And Glaciers

This will be a long post...

It rained for most of the night, and was bleak this morning. Nothing in Iceland seems to open before 10am - the supermarket, the swimming pool, the museum... but waterfalls don't close. So, I revisited Seljalandsfoss, and at 8am there weren't as many people. I saw another waterfall from the road on the way to the next one - Skogafoss (which is actually the one on every advertisement for Iceland). Even though I was early, and it was bleak, the masses were already arriving - I'm glad I went there first. So that explains the three Waterfall pictures.

Next, I backtracked to the first museum of the day. This was the Eyjafjallajokull Visitor Centre, opposite a large farm underneath the icecap - with information about  the volcano above them erupting and disrupting thousands of airlines with its ash. The eruptions melted the glacier, which sent ash filled floods that broke the roads, and the services. Then the ash started to fall on the farm. The whole museum was very well done.

Then I went back to Skoda, to the museum there. It has displays of traditional costume, tools, the way of life, and a number of original houses that have been moved here. I included the loom for dad. This museum also had a technology museum as part of it, showing how different technologies came to Iceland. Well worth visiting.

Continuing my journey to Vik, I debated about going to the coast, because it was quite windy. I ended up going to Reynisfjara beach to see the caves with various volcanic formations. This was one of the places that I really wanted to see. There are also several sea rocks, which are attributed to trolls turning to stone when the sun came up.

The last pictures are of a few glaciers I saw today, and the final one is of where I'm camping tonight.

Finally Some Waterfalls

But you need to wait!

Still in the UNESCO area, there is another geothermal place called Seltun. One of the early exports from Iceland was sulphur, for gunpowder, and it was mined here. I took several pictures to give you an idea, but the site is big.

Next, I went to Hveragerdi, another geothermal area. This town has sprung up around their geothermal area, and has harnessed it for their advantage - although not always! They used to put all their rubbish into one mud hole. One night it exploded, and covered the town in rubbish. I think they stopped using mud holes for rubbish disposal after that. The geothermal park wasn't as impressive as either place I had already been, so I didn't take pictures of that, but you can boil yourself an egg in the "cooking pot" hole. They give you a stick with a bit of string off it, with a net on the end, with the egg in it - just like a fishing rod. While I was organising to have one of these, another couple came in. Of course, they had to do it too. While he was putting his egg into the pot, his string detached from the rod, and they had all sorts of trouble trying to get it out.

There are many greenhouses at Hveragerdi, but they also have a waterfall. Because it was from a thermally heated spring, it never froze, so there used to be a woollen mill on the stream.

Next I went to what seems to be the most photographed Waterfall in Iceland - the Seljalandsfoss. It is very close to the coast. I stopped on the road and took pictures in both directions. There were an enormous number of people at it (they were lining up to go behind it), and it started to rain, so I didn't get out of the car.

More Extra Pictures

I'll get the hang of this soon and only do one post a day (if that). But again I didn't talk about all the pictures. Also I'm having problems with the internet set up that I had decided on, so I may be relying on each campground having it, and I understand that some don't.

Firstly, early yesterday I stopped and took a picture of the countryside. It is completely covered in rocks, and this part of Iceland would be extremely hard to farm.

Next, I stopped at hanging rock.

Lastly,  there was a pool on the side of the coast, that was created by another Troll. Actually the smoking area I went to was a witch that had been confined by a priest after she had killed many people in the village (I'm not entirely on their side, as someone had her falsely accused and killed in the first place, and everything happened to the villagers after that).

Looking Around

This morning I visited the Trolls - the Troll in the cave was written about in 18 books, so they created a cave home for her. I collected my new glasses, and realised that the two trolls on the harbour are facing Reykjavik!

And then I started my explorations!


Firstly the bridge between two continents ( that I didn't photograph, but photographed people walking in the middle of the rift and the stratified side)

Then I visited the hot springs (or maybe hot steam).

Those extra pictures

I'm having problems. I need to put in pictures via one type of access, and  words via another - neither works for the other. In future I may put the pictures at the end. 

I walked for miles and miles! But didn't find the place I was walking to. On the way I saw a lot of ducks. As 90% of the ducks around here are Eider, I assume that is what these are.

Later I saw a number of patches of shrubs, including a rose, which I think is Rose Rugosa. On the way back I went to the Iceland Museum of Rock and Roll - including sound studios. It was good!

Icelanders are Fantastic!

When I was in Singapore, I left my distance glasses behind. This could have been a disaster since I can't see very far without them, and I left the spare pair behind. However, enter Icelanders. I caught the taxi to the camper van place, and the driver mentioned that there was a glasses shop where I was going. The camper place has a really nice hostel, and because I couldn't immediately take the camper they gave a night for free!

Although the internet didn't know about the glasses shop, because the taxi driver had told me about it, the guys at the camper place found where it was, and showed me where to go. At home, to get an optometrist appointment takes a few days - they are so busy - but when I showed up, they said I could have an appointment in 5 to 10 minutes - was I happy to wait that long? At home, because my prescription is poor, it takes a week to get a new pair of glasses. They asked me to come back later after they had seen whether they could do it sooner. It will take two days in Iceland, and the glasses are cheaper! So I will "lose" 2 days from my trip.

However, I went to one of the local museums - which isn't in the guidebooks, and it was fantastic. It had an enormous exhibition of models of local fishing boats, with fishing paraphernalia around the walls. It has an exhibition of the geology of the area - which is a UNESCO Global Geopark. It had a total of seven exhibitions - all of them incredibly interesting. This area is part of the rift between America and Europe. All in all, I had decided to skip this area when I made my plans, and I am really glad that I will spend time here!

It also gives me some time to recover from the 36 hours of travel, and to stock up on supplies. So I haven't lost anything, and gained quite a lot. 

Reykjanesbaer was a fishing village, which grew. Unfortunately the coast was getting eaten away, so they had to put an enormous number of basalt boulders along the shore to prevent all the erosion. After that happened, the children couldn't see the sea. The suggested a platform with two trolls be set up so they could see the sea again. This complements the troll's cave that was already there. The next picture shows the new trolls at the left and the old troll's cave at the right with all the stones showing just how much has been done. There is an bay between them..

The Start of Another Journey

Singapore Airport has several outdoor gardens - including its award winning cactus garden. How cactus grow outdoors in100% humidity is anyone's guess!

About 20 hours later, I thought we should be seeing Iceland, and when I went to the other side of the plane this greeted me...

 

And as we were comin in to land we saw the rifts between the American and European continents.