We packed up our gear and we were sad to leave our little home we had for the last few days. We headed on to our next destination Egilsstadir, en-route we stopped off Stuðlagil canyon after a couple hours drive. The view was quite spectacular and the view point was a large metal platform which made Li’s legs turn to jelly as it was so high up.
The canyon itself was very long but the key viewing area of rock was very strange, it reminded us of the giant causeway in Ireland; the column structures were of the same ilk. Although some were stacked like logs, some curved and some were dead straight upright. There was a waterfall but it was majority frozen, still there was some serious water flowing through in to the canyon.
After the canyon, we headed on to Rjukandi waterfall which was pretty amazing. It had 3 feeds coming down, the frozen water coming down made it quite superb to look at.
We finally arrived at our hotel and was very hungry, after all it was gone 3pm so we went on a hunt for some food. We found a cafe / bistro called Salt which had some amazing pizza. I even managed to get a glass of rose in for a grand price of £8.50, I won’t be having too many of those.
After checking in to our hotel, we didn’t fancy sitting in the room so went out on the hunt for another waterfall, this one was only 7 minutes drive away. We arrived at Fardagafoss, albeit we did drive pass the parking as it wasn’t clear. another excuse to wear our crampons, it was a half hour trek to the waterfall.
Sadly, due to the snow build up, we couldn’t climb behind the waterfall to explore the cave but it was a lovely trek and we also passed another waterfall called Gufufoss (Steam falls).
Back to the hotel and not feeling much for food, we decided to relax in the bar instead. Catch us tomorrow when we move on again.
Today was destined to be a day of two halves, first a nice, albeit slightly strenuous walk to a couple of waterfalls, followed by a relaxing time in some hot spring baths.
The waterfalls, Selfoss, and it’s big brother, Dettifoss, were around an hour and half drive, and, unfortunately I had made a mistake in checking the road closures so we added an additional 20 minutes on to this as a result.
The car park, when we arrived, was a good size and Li was happy as there were toilets – little wins! We kitted up, including our first use of our new crampons and headed off. The crampons were excellent, although William’s were too big as expected so I had to fix with velco straps that I took with us specifically for this job. It worked! Stability perfect on the compact ice and snow, well worth the purchase from Amazon.
Selfoss, the smaller of the waterfalls was about 30 mins walk but certainly worth it, amazing splendour, and some great photos hopefully.
Next on the list was Dettifoss, reportedly the most powerful waterfall in Europe, but then a place in Germany also claims the same! Still, after the additional 40 minutes walking, we saw, it’s big either way
However, as we couldn’t get to the original, East side (of the river) as planned due to the road closures, we could only see about half the width. As a result, although bigger, it wasn’t anywhere near as impressive as far as we were concerned, but still photo worthy of course.
We went to a small waterfall. Then to the most powerful waterfall in Europe it was amazing!
After the waterfalls, we saw these coral like things, but they were grass with ice and snow on them.
There were iron bars to make sure that we do not fall into the river below. The iron bars had ice on and what I did was I picked the ice off and I got a ice tube and there were square holes in the railing on the floor and I dropped the ice tubes on the floor and squished them into the holes and I came out with a square ice cube!
We also needed crampons, they were bright orange but mummy’s and daddy’s were black and they had enormous spikes, but we just had little ones.
By William
Leaving the waterfalls, after a quick sandwich that Li had packed, we travelled the 90 minutes to the saltwater thermal baths in Húsavík.
GeoSea Thermal Baths were very different from The Blue Lagoon. GeoSea is right on the coast, and the baths are created by natural hot sea water rising from the bore holes drilled whilst the locals were trying to obtain hot water to heat their houses. It turned out to be too corrosive to the metal pipe work, and hence the baths were made instead by an enterprising local.
Designed as a number of infinity pools, each a different temperature the place was very relaxing and the water crystal clear unlike The Blue Lagoon’s milky water. The selection of different pools, and the view really made this a fabulous place to relax; which we did for a view hours and Li would have happily stayed another few if we didn’t have a long drive back!
A top day, but now we have to pack, say goodbye to our shed in the field as we’re on the move tomorrow.
Today, first thing we went shopping in the morning. The town was about one hour drive. We went looking for some warm clothes, mummy brought a puffy jacket and Rebecca brought the same as mummy.
For lunch, Rebecca and I had a quesadilla each mummy and daddy had a taco each and we shared a Pepsi
After that we went to a bar, Rebecca and I had a chocolate chip cookie each (they were very big) mummy and daddy had a beer.
After we went back home (which took 1.hour) ,daddy and I finished our snowman, that Rebecca and I started the day before, we made it facing the door (so when we open the door we see the snowman). The snowman had 6 stone button’s and a smiley face and a nose.
It was the start of the day, Daddy woke me up at 9:30am we sat down for breakfast and had herrings on toast, and William had mini chocolate Weetabix.
By about 10:30am we were out; ready for our day of adventures. Our first sight seeing was walking (I know that sounds really boring but we were walking to an exciting sight). I saw a sheet of what looked like glass over a vast area but I realised it was ice, covering a huge lake.
