Iceland 5: A hasty tour of mostly waterfalls

We began our second tour by being picked up by a gruff, older man.  Picking up other people was fairly smooth, however we did have to make a brief stop on the way to our first destination in order to pick up a trailer for him to store the luggage and to pick up a piece of equipment that was forgotten. 

We first stopped at Thingvellir National Park.  The driver seemed impatient as I chose my camera gear and was waving us to, I guess, run to the group to catch up.  I simply kept walking.  Luckily he seemed to have eased up after this.  We looked around at the interesting rock formations and walked along the path between two tectonic plates.



Next, we made a five minute stop to examine the fault line, I believe it was.



Geysir hot springs was up next.  The biggest geyser was ruined years ago by human interference, and so they leave this smaller one along.  It blows every 7 minutes or so.  Some of the expulsions were quite mild, but one was larger.  I was trying different camera settings and finally found one that worked, but it blew larger than I had expected.



Gulfoss Falls was the next stop and this massive set of waterfalls were stunning.  There were a few views but I liked this one best.



We eventually came to Seljalandsfoss, a set of three waterfalls.  You normally can hike behind the waterfalls, but due to deadly ice that could hang on the cave ceiling, that part was barred off.



We made an unscheduled stop at what looked like a small town, I believe the driver spoke of the significance of the volcano located here.  In any case, it was picturesque and the sunset on the other side was just as nice.



Since the weather was so clear, we made a final tourist stop at Skogafoss.  I couldn't decide on which picture to use, so I posted both.  The ground was quite icey, but the ice made the area likely even more beautiful than it normally would be.  There were a set of steps going up the mountain to the top of the falls and I decided to go.  Happily, Miles came with me despite reluctance.  The views from the top were very nice.  I am glad we had this little moment to ourselves.



We stopped at a supermarket before going to our countryside hotel just east of the town of Vik.  We had some good conversation on the bus with fellow passengers.  I ended up at  the restaurant to drink coffee.  I asked if they had any skyr.  They said yes.  I was expecting the yogurt that was brought to me a few days prior.  Instead, it was a cake, which funnily enough, was what my first guide wanted me to try.  I asked our current guide about this discrepancy, and he informed me that Skyr encompasses a wide range of products.  I joked with Miles that if the marshmallows he bought at the supermarket said Skyr, it could have tasted like pizza or bacon for all we knew.

Iceland 4: The Lego Church, odd sculptures, and another attempt at the Northern Lights.

Yesterday was a day of recovery.  Or for me, a lot of discomfort.  For some reason my health problems were acting up.  By around 2:00, I forced us out to see the two items in town that most intrigued me.  The first one being the most obvious, Hallgrimskirkja, the church that the town is known for having.  It was beautiful.



Right next door is a small sculpture garden.  It had some pretty odd sculptures, so I loved it, although it was a bit small.  I wished there were more of them.



We went out at night for our second attempt at seeing the northern lights.  This trip went more smoothly, with a clear sky.  As soon as we exited the vehicle, parked fairly far away from the lights of the city, we noticed the band across the sky.  To our eyes it appeared like a band of white cloud.  The camera revealed more colors.  Despite reading up on how to photograph the northern lights, ad previously visiting the museum, it took a while before I was able to get good images.  Unfortunately for me, the first ten minutes had the most activity.  Here are some out of focus pictures of when it was most colorful.



The driver then commented that some people went onto the beach for reflections of the lights in the water.  Miles returned to the bus for warmth and to play on his tablet while I ventured by myself down to the beach.  The beach was brief, before becoming seaweed infested wet rocks.  I used my tripod as a walking stick to slowly make my way to the water.  Over the next hour I took many pictures and tried many different combinations of settings.  The pictures turned out very nice, but there wasn't much movement of the lights within that hour.



For these final two pictures, I aimed a little bit upward to include the big dipper that I saw the night before, but this time with northern lights!

Iceland 3: Waterfalls and Icelandic Horses

We woke up to a beautiful sight just outside our hotel.



We ended up accomplishing so much yesterday, that today was mild in comparison.  We ended up with a hotel farther east than the tour usually uses, so we were already part of the way toward our destinations.

Our first stop was at the geothermal pools of Deildartunguhver.  This was a similar set of sulfur geysers as we saw in Unzen, but on a much smaller scale.  We did not stay long.

Next were the waterfalls of Hraunfossar and Barnafossar, virtually right next to each other.  The first one that I took a picture of had extremely fast rushing water in greater quantities of water than I am used to.  My picture ended up lasting too long and created an effect that made it look like it was ground fog rather than a waterfall.  The second falls look more natural.



We then took a quick stop in the town of Reykholt.  This very small town was known for housing Snorri Sturluson, a man of great significance to the history of Iceland.  Among many other things, he is known for his writings of epic proportions, that also served to highlight what it was like in the early days of Icelandic settlement.  The two churches looked beautiful in the sunlight.  As today was the first day I've seen mostly without rain, I noticed that the sun is almost always in a state of sunrise/sunset lights, going only up about one third of the way into the sky.



Just a few minutes away was the Sturlureykir Visiting Horse Farm.  In the main house lived two cats that seemed fond of each other.  Two dogs were also on the premises.  The woman gave a presentation involving a video, outlining some of the differences between Icelandic horses and all other horses, proclaiming that the horses here have two different kinds of gait that others do not.  I felt that she came across and pretentious and arrogant.  I sensed that she meant well and was unaware of how she came across.  In any case, I focused on the cats.



I was hoping to watch horses in the fields but instead we were guided into two different barns.  In between the barns we were brought to a geothermal guyser that the property owned.  In the second barn we got to spend some time with the horses, and Miles was allowed to hold one for a photo.  I still would have preferred watching them in a field.



Our guide took us to one last destination, one that was not originally part of the itinerary.  It was to the Glanni Waterfall.  I used the wrong filter on my camera, so another picture that wasn't so great.  On the walk back I saw a beautiful snow covered mountain in the distance.



Once I was back in the car, I overheard the middle of a conversation between Zaho and the other couple on the tour.  It turned out that the night's forecast was supposed to have some clear skies, which would allow for a potential northern lights sighting.  I decided to sign up for one of the group's tour that simply went out to an area without light pollution and had a good cloudless view.  If you don't see any lights, you can go again for free.

The tour started off a bit bumpy as the driver struggled to locate the final passenger, driving in circles for 45 minutes before finding them.  I was sitting right behind him and asked what was going on, but he never went on the speaker to inform anyone else, and after all the delay, he never even apologized or offered an explanation to anyone else.  We drove out of town and camped out there.  Miles was quickly snoring.  It was a full moon which made the night sky quite bright, which isn't great for photography.  No northern lights ended up showing, but I ended up having fun hanging out with some of the people while waiting.  I contacted the company to see if I could try again tomorrow.  All I was able to capture was a picture with the big dipper.