Tag: Culture

What a day. I awoke in Vik to a blistering wet snowfall. I knew that I had a 3.5 hour drive north in front of me and when I checked vedur.is I saw that it was just going to get worse in Vik until at least 2pm meaning that if I didn’t leave early, I would essentially lose the entire day. 

I brushed off the car in complete darkness and knew that the big difficulty was going to be driving the high pass into Vik but once past Vik, at least the road was flat. I pulled out to the road and, just then, the snow plow came around the bend. Someone up there likes me. 

I cranked up the heat and Led Zepplin 4 to get my heart rate up. The incline to the Vik pass is about 15% and with the wet snow it was tough, even with the plough. Seeing the town of Vik was a relief but as I passed the town the wind began to pick up. Driving in Iceland can be challenging!

The weather turned as the sun rose and I knew that the storm covered the southern tip of Iceland but not the east coast where I was heading. 

I passed some amazing landscapes as you can see below. The sun hardly rises so the light is beautiful and the shadows are long, as you can see below. That photo with my shadow was taken at 11:38 am!  My first stop was the Black waterfall, Svartifoss, that is accessible only after a long hike. My friends SL in Switzerland and MVH from the office would have loved the hike. The view from the trail was fantastic!

The weather started to cool and I could feel the weather beginning to turn. I grabbed my gear and headed back down the mountain. I got to the car and as I began to drive away, the rain started.

The next stop was Jökulsárlón, the glacier lake that is fed by the Vatnajökull glacier. While beautiful, the tour buses swarmed the parking lot. Iceland is a land of extremes. I can be alone for hours and then surrounded by hundreds.

   
    
   

I’m packing up now. It’s early morning here on my last day in Vik. There is a raging snow squall outside and I’m heading north to escape it. Vik (meaning “bay” as in Reykjavik and Viking) is the southernmost town in Iceland and gets the most precipitation in all of Iceland. I have all day to reach Hofn on the east coast so once I get over the high pass leading to Vik, the driving will be flat and much easier.

Here is a wood carving at the black sand beach of Vik showing the three trolls in the background who were caught by the sunrise and turned to stone as they attempted to bring to shore a stranded ship. To eat the crew, I imagine.

  

I woke early this morning to take some photos here in Vik. The weather was beautiful and the sunrise was breathtaking!   

 

I have been a little bummed with the laptop and all that but my friends in Ottawa (you know who you are) have been very helpful. 

And KE, you were right! It was a troll! I went out this morning to take photos and when I opened the hatch to the truck, there were my two GoPro batteries and my SD cards! The empty bag must have fallen out at some point. And by “fallen out” I mean stolen by a troll. Oh well, one less camera bag.

FYI after I contacted the Apple Store in Rek I decided to try one last thing in order to avoid the 6 hour round trip. I thought that since I had recently upgraded my OSX that this might be the issue rather than my initial assumption of a corrupt hard drive. I was able to download the OSX last night to a USB and then rebooted. I am now able to import my photos!!!!!

// edit – The hard drive is definitely corrupt  but I can still load everything with my USB key 🙂

 

With my laptop gone I am having to make due with using SD cards sparingly so imagine my surprise when I checked in to my cottage near Vik today that I had lost my small camera bag with spare GoPro batteries and spare SD cards. 

Perhaps I offended an Icelandic troll or something?

Today was busy but the weather was really the issue. It went from sunshine to hail in minutes but I was, thankfully, close to my car. Five minutes later the hail was finished so I went out for more photos. 

I’m here at the cottage now, going through images since I now have very little space left. The GoPro is a bust since my card is full with no way to dump the contents. 

These images are from Vik and the Sólheimasandur plane wreck. The surf is incredible here, the waves are  20 feet high that break close to shore. I laughed when I saw a sign stating that swimming was dangerous in these waters. No kidding.

