Last day......

Last banquet breakfast at the amazing farm B and B then drive to the Blue Lagoon to soak in the milky white waters with the beautiful people. The resort is aching trendy with beautifully designed spa buildings Bjork and Sigur Ros barely audible above the chatter of happy spa goers and the ringing of the cash registers!

It is an amazing place in an incredible setting but it is rampantly commercial and eye wateringly expensive but I'm not coming all this way and not having a dip. I think I got my moneys worth staying in the pool till I was wrinkly, having sauna, steam bath, sitting under a hot waterfall and lastly a mud pack!

It's mandatory to shower before going in and of course there is free Blue Lagoon shower gel. My two slight hick ups were my locker bracelet slipping off with 5 minutes of groping around with toes in sand and other peoples verrucas at the bottom of the pool to locate it. Then when I got out into the icy wind some bugger had nicked my towel! Got another one from one of the black clad helpers so all was well.

The afternoon was taken up with a bit of shopping and then enjoying the last of the evening sun and the warmth of my new wooly hat :-) Oh and one of the attached pics is what I call a proper evening shadow!

My alarm is set for 4.30am and all of a sudden.......I'll be home tomorrow.....

Penultimate day!

Spent the day hiking up through a valley of active hot springs wreathed in steam and hydrogen sulphide. I now have a bit of a sore throat from all the 'bad egg' gas!

You have to be very careful crossing the mountain streams here. If you come off the stepping stones and get a boot full of water you're on your way to hospital with a boiled foot! Seriously! The water is at boiling point and you wouldn't be able to get your boot off quick enough! If you fell in you would be boiled alive.

There is a spring in the village calledc the 'killer spring' as one resident fell in after at late night with friends and was boiled alive!! Next to this is the 'garbafe' spring. The village used to fill up the fumerols that opened up with the towns rubbish until one night of volcanic activity spread years of rotting rubbish all over the village.

It was cold crisp and bright today and the aim of the exercise was to get up to the hot river and to have a soak. Bearing in mind it was only 3 degrees centigrade today. That's only 3 degrees above freezing!! Getting your kit off and into swimming trunks ain't fun. I was half way through this part and shivering like mad already when a chap on a horse trotted by. Of course it's more sheep rounding up today.

The water in the river after emerging from the spring goes through a series if turns and cools as it goes. Each turn forms a natural pool just deep enough to lie down in and cover your body in hot, mineral rich silky smooth water.

I was joined in my pool by some locals who said wait until you are really hot before getting out then dry off the top PDQ and put clothes on then you can sort your legs out at your leisure. I did and it worked.

Walked slowly down the hill as the last of the days sheep were being rounded up.

South coast

Had an amazing drive along the south coast yesterday and past the volcanoe with the difficult name that caused all the problems a couple of years ago. There are vast fields of ash and flood plains that were formed when the volcanoe erupted and melted the glacier. This swept away the main road in the area.

Stopped at a town called Vik with its amazing basalt cliffs and black sand beaches. Just recovering from another farmhouse breakfast with the cat on my lap. Not sure wether to go for a hike or drive round to see more sights! Only two days left now....

Thingvelir and the Rettir

No matter what you plan to do here it always tends to turn out slightly differently. To start with I had planned to go to the Thingvelir national park where the continental devide is. There are a series of amazing rift valleys which are a geology students dream!

They run for miles and can be hike. One of the best spots has an amazing waterfall and was the seat of the first Icelandic summer parliament. The council members would live in shelters for the summer months and read the laws out from a rock for members to relay to their communities. Some pictures attached.

So far so good. I then looked at the map and found a back road up to a large flag river valley that is pretty spectacular. However, for the last week the majority of Icelandic country folk have been up in the mountains rounding up their sheep and horses that have been grazing freely. All the herds are mixed up so the whole community, men, women and children have to help. It culminates in the sheep bring driven along a particular road to the Rettir site. My short cut was the drovers road!

When the first batches went past me I thought I was in the clear then looked up the road to see thousands more coming along. I u turned but was then stuck behind a couple of thousands sheep and horses. Add to that the fact that everyone has been in the mountains for a week, drinking heavily and are slightly mad!!

It took about 4 hours to do the drive that took an hour on the way out. However, I picked up a hitch hiker called Bjorkis who had been on his horse but it had gone lame so needed a lift home. We had a great chat in the car and I was angling for an invite to the big Rettir Ball but the hints didn't get through!

Anyway. Photos of lots of sheep attached and the traffic jam :-)

Tourist trail

I was on a bit of a tourist trail yesterday and everywhere I went the tour buses kept turning up but there were some amazing sights to be seen. On the way up to see the boiling, spouting geysers a party of Japanese tourists had bogged their mini van down on the side of the road. It was I'm right up to the axels.

I stopped to try and help but they didn't speak a word of English. Driving one of them to a garage, the owner kindly called the police but they wouldn't come out. They said it was their own fault and had to call the hire company. I tried to explain this but to no avail.

I drove the chap back to the van. By this time a German couple had stopped along with a Danish couple. Both tried but broke their ropes.

Just as the rain started coming down even heavier a passing 'monster truck' stopped. These are the ones with wheels as high as me but a tiny can on top. It stopped, backed up, an enormous Icelander jumped down, puled out his towing strip, hit hitched up the van and dragged the van out leaving it halfway across the road. He looked at them like they were something on the bottom of his shoe and drove off without a word. It didn't help that they had parked right next to a sign indicating a soft verge and no parking!!

So after all that fun the geysers were good but very busy with coach loads of people waiting for the geyser to blow every few minutes. The biggest water falls in Iceland at Gulfoss were amazing. You can hear the thundering of the water as you walk to the falls and long before you see them.

Rest of the day was pootling round old volcanoe calderras, remote churches and just soaking up the views.

Before the in flight films start there is a promotional film about Iceland and a shot of beautiful people swimming in this 25m pool with a 1950's pool house and volcanic escarpments behind it. It looked pretty cool and is in the village where I'm staying. So with a bracing 5 degrees outside I went for a dip. The main pool is like a warm bath and there are hot tubs to finish after the swim. Fantastic!


The farm has a dog and the cat just jumped on my lap...

Here I am....

Stayed last night in Keflavik. Funny little hotel that is full of people like me just passing through. Dog tired yesterday and suffering jet lag or maybe just too much traveling over the last few days.

I had booked a Yaris for these last few days to have a drive round the south of Iceland. The guy from the car hire place turned up with a nice little 4x4 truck! Got a free upgrade as the weather is about to turn!! It's insured for gravel roads too! :-)

After all I've seen recently still staggered by the landscape here. It must be because it's so young. Very active volcanoe wise round here. Clouds of steam and cracks in the ground venting clouds of noxious gas!

Hurricane

The front end of Hurricane Leslie hit Halifax on my last day with high winds and heavy rain. Setting out for the airport early seemed sensible as downtown was a wash out. News at the airport was that Leslie was about to hit St John's so I had gotten out with a day to spare. The airport at St John's was closed and everything was closed down just in case.

Taking off in rain and high winds is no fun and with a hurricane in the area the first hour of the flight was horrible. Got thrown around pretty good and everyone was a bit green round the gills by the time we got some clear air. No one was allowed to leave their seats and even the cabin crew in their jump seats at the back were looking pretty scared.