31.07.2015 / Mordor, frazzled tires and another beautiful waterfall. North we go!

We left our comfortable place in Egilsstadír to drive towards Myvátn area where we would for once stay for two nights. Looking forward to that.... The landscape changed from grey-green moss, flowered hills to an undescribable odd and bizarre landscape. This was Mordor at its best. Whereever you were looking: nothing but plain Lava fields in dark and grey colors. Such a fascinating surrounding.

After some time 'green' returned back and we went for another small road besides the #1 main road. We passed former stone houses and discovered at the lake Sænautavatn a small museum of old turf houses. Inside one of the houses was a lovely Kaffi where we had hot chocolate, coffee, homemade bread and excellent pancakes with selfmade jam.

These kind of places can only be found when off the main road and we were happy to have made this detour.

The wash house was quite a highlight as well. 

Next sight on our list was the famous Dettifoss waterfall. The Dettifoss is the greatest and most majestic of Iceland's waterfalls, 44 m high with the average volume of 212 tons per second , so the ground shakes with the force of it. It can be viewed from either bank and took a side road to come up from the non-tourist perspective. The road turned out to be pretty bad with many deep holes on gravel. We drove by a car that had two tires completely ripped apart. That looked scary. The Dettifoss was amazing. We have made the better choice on the right side and could get totally close to it. Unfortunately, the sun was not shining and we did not get to see the two rainbows that in general show when sun is on.

After the Dettifoss waterfall, we continued via the coastline to Húsavík. I dont know what happened but all of a sudden my blood pressure went totally down and I felt like I was going to faint. Jens had to stop and I desperately needed to get some air and water. Good enough, I felt better soon and we continued our way to Húsavík where we had some Hot Dogs and took another detour to get to the area of Myvátn. We crossed a stunning landscapes pointed out as a restauration area. One could tell plants of wild flowers well structured in order to grow new fields of green in the devasted lava landscape. The road was crowded with sheeps.

We reached our accomodation in Myvátn and were surprised as we seem to have gotten an unexpected upgrade. We moved -this time for relaxing two nights - into a newly built house with heated floor, a seperate sleeping room for Kjell AND our own bathroom with even a bath tub. This was heaven!!

The beds again were a dream and we fell asleep straight away....

30.07.2015 / F-roads in x-modes and horse hair allergies don't fade...

We left in time this morning to pick up our exchange car in Höfn at the given address and to our surprise no Europcar station had popped up over night. I asked a friendly neighbor for support and he explained that this was indeed the private address of the Europcar Manager at Höfn. We waited for a couple of minutes and then the Manager showed up with an unexpected upgrade car. A 4x4 Subaru Forester. We quickly exchanged the car, tried to inform him about the issues but got the impression that his English was not the best. 

So, we left, happy, for our next stay close to Egilsstádir.

Jens and the car were getting along well and we decided to give an F-Road a try.

F-Roads in Iceland are an interesting category. You are only allowed to drive them with 4x4 cars as they might lead you over high mountains, small roads, steep roads, gravel roads in all sizes, curvy roads, bumby roads with rocks, rivers to cross,.... anything that a normal car would not be able to handle. An F-Road is clearly marked and even your GPS navigator asks you whether your car is ready to go for a F-Road.

So, we chose a small one of only 15km. At the beginning, we were still making fun of it but it turned out to be a tough one after 5 min. The road got extremely difficult with large gravel, steep climbings and a difficult serpentine. After 30 min we decided to go back. It is known that many tourists just overestimate their own ability of driving under such conditions and cannot handle their car. I was worried about the steepness of the serpentine but Jens was more worried about the tires of the car. We found out about the X-mode support of the Subaru (a button to press for additional support in hilly situations). We decided to go for safety first and turned around to get back into normal driving mode. Phewww.

We continued safely our trip to Egilsstádir when I spotted Islandic horses on a paddock close to the street. We jumped out to cuddle them. Such pretty and friendly horses.

Two hours later in our modern, clean and very cosy accomodation Jens' old allergy to horse hair broke out again and for another three hours he was unable to see clearly out of his swollen red eyes. Poor boy, we thought he had grown out of it....

So, no horseback riding for him during this trip!

29.07.2015 / Of Puffins, the most amazing 'Black Beach' and glaciers

The next morning we woke up quite early and drove down to Vik. Vik is special because it is the most southern city in Iceland and it has an extreme speciality: the Black Beach ! We got there quite early in the morning and therefore were lucky to miss the bunch of tourist buses popping up during the day and ruining the beautiful landscape.

To describe the beach is not possible if you have not seen it yourself. The shore crashing on the beach which consists only of black sand and stones in all sizes. Directly on the beach sharp stones pile up and above we could see hundrets of puffins living and breeding their pufflings. The scenary of this beach is both: bizarre and beautiful.

Puffins? Such lovely, cute little birds. Extremely colorful with a red peek and very short little wings. They come here during summer time to raise their pufflings and then fly out to the open sea for the rest of the year. Compared to other birds they look rather funny when they fly due to their short wings.