I really wanted to walk over it! I couldn’t though but I did get too later.
Another great thing was walking (again) but through a lava field (it wasn’t real lava though it was obsidian I did a whole bit about it in the first blog) and they formed spectacular formations! They were amazing.
My personal favourite was the mud fields. They were beyond stunning for 2 reasons. The first is because of the heat; ever sat round a campfire and warmed your hands up against the flames? Well, this was even better; if you put your hands against the rocks that the steam was coming out off, it literally felt like a radiator!
My second was the colours on the mud/clay; seen graffiti before? Those artists use spray paint and the mud/clay looked like it was spray painted (but obviously it wasn’t). I would describe it as the galaxy on the floor!
We arrived near the caves, we got our gear on and we set of to the caves. As we looked into the caves, we saw pitch black, as we went deeper we saw a pool of water. Daddy was trying to find the water surface. Then daddy put his foot where he thought the water was below then as he did it he found that it was much higher than he thought it was, so he got his boot wet.
He felt it was very warm so Rebecca,mummy,daddy and me dipped our hand in the water and we felt the warmth. Then we saw other people in the caves and we turned back to the water. Then we took a photo of the water and Mummy,Rebecca and me because Daddy was taking the photo. Daddy joined us in the photo. We went out the caves and we went back to the car and drove off
By William
We also climbed a volcano! This was the most energetic thing we did all day. Near the end of the massive climb I felt like my legs were going to fall off my body. In the end we all made it to the top (it was like a hurricane up there it was soooo windy)!
For dinner we had burgers then after we went into the hot tubs and William and I kept of jumping in and out of them. Today was probably the most interesting by far!
Today was destined to be dull, hours of driving and not much else to get us to the north of the island. We had a relaxing start, with a surprisingly good breakfast and then headed for the first destination en-route, Hvitserkur, which is an Icelandic version of Durdle Door.
We arrived at Hvitserkur and that was the first real experience of just how cold it was! Freezing! With a windchill that subtracted another 10 degrees or more. A very swift walk resulted in a couple of photos, a few nice comments and what felt like frostbite
Back on the road in our nice warm car we then had an impromptu meeting with one of Li’s colleagues just to say hello for 5 minutes as we were driving in opposite directions around Iceland. A quick, but tasty burger at a petrol station and we were off again, this time with a supermarket as the destination.
Dull. Expensive and dull! Like a Lidl’s in style but Fortnum and Mason in cost! still, we have to eat and the food quality was good. We also found some Ling, similar to Cod, and Arctic Char, similar to trout for dinner; which although was expensive, was equally delicious we were to find out.
One excellent and small diversion around 30 minutes from our accommodation was a waterfall called Godafoss. It’s reasonably famous, in Iceland, and you can see why given the close proximity to the road, easy access and two really nice waterfalls.
Arriving at our Airbnb place around 7pm, we were pleasantly surprised. Similar to a shed in the middle of a field, but, well equipped inside and most importantly clean and very warm.
Li cooked a lovely dinner, the fish, and we relaxed. Happy that even though we’d driven for around 6 hours, it seemed quite an easy day
It was an early start to the day. We got up at 4:00am and we set of at about 5:00am. This was the first step on our 2 week adventure!
When we arrived at Heathrow, a few things went wrong. Firstly, we went through the barrier that we weren’t meant too. Fortunately, we finally found the the right passage, that was one problem solved. Unfortunately, the person who was meant to pick our car up was late; because he went to terminal 3 when we were at terminal 5. It was really annoying because as the man was late I didn’t get breakfast at the airport.
☹️☹️☹️
Finally, we were on the plane! Yay! I was happy with my odd breakfast that Mummy had made me; sushi. I started watching ‘Matilda’ but then Daddy said that I had to go to sleep. But I did get to finish the film when I woke up. As we were approaching the island, I saw some amazing scenery from the air. When we got off the plane I was taking my first steps in Iceland.
The car we (Daddy) had hired was a Toyota RAV4 (it is very big but I don’t like the smell of it). But the rest of it was very nice (except from the dents in it) our first destination was ‘The Blue Lagoon’.
I was soooooo excited I felt like I was about to burst (but I didn’t). Mummy, Daddy and William and I got these cool wrist bands William’s was yellow, mine was red and Mummy and Daddy’s were blue these were are passes into the experience of a life time!
We had to get changed, then we went down a slope into a cloudy, white/blue water (we called it milk); once you opened a door that was partly in the water and the top of it was out of the water it got even better. It was so weird because your body was warm due to the thermal vents in the water but your head was cold because you are in Iceland! It definitely a experience to remember.
There was a awesome cave thing about 10 feet away from the door. Inside of the tunnel like cave we got our first sighting of silica on rocks it was strange because the rocks had a band of white at the point where the water met the surface. They would look like mountains to ants but obviously nothing could survive in the water hence the name the vikings gave it which translated into poison lake.
One of my favourite things about the lagoon was a thing called ‘silica’ it was such a strange feeling when you put your feet on the bottom of the lagoon and felt all of this squidgy slime seep in between your toes. Also, we got the opportunity to have a lump of goo (which was silica) and spread it over your face (which when I put it like that doesn’t sound very appealing but I was really excited about it).
