Fire and Ice: Iceland's Golden Circle, Part Two

Saturday 5 August 2017. After leaving the Gullfoss waterfall we re-traced our steps a bit - or perhaps the coach re-traced it's tyre tracks might be more accurate.

We stopped at the geothermal area at Haukadalur, which was described on the tour as a Geyser park. It contains several geysers and hot springs including Strokkur (shown here) which erupts roughly every seven minutes, sending boiling water shooting up to 20 metres (65 feet) in height. This eruption was just after we entered the park - you can enter at either end of a set path.

The paths that you can walk are marked out by rope and iron posts and there are warning signs not to touch any water whether standing or flowing in small small streams from the pools.

It may have flowed over the ground quite a way but that water is still 80° centigrade or higher! Just looking at flowing water your mind plays tricks, telling you that of course it will be safe to touch. I didn't test my theory and suspect that I would have regretted it if I had!

We reach the first of the pools. There's a spot towards the right where the water is boiling. This must be directly above the vent or tunnel through which the water rises to the surface.

In the second pool it is very obvious where the vent is! It is a strange feeling to know you must be standing over a large lake of magma. Though, on saying that, I've climbed up Vesuvius and didn't give it a second thought! But here the ever-present steam and whiff of sulfur act as strong reminders. Incidentally for anyone screaming at the screen that I spelt sulphur wrong, I refer you to the decision of the Nomenclature Committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1992...

We reach the erupting Strokkur geyser just after its seven minutes start again! Phew! It does smell of sulfur and as we walk through the end of the mist of steam it gets very hot.

We walk round the ring of spectators until we are out of the path of the steam and I set the camera on video to capture the next eruption. Sadly, it is a smaller one than some we have seen, but still impressive.

As we move towards the far end of the path we presume that this area must have vents from closer to the reservoir of magma far below as there are several pools which are boiling away merrily.

Whilst not erupting on the same scale as the one just seen, this one does spurt out every now and then as the water gets super-heated. It is called Litli Geysir - "Little Geyser"! There are several people watching it and Fran overhears someone from another of the ship's coaches complaining, "Well I've been standing here longer than seven minutes and it's not done anything other than boil!"
"That's because you're standing at the wrong one," said Fran, pointing over her shoulder just as Strokkur shoots high into the air again.

We are close to the far end of the path now and lunch awaits us in a hotel at the far end. This part of the park is wreathed in steam from numerous ponds or craters in the ground.

The lunch is included with the tour and is delicious. A cream vegetable soup is followed by poached salmon as a main course. It is faultless. Water and tea or coffee are provided though when we were offered a beer or soft drink we both thought "Why not?" and I had a lager beer - Gull lager - and Fran had a bottle of Pepsi. We worked out the exchange rate later and found we had paid around 14 pounds for this. Hey - it was worth it and you have to remember that prices in such a remote place are going to be higher than your local supermarket!

Alongside the car park was a large souvenir shop and we had a look round and bought important things like fridge magnets...

There's one more site to visit on the Golden Circle tour and that will feature in the next article. It consists of the rift valley between two tectonic plates and the site of Iceland's first parliament around 800 AD.

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Fire and Ice: Iceland's Golden Circle, Part One

Saturday 5 August 2017. Today we are booked on a tour called The Golden Circle. This is just the name of a tour - there is no place or region in Iceland called that, but it is a circular tour and takes in four main sights: A power station harnessing the warmth of volcanically heated water and steam from below; the large and impressive Gullfoss waterfall; a geyser park - a collection of craters with boiling water, one of which spouts to an impressive height every seven minutes or so; and finally the rift valley between the tectonic plates of Europe and Northern America, which is also close to the site of the first Icelandic parliament set up by the Vikings (Norsemen really, Vikings didn't stay long enough and to them viking was a verb describing their sudden raids).

We'll just cover half of the trip this time, namely the power station and Gullfoss.

It is our last day in Iceland. We were due to dock in Reykjavik, but were told last night that there was no room due to other ships coming in so we docked at Kollafjord, a short distance away.

We were to dock at 8:00am and were up very early as we were on a full day tour which meant we had to meet at 8:15am anyway. We were woken by our alarm at 6:00am - sheesh kebabs! I'm supposed to be on holiday!!! So we were able to get out on the Promenade Deck to watch our approach to the port.

The tour started with the power station. Whilst interesting that by the means of naturally hot water this power station delivers hot water at 40 degrees to every house without need for them to warm it up and that it also powers a huge percentage of their electricity, a collection of basically cubic massive machines is not going to hold my interest for very long...

I did my best to be excited by the collection of rocks, but the best bit to me (and certainly the most satisfying) was the chance to visit the loo... I'm just a philistine I know... But in fairness, I am a philistine on tablets for water retention...

