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:
Lucky you! I did the same drive years ago when I visited. Iceland is so easy to do on your own. I took my daughter there twice and a friend twice. It’s one of my favorite places. The prices sure have increased though! And the tourism. Enjoy every minute of that magical country!
Yes, I feel very lucky to be here. This place is stunning.