At this point in time we were pretty sure that we would not continue to drive with the Kia ceed. The clutch was getting worse, the tires in bad shape and so I contacted our Travel Agency to arrange a car exchange for the next morning in Höfn.

We had to be in Skaftafell Visitor Centre by 12:45 am as we had booked the "Blue Ice Experience", a glacier tour for 2,5 hours. We rushed through the landscape to make it in time. On our right the sea, on our left big Jökulls, glaciers and prosperous fields.

The glacier tour was a highlight!! Kjell was the most happiest person with his ice axe and the spikes under his feet. We were driven in a small bus to our starting point, got a quick introduction in how to wear and walk with the spikes and how to behave during the tour.

Off we went with our guide Anna. She explained a lot about "our glacier", the Svínafellsjökull, its age, the reason for a glacier, the disappearing, its dangers,... it was extremely interesting to listen and to translate in parallel into German for Kjell. We hiked for 2 hours and made some experiments to show the nature, the power, the danger of such a glacier. It was truely a stunning experience. And afterall not that cold. ;-)

We continued our trip towards the next accomodation near Höfn and arrived at the glacier Breidamerkurjökull. At the foot of the glacier is the deepest lake of Iceland, the Jökulsárlón (250m deep). Icebergs of all sizes float on the lake. Kjell was asleep and on a small parking lot we climbed up a small hill to see the beauty of the lake (which actually was the lake where James Bond crashes his Aston Martin in 2002). We sat there all alone when suddenly one of the icebergs calved. This incredible sound of cracking and whooshing will stay with me forever. What a special moment - truely. 

A few minutes later we got to the official sight of this lake. It was amazing to take a closer look at the Icebergs in all sculptures and forms. Even a seal popped up... 

This lagoon definitely is worth a visit, even though again crowded with other tourists.

Our accomodation close to Höfn was simple and clean but not really worth mentioning. We changed our clothes and then went out to look for a restaurant in Höfn. We ended up in a lovely, very pretty small restaurant in the harbour of Höfn, called New Haven, Nyhöfn. I had excellent lamb and Jens was happy with his cod. Besides, I kinda fell in love with the waiter, a typical Icelandic young guy with shaved backsides and a tied knot. ;-) We also realized that in general the Restaurants don't really provide extra kids' dishes, which I think is ok as I like our son to try new food and not only rely on french fries and nuggets. 

By the way, did I mention that in Iceland no McDonalds is available?!?!? Such a good thing!

On our way back to our place, we tried to find the Europcar station according to the address that our travel agency passed to us. We found each other in the middle of a normal private house area, with no house numbers and were curious on how the exchange of the car would work the next morning...

28.07.2015 / Baby ducks have hot feet and Irish moss is way better than the best mattress

After a rich breakfast in our lovely accomodation with home made bread and cakes, fresh eggs and real hot cocoa for Kjell, we decided to climb up the hill behind our house.

On our way up, we met a girl who asked us if we would like to see one-day old new born baby ducks. We held one in our hands and who would believe that they have incredibly hot feet?! So cool, so cute!!

For about an hour, we climbed up and the nature, its rocks, the wild growing colorful flowers in the middle of the vast landscapes was just undescribable. The Irish moss is so soft. When you lay down on it you never want to get up again...

We built our own family stone pile as you can see them everywhere - obviously built by trolls.

When we took a deep breath, looked in all directions and did see nothing but pure nature, we felt solidly grounded. This was the moment we were looking for during this vacation. Leaving all the stress, the noise, the mobile phones, the iPads, Playstation games behind us!

We left 'Sel' to head down South along the coast side to Vik. On our way we passed  Selfoss and went for some grocery shopping. Food and especially eating out is quite expensive and we wanted to go for some picnics on our trip - as long as the weather would stay good. 

The landscape was changing and we passed quite a vast landscape with its own charme. This was a perfect scenery for a science fiction movie.

We stopped at Keldur - a manor farm and now museum with old turf houses and a church. A moment to think of how lucky we are to live nowadays in comfortable houses.

Luckily enough, it only rained a few minutes when we were driving. Whenever we got out of the car the weather was just perfect with the sun shining at 14C. 

We could picnic on the road and towards the evening arrived in Dyrhólaey cape where we drove up a serpentine 120m high to perpendicular cliffs with a black sand beach.

The evening we arrived at our next accomodation close to the harbour town of Vik. It was rather unspectacular. Nice and friendly hosts, clean rooms and again, very very cosy beds to sleep in.

Again, we went to bed early - despite the sun still shining around 11 pm ....

27.07.2015 / On the road... Extreme "Fossing" and being splashed by a geysir....

Aaaargh, I lack time to write my posts! Which is an incredibly good thing actually. ;-) 

Well, we are on the road now for the second day. We packed our stuff yesterday morning and waited for more than one hour for Europcar to pick up Jens. Only after I called Icelandic Farm Holidays they showed up within 5 min. We could have walked to the rental office and would have probably gotten a better car than the one we are driving now. We ended up with a Kia ceed and after two days of driving are trying to get another car in the next days... the tires, the clutch... hmmh would not pass the TÜV in Germany.... We'll see in the days to come.