The power station was in a rather remote setting to say the least. Though a large party were riding horses in a circle in the next field until their team leader decided they were all capable of staying in the saddle and they set off away from us. God only knows where they had come from or how they got there... There were lots of places where steam just gushed from the ground. It was this geothermal activity that was being used and captured at the power station.

Our next stop after an hour's run in the coach is at Gullfoss waterfall - a spectacular large waterfall.

You thought that was it, didn't you? Wrong!

It's a long and steep climb down to the falls themselves. We check the time available. Ah well... it has to be done!

First there's a lot of steps. I was starting to wonder how I'd get on climbing back... But then there's a steep slope without the aid of steps. I carried on here on my own. Fran opted to stay at the bottom of the steps.

After this point I have to climb upwards again to the rock platform. To the right people standing on top of the cliff indicate the path down which I have come so far. The steps lead up a slope just out of shot to the extreme right. You can just make out the path of the river leading away from the camera and another smaller fall further on is visible from the tourist complex and car park.

Halfway up the slope to the top waterfall and noting that everyone on the top seems to be no older than 40...

At this point, reached by simply climbing by walking, I realise that there are no handy steps to get to the top, just the natural rock. The lowest step I've found is only the size of my foot and it is knee high...

So I spend a minute or two here, pondering...

But what the hell... The jump down jarred my knees, hips and teeth - I'm not as nimble as I used to be! Then it was the expected breath taking climb back up, Fran forcing rests on me going back up the steps. I didn't argue...!

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Fire and Ice: An Easy Day in Isafjord

Friday 4 August 2017. During the night that was stubbornly light, we arrived at the jutting out north west corner of Iceland and slipped down a fjord to Isafjord ("Ísafjörður" in Icelandic).

This was drawn from the Celebration's coffee shop on Deck 5. We waited for things to warm up a bit as first thing in the morning there was a - shall we say - a slight nip to the air... By the time we covered up with hoodies and jackets though we ended up carrying them round as the temperature shot up to 23 degrees centigrade!

A whale skull and vertebra displayed on the ground near a souvenir shop and cafe. Isafjord was founded by Norsemen in the 800s and 800 years later apparently there were lots of witch trials around here, with anyone found guilty banished to an exposed peninsula nearby, now a national nature reserve.

The cafe/souvenir shop was a large wooden building. A couple of cats were sitting or wandering around outside, looking hopeful... It was perhaps their home or a source of the odd tit-bit!

Behind us is the ship and then a high cliff at the far side of the fjord so we were in the shadow of the cliff whilst the entrance to the inner harbour and the hillside behind the hut is lit by the sun.

We had decided not to do any excursion today as tomorrow's excursion will be a long full day trip. So we set off to walk around Isafjord itself.

This boat had seen better days, but it looked as though any useful parts had been stripped off to extend their useful life on other vessels.

The fjord approaches and passes Isafjord and then does two right-angle bends to the right finally ending in a sheltered inner harbour. We are approaching that here, walking by the edge of the water.

A few trawlers were in the harbour, perhaps having unloaded their catch and waiting for their next trip. A large green forklift truck was kept busy taking stacks of crates from the harbour into town.

Isafjord's only roundabout. It covers approaches from the small town centre, from the dock and from the houses that strung along the side of the fjord on the far side of the town.

The houses were quite colourful! A large house, standing on its own, turned out to be a former hospital and is now a cultural centre with a library and museum.

Like most fishing towns, there was a memorial to local fishermen that had set out but had not returned. This one was flanked by two flag poles and had a colourful flower bed set in front of it.

From the roundabout we turned to our right which led via a short street to the edge of the wider fjord at the end of the town. By now we were carrying coats and hoodies and were just in t-shirts. This in a place where the average mean temperature for an August day in just 9 degrees, with the average high being a mere 12 degrees. It's hard to deny global warming here...

There were quite a few of our fellow passengers enjoying the views from here. There is snow on some of the slopes despite today's high temperatures. We were told that we had been incredibly lucky with the weather as it had been raining hard and cold the previous day. In fact we heard that in most of the ports we visited - I want to travel with this captain again...!

Another cruise ship is approaching Isafjord in the distance. This is the Astoria, belonging to a Portuguese line. We'll have a closer look at her as we sail out.

We walked through the small town centre, coming back out to the fjord and our own ship waiting patiently against the dramatic backdrop of the side of the fjord. There's a few specks of snow up there too, proving that today's warmth was truly a bit of a freak luck!

We passed several large factories, mostly concerned with the fishing industry, cleaning, filleting, canning etc. Here, ice is being packed over the day's catch.

The day passes. At 5:00pm we cast off our cables. The gulls gather excitedly as the ship's thrusters move us out and away from the dock, stirring up tasty morsels no doubt from the below.

