Tuesday 23rd September 2014

We, well I should say I had a stressful morning packing up out stuff and re-arranging my bag as it now was over weight! We said out goodbyes, so sad and mum took us to the airport and dropped us off.

We were asked when we were returning home at the check in counter so I said not until a year later, but I have a work permit for Canada which the check in lady wanted to see. She seemed to be satisfied. We dropped off our snowboard bag at the over sized drop off and proceeded through security. I had to go in the body scanner, which picked up the metal in my belt and my jeans so was then touched up over my butt! Very nice! Stu got an explosives test on his bags! So we both got all checks possible, except strip thank god!

We now had a long wait till we had to board our flight so we just grabbed some early lunch and a coffee before our gate came up on the screens. We boarded on time and soon we were off! The flight wasn't all that bad, we watched a film each before we arrived and then we were arriving closer to Iceland I was watching the plane follow the coast line. It looked amazing from up high, hilly, rocky and very green, but no trees! We saw the black cliffs/sands which was pretty cool, I think I spied a glacier and a snow capped mountain but I am unsure as it was really cloudy!

We finally landed at Keflavik airport where we waited for the rabble to get off first before disembarking the plane and heading through security. Which insisted off, yes you are from the EU please proceed! Stu seemed amazed we didn't get a stamp but I reminded him that we didn't get stamps when we traveled through Europe!

Our bags pretty much were there waiting and we went to find our snowboard bag at the over sized baggage section, which arrived as we arrived. We walked out of the airport to catch our bus to Reykjavik which is about 50 minutes away. We enjoyed watching the scenery passing by which was pretty rocky as well as hilly, grassy and treeless!

We finally arrived at the bus terminal and then we jumped onto a smaller mini bus to take us to our hostel which was a very short drive away, I refuse having to drag this snowboard bag further than I have to! We checked into our hostel, which is really nice. A huge common room full of different style chairs with a bar and games! Our room is SUPER warm, and I mean it was way too hot! Hopefully it won't be unbearable tonight!

We headed out into the city centre which was a short 10 minute walk away, I pretty much was following the famous church, Hallgrímskirkja which dominates the sky line here. Its 73 meters tall and the largest church in Iceland. State Architect Guðjón Samúelsson's design of the church was commissioned in 1937. He is said to have designed it to resemble the basalt lava flows of Iceland's landscape. It took 38 years to build the church. Construction work began in 1945 and ended in 1986, the landmark tower being completed long before the church's actual completion.

We walked inside the church and it wasn't like most churches, no stain glass windows or extravagance inside, but the most impress thing was the organs. They were huge!

We walked down the main high street in Reykjavik and had a peep in all the little touristy shops! I have already brought all my souvenirs I want!

We were trying to find a decent supermarket, but kept finding smaller little ones. In the end we found something reasonable and brought breakfast and lunch for tomorrow. We went to a noodle shop for dinner. It was really good and not too bad price. The food here is pretty expensive unfortunately. They also have some bizarre items on the menu, minke whale and puffin! Blurgh! I don't think I'll be trying any of that any time soon.

We headed back to the hostel and relaxed and had a beer at happy hour, a local beer Gull, which was quite tasty!

We went off to bed around 10:30 pm as we had our first tour tomorrow!

Wednesday 24th September 2014

We didn't have to get up too early this morning, so we got ourselves ready in our own time before we had to meet our bus for our tour/transfer to the Blue Lagoon!!

The Bláa lónið (Blue Lagoon) spa is located in a lava field in Grindavík on the Reykjanes Peninsula, southwestern Iceland. The warm waters are rich in minerals like silica and sulphur and bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis. The water temperature in the bathing and swimming area of the lagoon averages 37-39 °C (98-102 °F).

We arrived around 11 am and we got our towels and got changed and headed outside to the lagoon. It is extremely windy today and raining, so felt extra cold than normal! The water was really warm and was a milky blue! It tasted like sea water and smelt like eggs! But it was really enjoyable! We spent a fair while floating around and putting on silica face mask (I managed to get him to do it Louisa!) before we got out and dried.

We caught the bus back to Reykjavik and headed into town to find this bigger, cheaper hopefully, supermarket! It was slightly cheaper so we got our meals for the next two days.

We passed a Chuck Norris bar, which I'm sure would please Chris! I also found a Christmas shop! HURRAY! I managed to pull Stu's arm and brought a little handmade woolen elf! Apparently the majority of Icelandic believe elves exist!

We headed back to the hostel a little bit damp and cold to grab a shower to warm ourselves up and get our stuff ready for our northern lights tour tonight. Unfortunately they have cancelled the tour, due to the awful weather today. We have re-booked our tour for tomorrow so hopefully the weather gets better, but we will get a refund if the tour doesn't go ahead so thats ok, I guess!

We made some dinner before we walked back into town and found somewhere that served cakes! We got an Icelandic Skyr cake and a chocolate cake. The Skyr cake was really nice, greek yoghurt with a small sponge and some fruit compote with blueberries and white chocolate drops on top! Yummy!

We headed back to the hostel and got an early night in preparation for a long day tomorrow!

Thursday 25th September 2014

Today we had our first of two tours, the first one being the Golden Circle. We got picked up from our hostel and carted onto a big coach. I don't particularly like these kinds of tours but we have a short amount of time and this is the easiest thing to do!

