Sorry that seat is taken

Bergen to Stavanger

The ferry we had booked to take us down the Norwegian West Coast was originally scheduled to leave at 1pm and arrive into Stavanger early evening, unfortunately it was delayed to a 3pm departure giving us time to kill and a much later night time arrival in Stavanger. We picked up our hire car for our Norwegian road trip and joined the long queues of people waiting for our ferry. The Queen Mary 2 was in town and parked right next to where we were waiting.

Once on the ferry the scenery was idyllic with masses of islands dotted with beautiful houses in pretty colours. Although this ship was similar to the others we had been on it was more difficult to find comfortable seating that hadn’t already been “bagged” with jackets and personal items left everywhere with their owners nowhere to be seen. As we were getting off that evening rather than continuing on to Denmark as many of the passengers were, we found not having our own cabin meant we had no escape from the constant noise, music and other passengers partying in large groups.

We arrived into Stavanger after 10pm, late arrivals are something we try to avoid as navigating and finding accommodation is much more difficult in a strange place when it’s dark. 

Our apartment had a smart lock set up we hadn’t come across before and it made us wonder how people less computer savvy would manage. Plus we had to climb steps to our room, so many steps! The room was very cute though and had the most comfortable bed and pillows we’d had for weeks (or maybe we were just really tired)?

Garden State

Bergen

We were staying in the town centre quite close to the harbor area so it was easy to walk out the door and see pretty Bergen. We stopped for a coffee and were very surprised to see a Victorian number plate on the wall of the cafe!

We took the Fløibanen Funicular up the side of Fløyen mountain from a spot just by the harbor for the six minute ride to the top. The view was stunning, Bergen is surrounded by seven mountains as well as fjords, so with a clear blue sky it was another perfect day. We felt pretty fortunate, Bergen is known as the rainiest city in Europe as it rains 239 days each year but today wasn't one of them. 

We took a walk around the historic Bryggen area with the old wooden buildings (many filled with souvenir shops selling localised variations of the wooly socks, jumpers, and other items we'd seen in every other Scandinavian country).

  

Last new country

Reykjavík (Iceland) to Bergen (Norway)

Two flights today, first from Iceland to Oslo, then a much shorter flight to Norway's second largest city Bergen. Bergen isn't that big compared to somewhere like Melbourne, but even they have a light rail line from the airport to Sentrum (town centre) that runs every few minutes!

The weather is clear and sunny yet again, we only have two weeks left on our trip and this unseasonal Scandinavian weather has been fantastic so far, how much longer can it last?

It's that far?

Akureyri to Reykjavík (Keflavik)

Just a driving day today as we went from the north of the island back to the capital ready for our flight to Norway the next day. We stopped at Reykjavik on our way to the airport hotel (we had a very early flight the next morning) where K tried to find some last minute souvenirs. 

We checked into the hotel then M dropped the car back to the rental place, not quite realising how far the hotel was from there, but he ended up having a nice 6km walk along the airport fence and side roads. 

When he arrived at the hotel K was already in the airport lounge with a glass of wine in her hand ... typical!

More nice weather

Akureyri / Lake Mývatn

Today we spent the day driving around the Mývatn lake area. The weather was kind to us again today so it was a pretty easy day without having to contend with the elements. 

First off was Godafoss waterfall, we had seen this from the road the last couple of days but this time we went up close. 

Next was the Dimmuborgir lava formations, which had once been under danger of being covered by sand due to lack of care, but was now quite a popular attraction with lots of walking paths through interesting rock formations.

We drove around the lake to see it from various angles, then it was back to Akureyri for our last night there.  

Aurora!

Akureyri / Húsavík

We had a whale watching tour booked at Húsavík about an hour and a bit away. Tip if you’re driving in and out of Akureyri don’t take the expensive toll road tunnel. It only adds about 10 minutes to your trip and you get to drive along the stunning scenic, free route. Think about it - would you take the ocean road or pay $15 to drive through a tunnel?

The weather was perfect, beautiful blue sky, no wind and 18 degrees. The water in the bay was smooth and we had a stunning trip out to the see the single humpback whale that was spotted after an hour or so.

The whale put on a good show with a couple of nice tail dives. We noticed that Iceland doesn’t seem to have the strict protocols that other countries have regarding whale protection. They do have a “code of conduct”, but they only follow it loosely it seems, and it felt to us that the tourist boats were chasing a whale that was trying to get away from them - not sure that would happen back home.

The sky was still clear as night fell, so we decided we had a really good chance of an aurora sighting. After checking our aurora app (yep, they have those!) we looked out the window of our apartment to see a very faint aurora, in the last place we'd have expected it, as we weren't facing north and there was a bit of light pollution.

We jumped in the car to head out of town, we eventually found an area to pull over and from there we could see the glow of auroras all above us. They were still faint but quite obvious, green in colour, and they changed shape and moved around the sky. So we can finally say that one of our greatest objectives of the trip was achieved, yes we have seen the Northern Lights!

Iceland has a bad case of gas

Egilsstaðir to Akureyri

Apparently it’s always raining somewhere in Iceland and it was drizzly as we drove towards the waterfalls Dettifoss and Selfoss, but the rain had cleared by the time we arrived. 

