Iceland

On the 7th of January, i made a spur of the moment decision to go to Iceland to attempt to see the northern lights a week later. This would be my first trip completely by myself and to be honest I was quite nervous and this was not a place i had psyched myself up to going to, especially in the middle of winter, but nevertheless something i had been dreaming of seeing for a few years now.

I arrived into Reflyvik at 4:30 in the afternoon and caught a bus to my hotel, Hotel Cabin. The name of this hotel did spark a thought of some small cabins out in the wilderness but was quite a nice budget hotel. On the way to the hotel, the surroundings made me feel like I was on another plane with flat rocky land covered with moss and snow. I opted for an easy option of going across the road to eat Subway for dinner as I had no idea of my way around, and the hotel was about a 30 minute walk to downtown.

The next day I spent half of it exploring downtown, walking on ice the whole way to the main street made my trip quite a slow and steady one, basically ice-skating in my shoes the whole way. I found a nice little café with free wifi so I enjoyed a hot chocolate (I now find myself a connoisseur of these now).

I headed back to the hotel and went went on the bus about an hour to the ‘Blue Lagoon’. This place is a huge lagoon of salt water which is thermally heated and is over two tectonic plates. The water looks like watered down milk with algae on the bottom, so I opted out of putting my feet down. I had a strong reminder that I am in Europe with public nudity in the shower room as you are required to wash before going into the water. It was about 4 degrees outside. Your toes tingle after walking on the cold ground and hopping into the 37 degree water. Included in my package I got a face scrub of volanic rock. I swim up to the stand and got given my volcanic rock scrub. The size of a squash ball, I had to rub the rock on my face, which eventually dissolved. The lagoon is big enough that you have a lot of space to swim around and have your own space. It was surreal being in there, surrounded by volcanic rock, outside in the middle of winter, in Iceland. My skin has never felt so soft! I had an amazing time, although It would have been nice to share the experience with someone. 

I decided to go on another tour, called ‘The Golden Circle’. This tour takes you to Gullfoss Waterfall, Geysir and Thingvellier National Park. The weather was horrible, with rain, which made driving conditions not ideal and quite scary, with 90% of the way was driving on roads covered in ice. A bus full of people, we first arrived at Gullfoss. These magnificent waterfalls were difficult to get to. Walking on wet ice on a slope doesn’t end well and I am so incredibly lucky to have not fallen on my bum! The roar of the water is impressive with ice surrounding the waters to make for incredible photos which don’t quite catch what you are actually seeing. We continued onto the Geysir. This is a field full of holes in the ground filled with thermally heated water which is bubbling from the heat underground . The one that is the big draw card for this area is the Geysir Hot Spring. This one erupts every 5 minutes or so and the water goes down and up as if it’s breathing before making a huge aqua bubble which then erupts water and steam 30 meters into the air. A visit to a small educational area was included so I went in and was quite impressed with it, with a section of the floor you can stand on that simulates a 5.1 earthquake every few minutes. Speaking of earthquakes, I was looking up the weather and on the website it had a page for earthquakes, now I knew that Iceland is covered in volcanos so there was bound to be a few. However, I was shocked to see that there had been about 10 earthquakes in the last 48 hours. These are only small but an earthquake nonetheless. We were about 60km away from Eyjafjallajokull (Try saying that!). The volcano that caused all the problems last year with ash. In this museum they have a huge pile of ash that you can touch (I even found bottles of it for sale in the shop, they will do anything for money these days!) We departed and went onto Thingvellier National Park. This area is where you stand on the American tectonic plate and you can see the rift in between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Here, it is quite common to get earthquakes, lucky for me I didn’t feel any! It was spitting rain, grey skies and I walked up to the lookout, a wooden platform. It was absolutely freezing. It was blowing a gale with sleet and I am sure it was about -10. I took a couple of photos and briskly walked back to the bus as quickly as I could on the ice. On the way back we stopped at a lake which you could go swimming in if you want and are brave enough. 3 quarters of the lake is frozen on the top and the quarter you can swim in is thermally heated and although you would think it to be hot, I stuck my hand in and although it wasn’t freezing, I certainly wouldn’t be brave enough to hop in. Driving back to the city I really enjoyed the scenery and although there are no big mountains or many trees, there is a certain beauty to the rocky landscape covered in snow with Icelandic horses roaming the area. I had planned on doing a Northern Lights tour but with the horrible weather it would have been impossible and not worth it, so all tour companies cancelled their tours.

The next day I decided that I would just explore. Like I have said before, it is awesome to just walk without looking at a map, just going with your gut instinct on which feels the best way to go really helps. Mid morning, I had a hot chocolate and when I looked out the window it was snowing like no tomorrow! I decided to walk to a shopping centre I had heard about. I admit I did play in the snow for a little but it didn’t take me long to get sick of it. I had a wander around the shops got warm before walking back downtown which was about a half hour walk. It was absolutely freezing! I popped into the office of the tour organisers for the ‘Northern Lights’ tour. Due to the snow, the tour was cancelled again. This tour really is based on luck and chance but I felt so defeated when the second night I was there they had perfect weather with the best lights in over 3 weeks. I dragged my feet around trying to find something to eat that was more traditional. Looking at menus at different restaurants the main delicacy is whale and puffin. I am pretty adventurous and am willing to try most things but I refused to try these. I ended up trying ‘Icelandic Pancakes’ which were delicious!

On my final day I decided to wake up early and go to one of the thermal pools just down the road. It was still snowing and was pitch black still. I went for a few laps in the 50m pool and looked up at the temperature outside. -1 degrees and it was snowing, I must be crazy. Needless to say I didn’t spend too long in there.I had a spa and then walked my half an hour to the main street in downtown and got a hot chocolate while relaxing reading my book before another walk back to the hotel where I got picked up to go to the airport.

Iceland was such an amazing surreal experience that I would recommend to everyone. Despite the fact that I didn’t get to see the lights, I got to experience something I never thought I would. I will most certainly go back sometime in the future.