June 18, 2019 - Hvolsvöllur to Steiner, Iceland

We headed off this morning to catch the ferry at Landeyjahöfn under cloudy, rainy skies. We were heading to Heimaey in the Vesmannaeyjar (Westman Islands) for the day. By the time we boarded the ferry about 10:30, the sky was starting to clear for our 35 minute journey.

Here is your first history lesson for the day:

The name of the islands, Vestmannaeyjar or Westman Islands, originates from the time when the Irish slaves of Hjörleifur Hróðmarsson who farmed on the south coast, fled to the islands after killing their master at Hjörleifshöfða. Hjörleifur’s foster brother, Ingólfur Arnarson, found where the slaves had landed in Vestmannaeyjar and that place still bears the name of Slave Isthmus. To avenge the murder of his brother, Ingólfur hunted down all the slaves and killed them. Locations in Vestmannaeyjar still bear the names from that event, such as Dufþekja on Heimaklettur, the large bluff at the north of the harbor where Dufþakur, the leader of the slaves, is said to have thrown himself from the cliffs in order to avoid being caught by Ingólfur. To the first Icelanders who came from Norway the Irish were known as “West men,” thus the name, Westman Islands, after the Irish slaves who were killed there.

The largest island of the Westman Islands is  Heimaey which has a population around 4200, most of whom live in the archipelago's main town, Vestmannaeyjabær.

There are 15 islands in the chain.

The other islands are uninhabited, although six have single hunting cabins. This is one of the islands hunting cabins!

We were able to see Surtsey, the newest of the Westman Islands which formed from a volcanic eruption lasting from 1963-1967! Surtsey is the small island on the right in the picture below.

We booked a 2-hour puffin/volcano tour with  Eyjatours. Our guide, Ebbi, did a great job explaining the history of the island and showing us the highlights of the island. We had 17 people total in our tour, and everyone was attentive.  He told us his family dates back to 900AD living on the island, so he is an “Island Boy.” Fishing is the main industry and the island provides 15% of all the fish in Iceland.

He gave us a sprangan demonstration. It is a local sport in Heimaey where the young people learn the skill of rope swinging and climbing the cliffs to collect bird eggs.

We went to a hill which is supposed to be the windiest place in all of Europe. Luckily, for us, the weather wasn’t too bad and neither was the wind! We went out to a cliff to spot puffins landing and taking off. They have the craziest way of flying with their little stubby wings. There were many floating in the water and fishing.

 

We could also see Eider ducks in the water.

Our tour took us to the base of the Eldfell volcano.

 
In 1973,  the eruption of Eldfell volcano just outside of Vestmannaeyjar destroyed many buildings and forced a five month long evacuation of the entire population to mainland Iceland. Approximately one fifth of the town was destroyed before the lava flow was halted by application of 6.8 billion liters of cold sea water. The size of the island increased between 20-30% from that eruption!

Our last stop on the tour was the Puffin and Beluga sanctuary where we actually got to have our picture taken with a puffin that had been rescued. They had some strange looking fish on display, too!

We stopped for lunch then walked back to see the Danish Stave Church and the Midwife/Doctors Office Museum.

Here is your trivia question for the day. Can you correctly identify what these are in this picture???

It was a good day and didn’t really rain until lunchtime! We caught the 5pm ferry back to the mainland and continued with more sightseeing!

We drove past the Eyjafjallajökull Glacier. Eyjafjallajökull is one of the smaller ice caps of Iceland, north of Skógar and west of Mýrdalsjökull. The ice cap covers the caldera of a volcano with a summit elevation of 1,651 meters. The volcano erupted most recently in 2010.

We also saw the beautiful Eyjafjöll mountains where several manmade caves can be found. We stopped at the Rútshellir cave. The cave is located in a peculiar, big tuff pillar of rock. There are some structures in front of the cave including an old sheepcote, first built in around 1917, so it looks like somebody lives in the rock.

We went on to Skógafoss, one of the biggest waterfalls in Iceland. It has a a drop of about 200 feet and a width of 80 feet.  You could walk up to it, but we chose not to get drenched!