   
 
   
 

I started the day near Skaholt, an early Icelandic settlement. The church, seen below, is like all Icelandic churches I have visited, anti-Baroque in that they are literally empty buildings with a cross, chairs, an organ, and some candles. Spartan indeed. After a visit to the archaeological dig that has unearthed the remains of the first church on that spot I went Foss hunting after a quick detour to the Kerið carter. Very cool. By the way, foss is Icelandic for waterfall and the three I visited today were the best I’ve seen. The first Hjalparfoss is a twin waterfall that, like Gjain, only accessible after a harrowing drive over the lunar landscape. The third is Seljalandfoss that I raced to in a minor break in the thundering rainfall here in southern Iceland. I also stopped at a black church (they use tar to weather seal like a boat) and bought a hat! 

    
    
 

RIP

I will have to make due with using my SD cards sparingly. Luckily all my files were on an external drive.

I’m trying a restore now through disc utility but I’m not holding my breath.

🙁

//edit – failed

My first day in the road was a feast for my eyes! Only a hour or so drive from Rek is the Golden Circle called that due to the amount of money made from the bus loads of tourists that flock to see these same sights. 

Thingvellir is really nice. The seat of the first Parliament in the western world in the 9th century, it is here that you can see the rift formed by the expansion of the NA and European tectonic plate. I then went to Gesysir to watch the tourists watch the Geysir explode. From there to Gullfoss, a really big waterfall but seen from above. Tourist buses were everywhere and I laughed as they pulled out their cameras to take photos rather than actually looking at the sights. And I’m no expert but I’m not sure that using your flash helps when photographing a waterfall!

I didn’t take any photos but I ended the day searching for the secret secret lagoon near Flúðir. The photographer in Rek told me about it and I searched and searched until I finally found it. At first I ended up at the Secret Lagoon, a hot pool that, again, was packed with tour buses. I knew this wasn’t the right place so I tried again, this time not using GPS. The hand drawn map was spot on, I just turned left when I should have turned right (I followed the tourist sign). I drove down a lonely country road for 15 minutes, convinced I was on the wrong path. But then I saw a small area to park, as described! There was one car in the lot so I ventured up and within minutes was soaking in a hot pool with two young Icelandic women. SMT and ASE, the two young ladies, were great! We chatted about Iceland and things to do and to see. Soaking in this tub was literally my high point thus far. The scenery was spectacular and while it was a few degrees above zero, I was snug and warm in the pool. One of them has travelled quite often to Italy so we chatted about that and the impact of tourism on Iceland. I can say that wild hot tubbing with two attractive Icelanders in the middle of nowhere is one of the highlights of my trip this far! They even helped me with my pronunciation, although I’m sure I still can’t pronounce the double Ls!!

   
   

When I travel I love to take photos of graffiti as I wander the streets. Here are a few and some from sunrise yesterday morning. 

    
    
 

I arrived two days ago and my eyes are still getting used to seeing what they are seeing. The landscape is nothing that I have seen before and it takes forever to get anywhere since I am always stopping to take photos!

My first day in Iceland was spectacular! As I said, I arrived at “way too early” o’clock after gaining an hour with a fast tailwind on the plane. I disembarked and went through customs. We had all received an email stating that labour actions could impact our customs inspection but it turned out that it wasn’t an issue at all. Customs seemed to be far more concerned with people bringing alcohol than anything else. I breezed through and went to pick up my luggage that arrived, literally, within seconds. Keflavik is under construction but it’s laid out nicely. I then went to the duty free shop to buy chocolate and wine. Even at customs a bottle of wine was $30! I’m not sure that my friend TC could survive here!

I then got my SIM card for my phone and waited a few minutes for the shuttle bus to take me to my car. It’s still early in my trip but Lagoon car rental certainly deserves its good reputation since dealing with them was fast. They gave me an upgrade since my 4×4 was damaged from the last owner (who probably went off the road because they were looking at the landscape).

So at 6 in the morning I started to drive! Check in time at my hotel was at 2 and since I hadn’t slept for a while (Icelandic Air flight was great but I was too excited to sleep) I was cautious. Once I started driving the cool Icelandic air woke me right up… Or was it the double espresso?

Below are a smattering of iPhone images from the first day including  random steam vents on the southern peninsula, a view from the top of the Church in Rek, random trolls on the streets (one of which is Mother Christmas who eats naughty boys and girls) and my photo shoot at Mink.is Portrait studio where I dressed up like a Viking! 🙂