The Golden circle is a popular tourist route in South Iceland covering a 300 km loop. Our first stop was Hveragerði greenhouse village, which grows tomatoes and cucumber all year long. They use the geothermal activity to heat the water up and to power the greenhouse. They also get boxes of bumble bees to pollenate the flowers! But only female bees and the queen bee of course!

Our next stop was the famous geothermal active valley of Haukadalur which contains the geysers Geysir and Strokkur. Geysir has become lest active so does not erupt so much any more but Strokkur does. We waited for a little while to watch the eruption. It happened so quickly that we almost missed it! Strokkur was first mentioned in 1789, after an earthquake unblocked the conduit of the geyser. Its activity fluctuated in the 19th century; in 1815 its height was estimated to be as much as 60 metres. It continued to erupt until the turn of the 20th century, when another earthquake blocked the conduit again. In 1963, upon the advice of the Geysir Committee, locals cleaned out the blocked conduit through the bottom of the basin, and the geyser has been regularly erupting ever since.

It smelt very much like eggs, or one of Stu's really bad farts which is the sulphur coming up from the ground.

Geysir, doesn't erupt very often any more but activity begins again after an earthquake has hit the area causing the chambers to become unblocked again.

It was pretty cool seeing a load of nearly boiling hot water bursting out of the ground into the sky! The weather decided to do it usual change every five minutes (worse than Melbourne) and started to rain so we found shelter in the souvenir shop!

After we ate lunch we got back onto the coach for our next stop at Gullfoss falls. It was a very impressive three-steep staircase falls. When the sun came out lots of rainbows appeared which was great sight!

We walked round the waterfall up to the top, and got pretty wet from the spray of the falls before we ran back inside the shop again and brought mum her little viking christmas decoration!

Our last stop of the day is the Þingvellir National Park (don't ask me how to pronounce it!) It is the site of a rift valley that marks the crest of the mid-atlantic ridge. It is also home to Þingvallavatn, the largest natural lake in Iceland.

Parliament or Alþingi was established at Þingvellir in 930 and remained there until 1798. Þingvellir National Park was founded in 1930 to protect the remains of the parliament site and was later expanded to protect natural phenomena in the surrounding area. Þingvellir National Park was the first national park in Iceland and was decreed "a protected national shrine for all Icelanders, the perpetual property of the Icelandic nation under the preservation of parliament, never to be sold or mortgaged."

We got out of the coach and walked up the North American plates to the look out point. It was pretty clear the cracks and fault lines of the North American and Eurasian plates. Here in the lake you can go scuba diving where the visibility is so clear you think you are floating/flying! This is on my to do list for next time I visit Iceland.

We soon where heading back into Reykjavik, I think we passed out for the majority of the journey home.

We got dropped off at our hostel and made dinner quickly before we tried to have a nap but failed due to some really noisy Germans in our room!

We gave up with the idea of having a nap and got up and ready for our last trip of our time in Iceland to hopefully (fingers crossed) to see the northern lights. We got picked up at 9:30 pm and left Reykjavik at 10:15 pm and was on our way towards the airport as the weather reports have said the skies were clearer there!

Well before we had even really left the city our tour guide saw something promising so our driver literally put his foot down! We got out of the coach so flipping quickly and everyone was scrambling to find a good spot to stand and they were here!

It was beautiful green colour, which really shows in my pictures and they kind of danced across the sky changing shapes! It was truely amazing! We must have been outside for at least 30 minutes while the lights got more powerful and slowly started fading away! It was literally so cool! We were so happy that we could see them! The northern lights of aurora borealis is caused by the collision of solar wind and magnetospheric charged particles with the high altitude atmosphere. Most auroras occur in a band known as the auroral zone, which is typically 3° to 6° wide in latitude and observed at 10° to 20° from the geomagnetic poles at all local times (or longitudes), but often most vividly around the spring and autumn equinoxes. The charged particles and solar wind are directed into the atmosphere by the Earth's magnetosphere. A geomagnetic storm expands the auroral zone to lower latitudes.

We got some amazing pictures!

We finally got to bed at gone past 2 am!

Friday 26th September 2014

We woke up early compared to what time we went to bed! We got ourselves washed and dressed and checked out of the hostel. We walked into town and went to the laundromat cafe for breakfast! It was a damn good breakfast! Had way too much food, but I couldn't stop eating it!!

We headed back to the hostel and waited for our pick up for the airport, which arrived on time and we were dropped off at the big bus for our trip to the airport. We had a little nap on the way to the airport before we checked in all of our bags! This is proving to be hard work well for Stu and my ears as he is complaining about it every 5 seconds!

We headed through security and waited in the lounge before heading down towards our gate. We had to go through a second lot of security, which is for US and Canada flights. We grabbed a snack and still sat waiting. We finally started board and we left pretty much on time.

It was an OK flight, nothing special. I did enjoy looking out of the window at the clouds, or so I thought, until I saw a mountain and realised we were flying over Greenland. Which looked awesome and very cold!!

We then headed over Newfoundland and Labrador state which was in full swing of autumn colours! It was really great view looking out of the window seeing the different colour trees! I love autumn!

Not long after that we finally touched down in Toronto! WOOO!!!!