The Land of the Midnight Sun

 

 

Ok, so Iceland is not exactly the land of the midnight sun but it is close! The sun shines pretty long during the summer days. From roughly midnight to 3am it did go down, but not exactly. It just kind of hovered on the horizon. Knowing we would have plenty of sunlight and not be too far beyond our time zone (just 2 hours) we formulated a plan. Last time we came to Iceland was in the winter and we had noticed that many of the attractions started late, if they had a start time at all. Tourists seemingly did not stir until 9am or after. Considering how nice it was for us to get up early, drive to a location, and then enjoy it all by ourselves we wanted to attempt this again. So, we made sure to be up and ready to go by around 7am each morning.

 

I should also mention that Iceland was “covid free” and right when we arrived all restrictions were lifted, no masks, no distancing, nothing once inside the country. They had zero domestic infections for a couple of weeks prior and 90%+ of the population was vaccinated. There was also a requirement to be fully vaccinated or to pass two covid tests, prior to departure and on arrival, to enter the country. Of course, that meant that some of the arriving tourists did in fact test positive. I think it was about 20 per week when we were there. It was nice living in the “covid free” world, but it also felt weird and at times a little unnerving.

Day 1: We arrived in the afternoon and had a 3.5 hour drive ahead of us as we left the airport bypassing Reykjavik and heading to the north. This day we weren’t going to have much time to see anything anyhow so we figured we should just make the most to put distance on. We did however make a detour to the Lave fields of (volcano) since I knew it was relatively close to the airport. The volcano was easy enough to find and there were lots of tourists there. We got close enough to touch the recently cooled lava and to peak into the depth to see it actually wasn’t totally cooled! Some orange embers were still blazing inside. There were hikes that went further uphill and could get you much closer to the actual eruption site, but we had a long day of travel behind us and a long drive in front of us so we did not go that far. We drove on to the north another few hours and stayed on a farm just north of Borgarnes.

Day 2: That night we were staying in Akureyri and in the afternoon we were going to catch a whale watching tour in a town near there called Hauganes. The drive was oh so beautiful. We saw beautiful coastline, drove through some dense fog and eventually into a mountain pass that had unbelievable views. We ended up stopping for a quick lunch by the side of the road and enjoyed looking at the peaks while eating our tuna and cheese sandwiches that I’d made that morning. The whale watching boat was big enough and the summer air was nice, but being out on the water though after a couple of hours it did start to feel cold. We were surrounded by water that was getting runoff from the mountain snow after all. The cliffs along the bay had many waterfalls pouring their cold contents in. Finally about an hour into the journey we stopped heading out and just kind of were hanging around looking and then the humpback appeared. It would stay at the surface for a few minutes getting air and then dive back down for ten or fifteen minutes. Then it would surface again and our boat captain would quickly manoeuvre us into position to see it well. We repeated this five or six times and then began to head back. After whale watching we drove the 40 minutes or so on to Akureyri and our place for the night.

 

Day 3:

The next day we drove to Dettifoss waterfall. The drive there was a little long, but the view was well worth it. This waterfall is actually featured in the movie Prometheus. https://youtu.be/ZHpJr7_5Mjg?t=24 Arriving there is a little difficult as there are two options, east or west, and the fork to choose which side you would like to visit on is almost an hour from the waterfall. Better get it right!

Day 4:

Today we drove quite far to see the puffins at but then largely just drove the day seeing beautiful scenery and ending up that night just outside of Egilsstaðir at a horse ranch. 

Day 5: Hiking and a lot of driving again no doubt. We got up early to see Hengifoss Falls. It was about an hour up and back. We had it all to ourselves. By the time we got to the car other tourists were just arriving. Hoping to again beat the crowds we kept on to Laugerfell where I’d read there was a loop trail that ran along a glacial river call the waterfall loop where there were many waterfalls all in one stretch. We were not disappointed. The hike took us a few hours and was hard at points, but the scenery was fantastic and we barely saw anyone the whole time. It was great. Tired, we made our way through misty mountain passes to our stay for the night, a farm just outside of Hof. 

Day 6: Today was going to be our last full day and we didn’t have a big plan so we visited the cave at Hálsanefshellir  and the gorge at Fjadrargljufur the stayed at our cabin right near the caves just outside of Vik. The cave we had somehow bypassed on our first visit, but our friends had told us we really needed to check it out. I thought they were really cool. The friends said to go around the first bend where all the tourists were and you might have the further caves to yourself. They were right! Unfortunately it was a quite windy day and so we didn't stay there very long but I could see making a picnic lunch of it if you had time and the weather was nice. 

Day 7: The next day up and early to get back to Rejkyavik and get on our flight back but we did have a few hours to spare and so looped to Thingvellir national park, the site of the first parliament in Iceland. Oddly, in was no that funkadelic. Also along the way was Kerid, a volcanic lake of azure blue. FYI  if you are planning to visit, there are no toilets there but there are some nice bushes right by the carpark. 

Oh... and of course we went back to the tomato restaurant for the all you can eat soup direct from their greenhouse grown tomatoes. Iceland, see you again!