After that we (Daddy) drove about 3 hours to a hotel called Hotel Bifrost (with some funny symbols above some of the letters) when we arrived the man asked us when we would like dinner and then Daddy asked where the nearest town was turns out it was 39 km to the nearest town, so it was decided that we were going to have dinner in the hotel.
Daddy and William’s room was 416 and Mummy’s and my room was 417. When we saw the corridor Daddy described it as ‘a scene from when the Berlin Wall existed’ which I wasn’t very happy about because that was where we where going to sleep (no not in the corridor in the rooms) but at least the rooms were kind of modern. From My room the was quite a strange view, one house for some reason had obsidian (for if you didn’t know is volcanic rock also if you didn’t know that don’t worry because Daddy didn’t know either, not that helps) ; another roof was covered in grass Daddy being Daddy asked how they cut it (he is paranoid about his grass at home if you didn’t know) but I must admit i did think it was strange.
Soon we went down for dinner and I my jaw dropped when I saw the prices (okay maybe I am exaggerating a little bit) but after the discussion about the prices we finally made up our minds.
William chose pizza (which consisted of: cheese, pepperoni and green olives), Mummy chose confit duck, Daddy chose Icelandic lamb and I chose local salmon (which I know sounds very boring but it was very yummy).
After, we had finished William and I shared a chocolate mousse cake and I found it very funny when there was whipped cream and William put some in his mouth (not knowing what it was) and then looked like he was about to be sick luckily he wasn’t.
Today was a brilliant day but ‘The Blue Lagoon’ was defiantly the best thing I have done in Iceland so far (though I have only been here for 1 day so I doesn’t really count). I hope all of my other days will be just as fun.
We’re all so bored with lockdown that we’re leaving on a global trek! For the next 28 weeks we intend to virtually visit 28 different places in a Follow The Sun global food trek that we’ve made up. Every Sunday we’ll be cooking and eating traditional food from each location and flying a plane on our map!
Our route around the globe starts in England and then we head West… goodbye lockdown, hello amazing food!
We drove to Blarney and set up on the campsite, we had a great idea to get on our bikes to head in to town and see the castle. Little did we know it was easy getting down as it was a BIG hill!! The return journey was going to be interesting.
We got to Blarney castle and stopped off in a cafe for some lunch, unfortunately we got attacked by a lot of wasps and as Rebecca got stung by wasps, she was very reluctant to be bait again. After lunch we made out way to the castle and the grounds were immense.
We walked around the grounds and the castle was the typical Irish square building but there were a lot of interesting nooks and crannies of the out buildings surround the main castle. The grounds were vast and there were some interesting trees, one was massive and I couldn’t get on to it. Tony and the kids managed to get on to it.
Explored Blarney castle and Tony and the kids went on to kiss the Blarney stone but I declined. To hang upside down so far up put me off. We visited the poison garden afterwards which showed the everyday plants which are poisonous and some which we never even heard of. We were talking to an American and learnt a saying of “leaves of three, let is be!”
There were waterfalls, witches caves and gardens which were surprisingly spread out. Rebecca went down a set of steps called the wishing steps, you had to walk backwards and close your eyes to make a wish. Tony thought it was a recipe for disaster, thankfully no accidents,
Alas, it came to the end and we had to cycle back to the campsite. Rebecca and I struggled and at some point ended up walking our bikes up the blasted hill. William was a little trooper and managed to cycle up with Tony. As you can imagine we were shattered when we got back. We found a disposable BBQ at reception and managed to defrost some meat. We ended up having a lovely dinner outside the campervan and kids loved it.
Having now completed the Ring of Kerry we headed up to the Dingle Peninsular, and more specifically Dingle it self. A very busy little town with very little parking for our campervan it turns out. We ended up parking next to the worst distillery (in terms of serving customers!) in the world. Who has ever heard of a distillery that you can’t by whiskey at? What’s the point!!
Continuing into Dingle we had sights on a fish and chip restaurant that’s mean to be one of the best in Ireland. The portions were pretty good to be fair and the environment, sitting outside in the sunshine, was very pleasant, and reassuringly expensive as everything is in Ireland
On the bright side, we also found a brewery right next door to the restaurant, and I managed to obtain a nice flight of beer; happy days. Then, even more interestingly, a pub on the way out had over 250 whiskey’s to drink. I did a bit of deal with the barman and ended up being able to taste a few of them. Rebecca and William were being absolute stars during the whiskey tasting, watching a man make leather belts in the pub (yes, a bit odd!) but they were being so good and polite that the man made a key ring free of charge for both of them. One of those proud dad moments!
Moving on, we walked the back to the campervan via the aquarium, which was very interesting on the basis they also had a great butterfly area and even otters! The kids had some great face painting done, which was nice. We left dingle after a nice day, with the though that it would be great place for a boys trip!
On the way back we stopped for short period, ice cream length, at a nice beach, although I wasn’t going to drive on this one! Back to the site and we ended up with a lovely BBQ care of the Mrs and then we turned it into a campfire which the kids loved. A good day was had by all
