Iceland Outback

The evening of our first day in Reykjavik stayed nice and clear; we had a beautiful sunset and hoped that Mother Nature would be nice enough to provide some night-time colour in the form of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. The astronomer who had presented on the Queen Mary 2 told us that the sun is in a particularly active phase, which means there is a greater possibility of seeing them, but it still needs certain amount luck…

Monica with a hot toddy in the new Palm Court. Nice sweater, eh?

As it turns out, we didn't see them, although we had a great opportunity to check out some constellations that aren't usually visible from southern Ontario.

Wednesday began with fairly calm winds and bright sunshine, but the forecast was for a new weather system to move in – just in time for us to leave that evening. We hoped that the tour would stay ahead of the weather, and we set out on our 4x4 Adventure and Lobster Lunch.

The whole tour group fit into four customized 4x4 off-road vehicles. We climbed into the biggest one, at the front of the line. Good thing, because the tour guide was in our car and we could hear all of her commentary quite clearly; some of the people in the other cars had some trouble as it was broadcast to them via the inter-vehicle radios. We also had 'the Boss' as our driver – he had built our vehicle himself, out of a Ford F-350 truck (the front half) and a Ford Expedition (the back half) with an interior from Harley-Davidson. And a REALLY BIG engine from we know not where! Here's a photo of Larry and the truck:

As we left the city, we passed the local golf course. Our tablemates Suzanne and Jim were supposed to be playing, along with about 20 other guests and the golf pro; we found out later that they heard the weather forecast and 'wimped out'. But it looked rather intriguing, nonetheless:

We really didn't have to go that far outside of Reykjavik to reach the lava fields since virtually all of Iceland is an active volcano. After a short drive on a well paved highway, we turned off onto a dirt road and shortly found ourselves driving along the shore of a lake formed by an ancient volcanic eruption. According to our guide, the lakes depth rises and falls with the local volcanic activity. It is currently at a low, leaving a large beach which we were about to explore. By way of a short drive off what appeared to be a cliff!!! Here is what it looked like from the beach!

After driving back up onto the road, by way of an almost-beach-level access we had actually passed on the way in, we headed for our next stop, the local hot springs. The land mass of Iceland sits on top of a constantly bubbling pool of lava. Ground water seeps down to the lava, is vapourized and escapes as steam that pops up randomly above the surface. The name Reykjavik actually translates as "Bay of Smoke" in the Norse language that the Icelandic language derives from and steam clouds can be seen everywhere as you drive along. This particular hotspring is one of the largest near the city and has a series of paths and overlooks so you can get up-close-and-personal with the bubbling mud. And the smell, a result of the naturally occurring sulphur that is a by-product of your average volcano. Think of "egg salad sandwich day" at your high school cafeteria. Times ten!!

'Bubble, bubble, toil and'.. horrendous smell!

Another interesting thing about the hotspring is its location in the Rift Valley. Iceland is actually part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which divides the North America tectonic plate from the Eurasia tectonic plate. The really interesting thing is that these two plates are moving in opposite directions, which means that one day in the distant future Iceland will become two separate islands. If you look in the background of the picture below, you will see the valley and a line of low hills in the distance. Those hills are on the Eurasia plate, while where we were standing is on the North America plate, making Iceland the only place where you can travel from Europe to North America without a passport. Something we did several times over the course of the afternoon!

After leaving the hot spring, we headed toward the coast, still driving among the lava fields, to visit an old church, known as the Strandakirkja, or Beach Church. It was built on the beachfront by some sailors who, after their ship ran against some rocks and sank, promised God they would put up a church on the spot where they might safely reach the shore. The original church was destroyed a time or two in its history, but has always been rebuilt in a similar manner.

The beach in front of the church at low tide

The church interior. Most village churches in Iceland have ceilings
painted blue with stars.

After that, we headed for our Icelandic Lobster lunch. Our drivers took us to another small town, and to a beachfront restaurant – you try to pronounce that name! In true European fashion, everything was served family style; tomato, cucumber and lettuce salads – and then the waiters came around with these big bowls filled with lobster tails and boiled new potatoes. Looked yummy, and tasted really good, too! The lobsters are very small, almost the size of a jumbo shrimp, but also very sweet.

Attack! And that wasn't his first helping!!

Lunch break over, we climbed back into the trucks and headed out to where, as our guide said, 'the adventure really begins!'. But nicely visible in the distance we could see the three largest volcanoes of Iceland, including the one that erupted a couple of years ago and caused all the aviation chaos with its huge, thick ash cloud. Don't ask us to even try to spell its name, never mind pronounce it. One of the volcanoes is in the background of this photo of the Icelandic Horses. The horses themselves are quite interesting. Horses were originally brought to the island by the Vikings. No one else ever brought any others, so all Icelandic horses are directly descended from the Viking horses. The rules about these horses are so strict that, if ever a horse leaves the country for any reason, it cannot come back. These horses are in no danger of extinction, either. There are over 100,000 in Iceland; some may do some work, but most are owned as 'pets'.

Another village church

After a short drive from the town, we turned off onto a dirt track and our guide told us to make sure we were "buckled up". Good thing we were! For the next twenty minutes we raced along, across, over and right down the middle of a stream!!

One of the other trucks racing by to give us a
bit of a car wash.

Bounding out of the stream our driver made a bee line for what appeared to be yet another cliff, but instead of going around it, he went straight up the face. Or at least he tried to. Much like climbing a hill in a snowstorm, we slowly ran out of speed and slid backwards down the hill while the other vehicles raced past and up to the top. After fiddling with his gear shift, our driver commented "might work better if it was in four wheel drive", at which point we rocketed up the hill and over the top! And found ourselves on a plateau in the middle of a wind storm! Our guide announced we could get out, but when she opened her door and her short hair stood straight up in the air, we decided to pass on that opportunity.

Heading back down off the "mountain" we headed for our final stop at the new thermal generating station. As we mentioned earlier, Iceland sits on a vast lava pool and the Icelanders make use of this by tapping into huge pools of underground hotsprings and using both the steam and the hot water. We visited one of seventeen different thermal "wells" supporting this new generating station. The water comes out of the ground at 380C degrees and is piped about five kilometres to the generating station through massive copper pipes, losing only about 2C degrees along the way. The steam is used to generate electricity and the "waste" water is then piped to Reykjavik, over 50 kilometres away, where it arrives at 98C, or just below boiling point!!!!! It used to be pumped straight into the water system at that temperature, but they realized very quickly that doing so was not a really good idea as it came out of household taps at just about the same 98C. While it might be convenient to be able to make tea with your tap water, it is not a really good idea when taking a bath! They now mix it automatically with cold water so it comes out of the average hot water tap at a mere 40C, which is still awfully hot!!!! An interesting side note to the thermal springs. While we did not see them, there are apparently a large number of thermal hot houses in a couple of towns in Iceland where they grow bananas, as well as other tropical fruits, 12 months of the year!

The primary vent pipes

The new thermal generating station

On the way back to the ship, the weather finally caught up to us. We had been told to expect a change, and by the time we reached the ship the wind was howling and the temperature had dropped significantly. We were scheduled to depart at 5:00, and Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas was bobbing around off the harbour waiting for our parking spot. Unfortunately, there was little manoeuvring room where we were docked and the wind, now blowing very hard directly from the right, would not let the ship come off the dock! The Captain announced that he planned to wait until the wind decreased, but finally at 10:00 they had to call in the tugs to pull us off the dock and we were on our way. Never did see Brilliance, so we're not sure where it went, but if they had been bouncing around like we were soon bouncing around, we're betting they were really happy to see us finally leave!!!!