If there is a colour to describe Iceland, it has to be blue! Throughout this trip, I saw more shades of blue than I have ever seen in other places!
The travel impulse is mental and physical curiosity. It’s a passion. – Paul Theroux
Iceland has always been my dream to visit, and it is probably many people’s dream too. I am very blessed to be able to travel up this time! I first knew of it through a game of RISK, for it is a very important territory(bridge between Europe and America). Indeed, it is the case that Iceland is a common flight transfer station between European countries and the States!
Capital ReykjavikSo while we were prepping for our trip to Iceland, we heard that it is going to be a very expensive destination as the food prices rival that of Norway and the only way to travel between destinations is to drive! Hence, we stocked up as if we were going for war, buying packets of instant rice, biscuits and hotdogs from UK supermarket. We rented a car from Blue Rentals, it’s not the cheapest we can get but it is very reliable. We read a lot of stories where the car companies forfeited the excess deposit (about £1000) because of some minor hairline scratch on the vehicle that wasn’t caused by the drivers themselves.
Baby for 5 days:)And there we go, driving on the highway of Iceland:) As we are still sinking in “OMG we are driving in Iceland”, we are already in Reykjavik checking in the hostel. The route to the capital was breathtaking as well. It felt like we were on Mars, en route to a camp – the landforms by the side of the roads were craters and barren!
The WOW thing we saw when we alighted from our WOW flight!The hostel was quite conducive, we booked a 4 bed dorm and the 3 of us shared with a Hungarian Professor who was on her second Icelandic trip! She told us that she saw the Northern Lights the year before, amazing! We decided to have dinner and head to a secluded lighthouse west of the capital for the lights as well!
The backside of the ‘Bell Curve’ Cathedral Panoramic view from the tip of the cathedralWe headed out at 11pm, it was freezing cold (-3) and we drove for 15 mins to the carpark. We thought that it was cold and there would not be people around, but we were wrong. There were a fair number of people camping for the lights as well! However, we went too late and the aurora activity was falling to almost zero:/ We also realised that the aurora was there and can only be seen on a long exposure photo! Xinyi managed to capture a nice starry night with some green glow at the corner!
Look up the stars, look how they shine for you. No, they weren’t YELLOW.
No luck with Northern Lights but the sky is really full of stars.The second day, we became tourists and went on the usual Golden Circle! In this route, we would go to Þingvellir (Thing-vellir), Strokkur Geysir, Gulfoss and the crater Kerið (Ker-rid)! I suck at pronouncing and spelling the names too, so for memory sake and so I dont lao kui, I will put the Icelandic spelling followed by the pronunciations in the brackets so we can all practice hahaha!
Cause you’ve got that one… ÞingStarting with Þing, I have seen so many friends coming to this place and commenting on how colorful it was! To our pleasant surprise, it was all white! In fact, the snow has covered almost every surface of the fissure and the whole place is Vellir white (puns alert😂)! According to Rachel, there is a fissure at this park where the American and European plate meets! Btw, Rachel is a NUS Geography student exchanging in Birmingham as well! So if you like Geog, you have to come Iceland😁
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Spending about 2 hours in the park, we then had lunch in the car before driving down to the geyser. Upon reaching, we could smell the fart, i mean sulfur, floating in the air! We went to the big one and waited for the eruption. Trying to record slow-motion videos and making two iphones die in the cold (iphone sucks at low temperatures), we managed a cool video on our camera showing the transit between pre-eruption to eruption! The blue bubble that was formed and rose up as it break caused the geyser to hit more than 3 stories high!
Our lunch in the car! The petite geyser Strokkur GeyserI wanted to clasify all the waterfalls we have seen (in all 5 days) so I will deviate a little from the golden circle tour! Gullfoss was the most majestic and to fully enjoy its beauty, you should go in summer and you will be able to climb out further! If you are lucky, you will probably spot a rainbow on some angles! Seljalandsfoss was special because we were supposed to walk behind the water curtains and see it from a different angle.
Gulfoss, within the Golden CircleUnfortunately, the weather was too cold and the path to a good apot and the stairs to the back froze in ice. We could hardly walk up without slipping, let alone go behind the falls, HAHA!
Seljalandsfoss, the one you could supposedly go behind the veil, but it was too slippery! Taken by Xinyi, amazing silkiness!Next, we went over to the third waterfall, Skogafoss! Another massive one, but even more touristy! It was hard to take a nice landscape without any human trail😂 We climbed up to the top of the waterfalls to spot how did the water flow when it was upstream. And the view up there… leave you to judge!
Skogafoss Checking out the top of the falls Whee, I am at the top of the world!Finally, we went to the last fall in Skaftafell National Park. Raining moderately, we fought the biting cold and slippery conditions to the falls and finally saw the falls after like an eternal time of walking!
Svartifoss Had to remove my specs cause it is soaked from the rain. But hey, I do look quite okay without them:PThe waterfalls are all glam and majestic but they lack the uniqueness that some other nature sites would be able to give you! Do look out for my older posts, especially the one in Norway!
By the time we ended Gulfoss and headed for Kerið. The entrance to enter is about 3 pounds and it was snowing then. The snow added beauty to our video shots, somewhat like those you see in Kdrama hahaha! Gonna make a VLOG soon when I have the time:) Kerið is amazing, the crater is black and covered partly in snow and you can imagine seeing a monochrome scene! Loving Iceland more and more!
Calling out my lover Kerið It looks damn amazing in summer too!Because the post is gonna be too long and I am gonna be too naggy, here’s my first potato to you guys😁 I will post my second half in three days!
Till next time!
Potato for you, just kidding! They are rare volcanic rocks I found at the crater:P
CinqeMinte 