We walked the 2.5km loop to take in the waterfalls, Dettifoss in the most powerful in Europe (even though Iceland is quite a way from Europe). They were nice waterfalls and it had ended up being quite a pleasant day so the walk and the viewing was much easier than our earlier waterfall attempts. 

Next was the interesting geothermal power plant and lava area around Kafka and Hverir. 

The bubbling earth, toxic looking pools and sulphur smell were similar to ones we'd seen in Bolivia but these covered a much larger area and the colours produced are a lot more vivid, especially in the bright sunshine.

We are staying in Akureyri, Iceland's second largest city, for the next three nights and doing day trips from there. Arriving into Akureyri is a bit like driving into Hobart, snow topped mountains and driving along the river, across the bridge in to the picturesque town.

Slowing it down

Höfn to Egilsstaðir

As we have found quite a bit in Iceland many cafes don’t open until quite late so we drove along the seaside near the pretty town of Höfn until we found the one tiny café that was jam packed to have a coffee before we started on our driving day. 

Our drive was continuing on the Iceland ring road anticlockwise and the road follows the coast most of the way. There was plenty of fog and drizzle which didn’t worry us as today was light on sightseeing. We didn’t have many expectations of amenities but were still surprised when it was 3pm before we came across a service station, with bathrooms and some decent food. 

We arrived into Egilsstaðir by 4pm and as we’d had a late lunch at 3pm settled on noodles and bread in our room with the hope of better weather tomorrow for our day at the waterfalls.

Now I see why they call it Iceland

Skogafoss to Höfn

With relief we woke to clear skies as we needed to be on the road by 7am for a busy day. The scenery on the drive was amazing, it was our first real look as yesterday everything was hidden by the rain.

Our first stop was the Skaftafell glacier hike, which we reached with plenty of time for the 9.30am start.  We turned up to a parked van just off the road and were herded production line style to be geared up, we then jumped back in our cars to drive in convoy to the glacier. After reaching the edge of the glacier we put on our crampons and crunched our way around, the sun was shining and it wasn’t cold, you couldn’t have asked for a better day for a walk on a glacier. The time from arriving to returning to our car was 3 ½ hours and we had been warned that there were no bathroom facilities so we’d skipped our morning coffee and were looking for lunch at the end. Unfortunately the lack of infrastructure on this side of Iceland is really noticeable. 

Rather than back tracking to the only open service station we’d seen on our long morning drive we decided to push on to our next stop Jökulsárlón or Glacial Lagoon. We had a 3.30pm zodiac trip booked there and it was only half an hour away. It was a wonderful sight with icebergs floating out out of the lagoon and past the beach into the ocean. There were hordes of cars and people, the busiest we had seen in Iceland so far. We couldn’t get into the carpark so drove to the ocean side parking and walked up the river towards the lagoon with icebergs passing by.

Here again the lack of food and infrastructure was astonishing, there were a couple of food vans, a few outdoor picnic tables and huge lines for the portable toilets. How do they manage in bad weather, what happened yesterday in the rain? Did everyone stand to queue for food and toilets while being drenched? We guess they must have as there weren’t any other options.

We were suited up and driven in a bus to the edge of the lagoon where we boarded our zodiac, for the 8km ride to the glacier's edge. As we have been to Antarctica and the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina we felt the glacier here was a smaller affair. However, what we weren’t prepared for was the variety of colours. In Antarctica the ice is pure and the whites and blues are stunning but in Iceland there is the presence of volcanic ash and lava. The striking shades of white, black, blue and grey also ran to the colour of aluminum foil in the reflection of the sun. 

We were lucky enough to witness a calving, where a huge sheet of ice broke away from the glacier and thundered into the water, and rising again to float after finding it’s equilibrium. One of the huge icebergs near us had only calved 15 minutes earlier, so we had only just missed that one.

After all of that we finally finished our day an hour further on at the town of Höfn. 

They should call it Rainland

Reykjavik to Skógafoss 

Iceland had promised rain and boy did it deliver! We started our drive around the Golden Circle, the famous scenic route, hitting all the major sites and being welcomed with relentless rain at every stop. 

First stop was Thingvellir National Park which is the meeting point of two tectonic plates, it also happened to be the site of the world’s first legislative assembly. 

Next was the Geysir Geothermal Area where K watched the steam rising from the ground from inside the car, while M went out into the rain and waited to see a geyser spurt, though when it finally happened it wasn't that impressive. 

By the time we reached Gulfoss Falls K said she was has happy to see the spray from the waterfall from inside the gift shop and would hear about it from M on his return. He came back saying it was worth seeing and there was a lower road where it was possible to drive up close, so K managed to see the falls after all.

On the way to Kerid Crater we passed an Icleandic pony and rider and saw their unusual gait called the tölt. It was so wet and windy that the water cascading off the hills was being driven sideways. 

We arrived at our accommodation for the night at Skógafoss which was right next to the same named waterfall, which K was pleased could be seen from the car, and also from our small cabin.