Next stop was Sólheimajökull glacier tongue, or outlet glacier of Mýrdalsjökull, the 4th largest glacier in Iceland. We hiked about one half mile to see the tongue where it melts into a river.

 We did see a group of hikers on the glacier, but that is not something I want to try!

We made it back to the South Island Guesthouse in Steiner about 8pm. We shared a cozy room for the night! Needless to say, even though Wendy and I booked our room over a year ago, there weren’t many choices in this area!

Tomorrow we have another busy day scheduled!

June 17, 2019 - Selfoss to Hvolsvöllur, Iceland

Well, it stayed light pretty much all night long last night! Thank goodness for the black curtains in the bedrooms last night. We all slept pretty well and were much more refreshed when we started off this morning.

SO, Happy “Iceland National Day”!!  Icelandic National Day (Icelandic: Þjóðhátíðardagurinn, the day of the nation's celebration) is an annual holiday in Iceland which commemorates the foundation of The Republic of Iceland on June 17, 1944. This date also marks the end of Iceland's centuries old ties with Denmark. Many of the farms and towns had their flags flying today.
We drove a couple different loop roads today to catch some of the sights and pulled off when we saw road signs that looked interesting. 
Our first stop was Marteinstunga, an old farm house and church. There were Icelandic horses and sheep there, too!

 

From there we headed north and had Mount Hekla, Iceland’s most active volcano in view for most of the morning. Hekla is a stratovolcano in the south of Iceland with a height of 1,491 meters and usually erupts every 10 years . A stratovolcano is a tall, conical volcano composed of one layer of hardened lava, tephra, and volcanic ash. These volcanoes are characterized by a steep profile and periodic, explosive eruptions. The lava that flows from them is highly viscous, and cools and hardens before spreading very far.

During the Middle Ages, Europeans called the volcano the "Gateway to Hell". Mt. Hekla last erupted in 2000, and they say it is overdue. We hope it waits until our trip is over to make an appearance! The landscape was volcanic and reminded Wendy of the Craters of the Moon in Idaho.

We ended up on a gravel road – but not an “F” road that rental cars are not allowed to drive on – for several miles past the Burfell Hydro electric power station on the Þjórsá River. Þjórsá is Iceland's longest river at 230 kilometers. (about 143 miles) Þjórsá is a glacier river and has its source on the glacier Hofsjökull.

We had a stop at Þjóðveldisbærinn Stöng which is a reconstructed Viking-era farmstead. We didn’t go into the museum opting to only walk around the outside. It was pretty interesting to see the sod construction and turf roof. It was abandoned in 1104 because of Hekla’s eruption and restored in 1977.

We also had a stop at another waterfall before lunch.

We made it to Ryekholt and had lunch at the Friðheimar Restaurant. What an interesting idea! This is one of Iceland’s largest tomato greenhouses and it has a restaurant inside. Everything on the limited menu includes tomatoes! We all had the tomato soup with bread. Both we all you could eat – and we did!! We could walk around the greenhouse and see the plants and they had signs explaining more about their facility.

With tummies full, we headed back out to head for the Þórsmörk loop of our day.  The drive through the valley toward the glaciers was amazing! We could see at least 15-20 waterfalls as we drove along. We stopped at Gluggafoss on the Merhja River on Route 261.

As we got closer to the end of Route 261 before it turned into F261 (where we can’t drive) we could see what Lonely Planet called “ brooding glaciers”! The valley was socked in with mist and fog which is common in that area. There are supposed to be fantastic hiking trails, but they were inaccessible to us without a 4WD vehicle.

There were lots of birds to see in the area, as well.

 

We turned around and headed to Seljandsfoss Waterfall and Gljúfrafoss waterfall. They are both located ight by Route 1 and the road that leads to Þórsmörk Road 249. The waterfall drops 60 m and is part of the Seljalands River that has its origin in the volcano glacier Eyjafjallajökull.

Gljúfrabúi is a smaller waterfall north of the larger falls of Seljalandsfoss. The falls are partially obscured by the cliff rock, but hikers can follow a trail to enter the narrow canyon where the water plummets to a small pool. We opted to just watch others go in!

After viewing these waterfalls we headed back to Hvolsvöllur to check in at our Airbnb for the night. It started to rain as we arrived so we had another good day!  Tomorrow will be a busy day with lots of activities, so goodnight!

June 15-16, 2019 Fort Collins, CO to Selfoss, Iceland

After more than a year of planning, we are finally in Iceland!

We weren’t sure we would make it there when we left home on Saturday, however. After picking up our friend, Wendy, who is traveling with us, we headed to Denver for our flight. Traffic on I-25 was horrible so we got off the interstate and headed on some of the backroads. Two hours later, we were finally at the airport and checked in. We got to our gate and our flight on Icelandair was almost 45 minutes late leaving Denver – ugghh. It was rainy as we were taking off for our overnight flight. We hoped this wasn’t a sign of things to come!

After a not-so-restful night’s sleep, we were awake to see Greenland as we flew over. It was pretty amazing to see. Iceland and Greenland should change names.

Seven plus hours later we landed at the Keflavik airport. All along the runway were fields of lupines!

We breezed through customs and headed out to the rental car shuttle. This was the queue for the shuttle! Tobey asked the driver where the actual office was and we skipped the line and walked to the Blue Car Rental office, arriving before the buses!

With our paperwork filled out and car keys in hand, we were off on our first day of exploring the Golden Circle. Our route took us along Mount Skalafel and the rift valley. You could see the volcanic upheavals all along the road.

As the day went on, the clouds started to clear and blue skies helped the temperatures warm up.

We passed fields and fields of lupine.

One of our first stops was Geysir, a famous hot spring in the geothermal area of Haukadalur Valley, found in southwest Iceland.  It is just one of the attractions along the world-renowned Golden Circle sightseeing route we followed, alongside Þingvellir National Park. Geysir is most well-known for having lent its name to geysers all around the world even though Geysir itself is rarely active these days! This is Geysir, which reminded us more of Morning Glory Pool in Yellowstone National Park!

The Haukadalur Valley boasts a plethora of hot springs and geysers, including the powerful Strokkur, Smiður and Litli-Strokkur. Strokkur  erupts with the most frequency, almost every 10 minutes. We followed the crowds to the watch the eruption. Strokkur shoots vast jets of boiling water from 65 feet up to 130 feet high. Not nearly as impressive as Old Faithful, but definitely, more frequent!

 

There were many pools of blue water and other areas of yellow sulphuric stains along the fumaroles themselves, a result of the earth’s minerals crystalizing around the rock bed.
At the visitor’s center was a Viking statue. Looks like a tough guy!

From Geysir, we continued on to Gullfoss, the “gold waterfall”.

Gullfoss is located in the Hvítá river canyon in southwest Iceland. The water in Hvítá River travels from the glacier Langjökull, before cascading 105 feet down Gullfoss’ two stages.

The first, shorter cascade is 36 feet, while the second drop is 69 feet. The canyon walls on both sides of the waterfall reach heights of up to 230 feet, descending into the great Gullfossgjúfur canyon. We were lucky enough to see the falls on a sunny day and see the rainbow above the water. It was beautiful!

After our visit to the falls, we headed to Flúðir. We drove along narrow roads which suddenly turned to gravel! There are several farms with Icelandic horses and we waited while this group was passing on a one-lane bridge.

Sheep are everywhere in Iceland, also! We were warned by the rental car company to watch for them on the roads … and they are! These two are decked out in our Colorado State University colors – green and gold – well, the green at least! We laughed that Cam the Ram, (our mascot) had relatives here!

In Flúðir we went to the Gamla Laugin “secret lagoon” hot pool. It’s not so secret anymore! Two years ago it was free admission according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, now it is $3000 ISK per person (about $24USD). They were pretty busy! We spent a couple hours relaxing in the hot water before heading on to Selfoss.

This is the old changing room! The new one is modern with showers and lockers … guess that’s why the price went up!

We had dinner at Kaffi Krus before checking into our Airbnb. They were busy, busy, busy!! Wendy had the fish soup, I had the broccoli soup and Tobey had the fish and chips. The soups were good, the fish and chips were so-so.

It’s hard to believe that it is after 8pm and still this light outside! We are all exhausted and hope to sleep well!