So, after we had left Reykjavik yesterday morning we drove to the Pingvellir National Park. The weather was perfect and even the crowds of people did not bother us. I had to take a picture of the public toilet with the probably best view ever....

We strolled around this stunning nature and then went on to check out the well known Gulfoss Waterfall. On our way there we passed many smaller ones - beautifully fitting into this wonderful nature.

 

Gulfoss was amazing though crowded with people. We arrived with the sun shining and this created a lovely rainbow above the falls. Beautiful picture!!!

Next stop was the Geysir area East of Reykjavik. Funny to see all the steam coming out of the ground. The Stukkur geysir explosion was really a highlight. Unpredictable in time and height. Kjell was enjoying standing into the direction of where the steam would go. The smell of it was extreme though and we did not mind getting soaking wet. 

By the way, I forgot to mention the water in Iceland. Honestly, no need to buy any water bottles as this truely is the purest water you can get out of the tab BUT in some areas where it does not come out of the mountains straight away, there is a really strange smell of the sulfur when you rinse your face. Sulfur actually smells like rotten eggs. Even though you know it does not hurt, it kind of troubles you. One gets familiar to it, though. 

After the Geysir sight (the real 'Geysir' by the way only errupts after an earthquake, last time in 2000 where it went up to 70-80m), we went on road #1, the so called ring road around the Island, to head to our first arranged accomodation.

'Sel' was in the middle of nowhere and this was just perfect. A wonderful old farm house, the sleeping rooms and the breakfast place kept in old style, was located right at the bottom of a rather small mountain. We were warmly welcomed by the host in a cooking apron and asked whether we would also like to join the three meal course he was just preparing. We enjoyed salad with slices of delicious goose and as a main course we had cod with sweet mashed potatoes and vegetables. Delicious!! 

The place was lovely and can be highly recommended. We fell to sleep straight away.... 

26.07.2015 / Being Prudence K. for a day...

We had a wonderful rest and slept long this morning in our stylish room with large beds and soft sheets. When I woke up I finally took the time to go through our voucher documents and suddenly realized that all the docs were for a lady named Prudence K. !!! Ok, she had booked a more comfortable car and high classed hotels and for a second Jens decided that I would be renamed to Prudence for the rest of the trip... Harpa, our lovely host was so kind to call the emergency hotline of our agency and two hours later we got the correct docs. 

Town House is a lovely place to stay at. Harpa is a wonderful lady spending a lot of time in making you feel comfortable. She gave us many interesting tips for Sightseeing Reykjavik. In the common kitchen we met a couple from Denmark and a young couple from Belgium who have already been travelling for 6 months through SEA and Europe. This is why we like to book rather small and private stays 

rather than in Hotels where people are paid for being friendly.

Around lunch time we went to check out Reykjavik. It kind of reminded us of small Kopenhagen. We had lunch and our first Icelandic beer in a small student Café, climbed up to the known Church Hallgrimskirkja, strolled down to the harbour where Kjell played on a quite natural playground, went into the Harpa, the famous Opera House and back, totally exhausted to our Town House.

We fell asleep straight away, still so tired and fighting with the 2hrs time difference. ...

Our "Town House" in Reykjavik

Hallgrimskirkja Reykjavik

"Harpa", the Opera House in Reykjavik

25.07.2015 / Off we go....

What a stressfull departure day. Getting the last things packed, buying a six-pack of sox and a few more sd-cards for our cameras we went on the Autobahn for our ~2 hour ride to Berlin. ... and got stuck in three traffic jams causing brief moments of panic. We ended up in time in Berlin and went into a small Italian Restaurant for a Pizza. For the last time some food WE knew before entering the mysteries of Icelandic food traditions. 😄 After a good meal a new shock struck us: In general, when leaving Berlin by plane we always travel from Berlin Schönefeld Airport. For some strange reason, I quickly had a gut Feelings to re-check the tickets and realized that it would be Tegel this time. So, where to park the car? Would we still have enough time now? We paid in a rush, hurried to the car, just to find ourselves stuck again for getting on the road because of a running event in the middle of Berlin City. My pulse went up as "millions" of skater passed us... 

Fortunately, they let us pass during a small slot and 30 min later we had parked the car safely and took the bus to the Airport...

Incredibly enough, and those knowing Berlins' grumpy bus driver: This one did not request me to pay the ticket but just waved me through. That was truely coming close to a miracle! 

Check-in was funny! By random generator Kjell was picked for a body check... You could literally see his face falling. 😳 And I only thought about all the rusty nails, dirty metallic stuff that he in general collects in his pockets on his way home from School.

The take-off was one of the worst I ever had. Due to heavy storm in Germany we kind of slipped sideways into the air. How to assure your kid that the pilot knows what he is doing when your heart is pounding heavy? Anyway, we made it and were picked up by a lovely man from Icelandic Exploration to drive us 45 min into the Center ok Reykjavik where I had booked 2 nights. During the trip it was interesting to listen to his hints and ideas about Iceland.

I love the language with its difficult pronounciation!!

Harpa, our host at Town House, welcomed us warm-heartedly and around 3.30 am cet we finally fell onto the fresh and cosy beds!!.... 

A wonderful start of our 11 days in Iceland!!