The Astoria. She's an old girl. Built as the Stockholm in 1948, Astoria is incredibly the eleventh name she has sailed under! Built originally as an ocean liner, she currently sails as a cruise ship carrying 556 passengers.

We are now on our way to our final port in Iceland, Reykjavik. Whilst not exactly "fire", the trip we take tomorrow will include some impressive volcanic and geothermal action! And a rather expensive (but very good) beer...

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Fire and Ice: Akureyri and Whale Watching

Tuesday - Thursday 1-3 August 2017. After leaving Stavanger in Norway we have two days at sea to look forward to. Stavanger is our last chance to see darkness for a few days too as from now until we reach this latitude again in almost a week, it will remain light all the way through the night, though we will not venture far enough north to see the midnight sun.

We will be crossing the Arctic Circle though, as we are going to sail all the way round Iceland. Our first stop in that country will be at Akureyri which is reached down a fjord from the far north of Iceland.

Meanwhile temperatures drop as we head north. We dutifully trog round the Promenade Deck to keep the legs going - though we tend to use the staircases anyway more than the lifts and with going up to and down from the cabins several times a day means climbing three or four decks to the main deck or restaurant. I will come home 3lbs lighter than when I left! No mean feat with all the food that is available!

I spent part of the time drawing this from a photograph of Bergen in the cruise brochure. There was plenty going on around us. In the mornings and early afternoon the show team, recently transferred from Thomson Majesty spent time warming up and rehearsing, working out the choreography of their shows on the dimensions of an unfamiliar stage. In the late afternoon a guest speaker, film producer, actor and critic, Tony Sloman, gave a series of lectures, one for each day at sea on the history of films of different genres. We missed the first one which was about musicals, but caught his other talks about Westerns, Gangster Films, Car Movies, and Film Noir. His talks were illustrated by some great clips and old trailers.

As we awoke on Thursday morning 3 August, we were making our approach to Akureyri ("ak-you-ray-rie" with the accent on the first and third syllables).

After breakfast we transferred to a much smaller boat for a spell of whale watching in the fjord. Humpbacks, dolphins and porpoises, minke and even the giant sperm and blue whales have been seen here so we were all excited and raring to go!

John and Sue joined us on this trip - the only one we managed to do together as on another trip we were all booked on, they had a different set-off time and did the tour in reverse to ourselves. I don't feel the cold usually but here I am wearing a t-shirt, shirt, a knitted arran cardigan (knitted by Fran I might add!) and waterproof jacket and still ended up shivering with cold!

We manage to get on the front corner of the boat and hope that any whales are on our side! As we leave the harbour, the round building is the Hof Cultural and Conference Centre.

We have not been going down the fjord long when the spotter, Anouk, announces that she has seen a blow from a whale's breath. This is our first sight of it - a humpback whale around a hundred yards out. The slight mist behind it is the remains of its blow.

The whale was not feeding and so there were no dramatic vertical breachings, but instead it was heading down the fjord towards open sea, coming up for three or four breaths before arching its back and diving upon which we would have to wait between five and ten minutes for it to re-appear. By which time it could be quite a distance away again!

The back arches prior to the whale diving. As it dives, the tail flukes curve out of the water in the classic view.

The shape of the tail flukes are a major factor in identifying individual animals. Shape, injuries, crustacean growths and colour all play a part in helping identifying the whales.

We leave the whale alone and head down the fjord, but without seeing any whales. The Björgvin is a stern trawler, built in 1988.

We are not the only whale-watching expedition out in the fjord. In fact it was this boat that found our next whale, though they kept the closest views for themselves.

It was a minke whale, one of the smaller whale species and a rarer visitor to these waters. This just skimmed the surface, the tail flukes of this species do not break the water's surface as it dives.

Then as we headed back to Akureyri again, one last sighting of another humpback whale. The blow comes as soon as the animal breaks the surface and as you cannot predict where they will be I was particularly chuffed with this photo!

Was it the same whale that we had seen before? We were roughly in the same area of the fjord.

But the tail flukes have a distinctive white marking. This is definitely not the same whale as our first sighting.

By the time we reach Akureyri again we are shivering with cold but once back on the ship the sun makes an appearance. It remains very cold though. Fran stays inside the ship whilst I literally dash around the Promenade Deck to take photos of Akureyri. Yes, that is snow on the hill, top right...

On the opposite side of the ship, a waterfall flows over the cliffs.

Looking down the fjord. The cold gets the better of me and by the time sail away time comes round I am back inside the ship and heading for the coffee machine! As we have our evening meal by the windows of the restaurant we see two plumes of spray rise up about a hundred yards to our side. More whales, but they remain hidden by the waves.

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