground, with pools of boiling water bubbling away.

It was so strange to think that all of this heat was being generated right under the walkways we were standing on. How could water be boiling hot without a kettle? It was crazy.

You can see the different minerals in the earth by the colours.

As we were driving towards the next thing, Morgan was telling us about how the first thing to grow on top of a lava flow is moss. “It’s very fragile”, he said.
Many of the roads we drove down today were roads that cut through lava flows. Some were old and the moss was busily working on them. Others were very recent and were still pitch black.

Morgan took this one as I was fighting for breath coming up the hill. It was the first of many uphill climbs that day. The top picture of us all was taken from the top of a lighthouse!
See the black in the background of the photo? This was from last year’s lava flow. Morgan, Baptiste and I were heading up to see another recent lava flow.

This one was a couple of years old. Iceland has lots of volcanic activity and the place is covered with lava in various stages of reclamation by nature. This was stark, black and very new.

Later that day, we drove through a town that was almost deserted. A swathe of house s were abandoned, with fences in front of them forbidding entry.

”What happened here?” Corinna asked.

”There was an earthquake, and the houses got damaged,” said Morgan.
First lava, then earthquakes. It’s risky to be a homeowner here!

It’s a strange, otherworldly landscape here sometimes.
“It’s like walking on the moon, “ said Baptiste.

The guys climbed a bit higher, while I turned back and walked down, almost making it back to the car before them. I had to be careful about where I put my right foot. All that walking in Copenhagen gave me a blister so bad that most of the skin had come off one of my toes. I had a bandaid around it today, which helped, but I won’t be going on any long hikes for a few days.

You can see that they’ve had to cut the road right through a lava flow.

I took this from the window as we were driving to pick up Corinna. It’s pretty thick. No wonder this country is one of the most expensive places in the world to live. Such a small population is paying for all these massive roadworks and infrastructure replacements all the time.

Though Morgan has a different theory. “It’s tourists,” he said over dinner. “ I was here in 2023 and every night I would buy a 3 course meal for 30 euros. Now, you can only get one course for that if you’re lucky.”

The lighthouse! Yes, we climbed all the way to the top. When we started, I looked at all of the flights of stairs winding up and thought, “If I could make it to the top of that fort in Japan and that island in Vietnam, I can do this!”
And of course I could.

It was very windy up there. It almost felt like I could be blown off the top. The wind wasn’t so bad earlier in the day, but it soon picked up. It wasn’t at all cold, at least, not for me. Corinna was regretting her choice of clothing that morning. But the wind was a THING.

See my scarf? I wore it on my huge 9 week Uk/Europe trip 10 years ago. And people wonder why other people knit. It’s so satisfying to make something and then have the benefit flow on for years to come.

Then we drove to America.

This is the bridge between continents. The tectonic plates of America and Europe are on either side. Isn’t that cool?

As we were walking back to the car, Morgan pointed out the tiny island out in the sea.

”Bjerknes lived there for a year or two and recorded an album there. She left when a fish told her to move out.

Our next stop was to a place that Morgan said was called “A nice beach.” As the others wandered towards the cliffs, I saw a sculpture of a huge bird. It was a Great Auk, once common here but is now extinct.
Imagine being the last one of your kind, like the Tasmanian Tiger in Adelaide zoo. So lonely.

Here’s Baptiste and I, lords of all we survey!

What a sparkling day!

Though the wind isn’t really kind to flared jeans!

Oops. A little bit askew.

Another drive. We were covering all of the peninsula below Reykjavik.

Can you believe this? It was incredible. The air was thick with sulphur as the steam poured out in an unending flow. We walked right through it on the boardwalk. At one stage, I had to stop as I literally couldn’t see anything at all in front of me.

Morgan caught Corinna emerging from the mist. What a great shot.

We then went to “ another nice beach “ where, if we wanted, we could go for a swim in this little pool beside the sea. In a country full of geothermal swimming pools, this one was not.
We asked Morgan if he was planning to swim there. “Oh no!” he said. “It’s far too cold. But you can, if you like.”
um… no thanks Morgan, all the same! But it was very pretty.

On the way back to Reykjavik we stopped to take a couple of pictures.

Look at how impossibly blue the water is.

We swung by the main church in Reykjavik, with a statue of Leif Ericsson at the front. It’s a very impressive structure, though according to Morgan, they were scammed when they bought the concrete and twenty years after it was built, the never ending restorations began. Sure enough, as we drove up to it, the back end was covered with scaffolding.

It was beautiful inside though. I loved the simplicity. Corinna and Baptiste are feeling the vibe.

It’s a funny thing, but many of the buildings here are corrugated steel. I wouldn’t have thought it would be insulated enough against the cold, but clearly I’m wrong.

Colours!

And to finish the day…

… swans at the edge of the huge lake in the centre of town.

Dad joke of the day:

My last morning in Copenhagen, I went down to breakfast, then went back to my room and lay in bed and read a book. I know, it seems like such a waste, but the night before the girls from the WhatsApp Africa group got chatty. Every time I got to sleep my watch would buzz when a new message came through.

I’d wake with a start each time. Finally, I completely turned off my phone, but by then, like MacBeth, they’d murdered sleep. I needed a lazy morning reading a good book, so I took the chance to get it.

Later, at the airport, I spent serious dough on a new travel bag. Not something I wanted to do, but yesterday, when I was galloping around the streets of Copenhagen, I felt an odd ‘twang’ at my shoulder and this happened:

My Borneo bag didn’t even last for one holiday. I was at the airport and I saw a shop that was “By appointment to Her Majesty The Queen.”

Now, the queen of Denmark is Australian, so I’m sure she wouldn’t steer a fellow Aussie wrong.

The new bag. I’ll let you know how it goes.

It was 14C and sunny when the plane touched down in Reykjavik. I drove into town with a very nice taxi driver from Poland who told me lots about Iceland. Did you know that there’s only 400,000 people who live here?
He also pointed out the lava flows from a year ago. They broke the water pipes of a town nearby and the people had no heat or hot water for 3 weeks in the middle of winter. The government was supplying free electric heaters to keep people alive.

He seemed very nonchalant about the volcanoes. “They happen every year,” he said. “Two years ago the lava nearly covered the Blue Lagoon.”

Oof. I guess you can get used to anything…

I arrived at the place Morgan booked, only to discover that it was unmanned and I didn’t have a way to get in. Bloody Morgan forgot to send me the key code for the door. Fortunate Frogdancer struck again. I frantically messaged him and he was on the way to the airport. If he was already in the air I would have been stuck outside until he landed in the middle of the night.

With that little problem sorted, I went up four flights of stairs to the room – thanking all the gods that I brought a tiny suitcase with me – and then took myself out to dinner.

It’s lucky I was warned about Icelandic prices. This is the first time in my life I’ve spent $50 AUD for soup and bread. Ok, it was delicious, but I’m still reeling from the sticker shock. A chicken Caesar salad was on the menu for $65 AUD.

After dinner, I went through the streets to walk along the harbour. It was stunning. Sunny, with just a slight wind, with music coming from the bars. Never thought I’d hear Barry White in Reykjavik, that’s for sure!

I was going to walk around to this big green pimple, but after a few minutes I realised it was too far away.

I stood looking one way and took this photo…

… then turned 90 degrees and snapped this.

It appears that Iceland has the same muscle-bound seagulls that Canada has!

Dad joke of the day: