Iceland XI: Marathon Day, Reykjavik fun and home

Nancy got up early to go to her marathon; Rich helpfully picked her up on the way to drop off Linda at the local sports centre, where a shuttle ran to the starting point downtown. I slept in and decided to do a hike that we had cut the day before due to time (and Nancy not wanting to do anything strenuous before her race). I, after all, had five hours to kill until Nancy finished.

 This was Glymur, which was about an hour away from the city to the north. I had debated doing this or going on a more relaxed walk to a hot thermal river located east of the city. The weather was a cold and foggy and on my drive to my hike, I almost thought about turning around and changing plans as it had been a long trip and a lounge in the river sounded pretty good. But I carried on and the hike was spectacular, one of my top three things in the country. A well-marked trail led through a canyon and up, up, up to Iceland's second-highest waterfall. There was one big group on the trail but once I passed them, it was easy. Best of all, it was a loop, though I had to cross a freezing river in barefeet in order to get to it! (I watched others first as I was not sure where the crossing was). 

The weather miraculously improved as a drew nearer to the starting point, which I took as a good sign. I did not need a jacket until I was at the very top. It was another of those Iceland sights that just looks like a fairytale.

I was done and home by 1:30 and waited for Nancy to tell me when to get her from the shuttle location. It took longer than expected but afterwards I got the story. Nancy had accidentally started early, with the competitive group, due to some misunderstandings of the loudspeaker announcements. After she was done, this meant she had been disqualified as the race chip for some reason did not record her first 5 km since she started early. So, while she had an approximate time, it was not an "official" marathon. She was pretty sad about that. Also, the weather was pretty miserable especially considering how great my hike was. So when I picked her up, her lips were literally blue even though she had already changed into dry clothing. 

We went back to the apartment and she had a shower. The marathon happens on Culture Day so there were lots of activities happening around the old downtown. We drove to the shuttle location again where it took us to the famous Hallgrimskirka church. There was an organ marathon recital happening, so we caught a little of that. I bought a ticket to go up the tower for views, though they were less than spectacular owing to the weather. 

We met up with Linda's family and walked around for a bit, then went for dinner at a fish and chips restaurant. After that, we walked around a little more, but they had already seen a lot of things so headed back to the apartment. Nancy and I were looking for, and finally found, the settlement museum, which was free for the day and had interesting displays on the early settlement of Iceland around 900, and the evolution of the population to the present day. It was pretty well done.

Once we finally got our bearings back, we went in a few stores on the way back to the church, and took the shuttle and then drove back to the apartment after stopping for groceries.

Aug 23

We woke up early to head to our Inside the Volcano tour - the only tour in the world that takes you inside a dormant volcano. We arrived quite early to the meeting place about half an hour outside of the city and had some free hot chocolate to warm up. At 9:30 we departed with the other ~20 people and made the 40-minute walk through the lava field to the volcano.

Once there, we had some time to wait at "base camp" a kind of ski hut, well-equipped with more hot chocolate, tea and coffee. On the way to the outhouse, Arctic wolf cubs appeared. They entertained visitors while we waited for our turn to put on our harnesses and helmets to go up to the volcano.

We were in the last group, so we waited a while and then headed up.

The trip into the volcano is a seven-minute elevator ride with all kinds of interesting rock formations all round. Once down, we had a half-hour to wander around and look at the great colours, from the floor all the way to the narrow entrance 120m up in the air.

Next was something on Nancy's agenda - the Lava Show - the only show in the world where real lava is created! It was located away from the downtown area in the city, and we duly paid our fee and hung out in the guest shop until the next show. 

For the show, they basically truck in volcanic sand (tephra powder) and melt it in a blast furnace, creating real lava that pours down a chute. The presenter plays with it a little and gives you some information on volanoes and the geology that creates them. The presenter was Dutch and studied volanoes in university; he was excellent and the show was interesting.

Nearby was a bookstore but it was Sunday and we forgot that still means something here, so it was closed. Instead we walked to a popular nearby ice cream bar and had a s'more-flavoured  ice cream sundae thing.

It wasn't really convenient but I did want to try the Blue Lagoon even though it was out of the way and expensive. After our ice cream, we drove out near the airport. The lagoon is heated by effectively used water from the nearby geothermal power plant. It was busy, but we were able to find some quieter spots and the lagoon is quite large with several pools, saunas and steam rooms. We enjoyed our included drink and relaxed in some of the warmer spots in the pool before heading back for our flight the next day. 

We finished up our groceries and woke up at 4:30 AM to make sure we had lots of time to get to the airport and drop off the car for our 9 AM flight. We had heard a lot of horror stories about long lines at the airport and while lines were long, we were through security and baggage check pretty quickly. We did some shopping and bought a photo book in the duty-free, then went for our flight to Calgary, then a long layover, then to Edmonton, where AJ picked us up. We dropped off AJ in the parking lot at the airport where Mom and Dad were waiting to whisk her home, and headed home ourselves.

Overall, this was a whirlwind and great trip. I already have a list of things we missed to do for a potential future visit!

Iceland X: Borgarnes to Reykjavik

 From our place near Borgarnes, we drove to the Grabok crater and made the brief climb up. Unlike the other craters we had seen, this one was moss-filled.

We made a brief stop at the Deildartunguhver hot spring. It was a commercial hot spring so there wasn't much to see. We stayed for a few minutes and pondered getting a hot dog at the stand, but in the end simply carried on.

The two waterfalls of Barafoss and Hraunfossar were next. Hraunfossar is unusual as it's more than 1 km long of cascades. Barafoss, "Children's waterfall", is so named because of some children that supposedly drowned in it. Icelandic names are usually based on a place description, a legend or a tragedy.

Barafoss

Hraunfossar 

Our big activity for the day was the Víðgelmir lava tube. This is caused when a volcano erupts and the gases slowly leave the area, leaving a big cave. This one is the largest in Iceland. We were able to get there a little early and ate the lunch we brought from the grocery store the day before while waiting for the next tour at 1 PM.  A short hike led us to the cave, and we were able to go through about half of the 1.6 km length on a guided tour, mostly on wooden walkways. 

We were done pretty early and had nothing else until we arrived in Reykjavik. Nancy found a waterfall and we decided to go to it on the way. It was down a very foggy and twisty, potholed gravel road... not the best, even though we were hoping for a paved route and took a detour! We realized it led us back to the park we had visited on the very first day and we had already seen this waterfall (I knew it sounded familiar). So we continued on the now paved road to Reykjavik. After finding our Air B&B that was located off to the side of someone's garage (a bachelor-style apartment with our own bathroom, which felt like luxury at this point), we drove to meet Nancy's family as Linda had picked up Nancy's race package for tomorrow's marathon. They also had a (larger) Air B&B not far from us. We debated going out but instead picked up some frozen meals (with vegetables, which hitherto had been in short supply) and made them in our apartment, and just relaxed for the evening. Nancy wanted a good sleep so we knocked off relatively early. 

Iceland IX: Snaefellses peninsula

 We got up early and headed out. We were located in the NE part of the Snaefellses peninsula, north of Reykjavik. Our goal was to drive around the peninsula, stopping for various sites along the way. The peninsula is often called "Iceland in minature" because it has a little of everything - lava fields, black sand beaches, waterfalls, basalt columns.  

The first stop was a waterfall only a few minutes away from the guesthouse we were staying in, Grundarfoss. It was easily visible from the road and a walk along a road and a creekbed led us right to it. It was a good reminder that despite the poor quality of the guesthouse, at least the location could not be beat.

Next we drove just past the village of Grundarfjordur to the Kirkjufell mountain - the most photographed mountain in Iceland. Apparently it was featured prominently on Game of Thrones. Right across from it is a waterfall, Kirkjufellfoss. Apparently you can climb this mountain, but it seemed somewhat difficult and we didn't have time, so settled for photos.

We saw another of Iceland's interesting post-modern churches in the town of Olafsvik. 

We made a brief stop at the "Well of the Irish", and the nearby "Shelter of the Irish". The well supplied water to the area. There were some Irish settlers in Iceland around the time the Vikings arrived but no one knows exactly why it called this.

We made another stop down a very bumpy gravel road to see a lighthouse and golden sand beach, which is different than the black sand that you normally find here. Massive black cliffs lined the shore and it nice to relax here for a while, despite the cool weather.

Slightly down another every bumpier and narrower road was another lighthouse directly in a lava field, with some interesting formations along the shore.

Back on the main road ringing the peninsula, we stopped at a volcanic cater, Saxholl. It was busier than the other things we'd seen so far, as there are shallow metal steps bringing people up the crater rim. Other collapsed volcanoes were visible from the crater rim.

We next stopped at a black sand beach with cool rock formations (and the remains of a fishing trawler still spread all over the beach), Djúpalónssandur. A short walk from the parking lot led us down between the basalt and to the beach. 

We made a brief stop to observe two other famous basalt columns, Lóndrangar, not getting as close as I would have liked.

For the day highlight, we stopped in the town of Arnarstapi and walked on a trail to the town of Hellnar a couple of km away along the shoreline. This took a couple of hours and afforded great views of the shoreline and more cool rock formations lining the rocky, mossy cliffs.

Continuing east now, a brief stop at the Bjarnafoss waterfall and a famous black church at Budir followed.

We next stopped at Ytri Tunga, "Seal Beach". I did not have high hopes for actually seeing any seals but there turned out to be many, though they were simply lounging on the rocks of the beach. Jude's camera came in handy here.

The final stop were the stark basalt cliffs of Gerðuberg. It was a quick hike up the cliffs but they looked more impressive from the ground. The road to get here was the worst we'd seen in Iceland and the car barely made it. Despite my best efforts I did bottom out the thing on the way there. Due to that we decided not to drive further on the road to a short crater hike.

We headed off the peninsula to a long drive to our lodgings, an old postman's house converted into a guesthouse near Borgarnes. We picked up some groceries so we could have a hot meal (frozen pizza). The stairs to the second floor, where our room was, was basically a ladder! The place was very charming though.