Iceland

Last year we went to Barcelona for my birthday, had to up the ante, so this year, it was Iceland. We planned 5 days based around Reykjavik jam packed with cool stuff.

The first event was  a whale watching tour. Angie was pumped.

Boarding the boat

Plenty of puffins and sea birds, but unfortunately, it was way to choppy to see the whales beneath the surface.

 It was also freezing

So whilst I saw the spray from a whale's blowhole as he came to the surface, we didn't actually see any whales. Very disappointing, they gave us a complementary pass for another tour, but cant see when we're going to get back to Iceland to be able to use it. Oh well.

Next we did a tour to the natural springs, the geysers and some of Iceland's other natural wonders

 The springs were incredible, super hot water straight out of the ground, the photos speak for themselves.

Angie in the springs, that isn't me nearby

Me getting in

It's a mud bottom and the locals use it to wash with. We had a mud massage from some masseuses in a separate pool. It was nice to be able to do some of those things that we couldn't really afford to do in our first round of travel since we had been working for a while.

There was a long boardwalk around the outside of the springs complex, walking around gave us some great photo op's. Colours were amazing!

 

Next stop was a power station that harnessed the geothermal power from the island.There was a brief talk about how the station works and time for a coffee and a quick break.

Next up was Gullfoss, or Golden Falls. Amazing waterfall carved right into the rocky landscape.

Next we headed to the original 'Geyser' the place that gave all other geysers their name

This is my favourite shot from the trip, colours are out of this world

 

The Geyser is very reliable and still blows up every few minutes. Here is a sequence of it doing its thing, Angie watching by.

Amazing to see, we stood around for ages just watching it fire up and explode again. The best part was just as it got going, the water bubbles up a deep, chalky blue like its a jelly. Looks spectacular.

 Next was a national park centered on the junction of 2 tectonic plates.

More great photos, landscape was really unique, parts of it looked almost lunar, some parts more like the Lord Of The Rings.

Back in Reykjavik for the arvo...

We kept getting caught out in the evenings, we would set out to find somewhere to eat and inevitably find that it was about 11pm. It was light until after midnight, so our internal clocks were all thrown out, very strange. The middle of winter must be hard yards with only a few hours daylight.


The next day, Angie went off to ride the Icelandic horses. They are a very pure breed and have an extra gait that other horses don't, called a tolt. While she was tolting, I just kicked around the streets to take in what I could see and shoot some photos with my new 50mm.

So that was Iceland! Quite unlike anywhere else we had visited and our only foray into Scandinavia. Reykjavik is a cool city, I got the feeling the longer you stayed, the more you would get into the Reykjavik coffee and bar culture, which seemed pretty prominent. The highlights for me, however, were definitely the natural phenomena, such amazing landscape made for beautiful photos. Would love another try at shooting some pics and to visit the glaciers as well. Well worth the visit.

En route back to London