Sylvia:
Tuesday 9 June            

It was beautifully sunny when we woke up this morning and it seemed the wind had died down a bit – at least it did until we decided to wander across the road to look at the pseudo craters a bit more closely. Still definitely windy! The pseudo craters are formed when hot lava meets a lake or pond and there were several perfectly formed ones just over the road from the hotel.

We headed off, stopping briefly at Godafoss, a large horseshoe shaped waterfall. We have seen so many waterfalls on this trip with snowmelt water cascading down cliffs everywhere, sometimes in thin trickles and others in mini-torrents. Godafoss was one of the few we have seen where the water was not crystal clear.

We carried on along Route 1, taking a wee detour on Route 83 to visit Laufas, a well-preserved 19^th century farm that has been developed as a museum. I loved exploring the turf houses complete with numerous period belongings. I was particularly taken with the beds which reminded me of the seven dwarf’s beds from Snowhite – particularly as they were in one of the upstairs rooms.

    View from window in the farmhouse.

We had a great chat with a young woman at the café next door who gave me an excellent lesson in the Icelandic language. No wonder I have found it complicated – not only are their 32 letters but even she says the rules on how things are pronounced are not consistent. And to make it even more challenging they have “bendy nouns” – a place or thing has a different name if you are there or if you are going there or leaving there. But at least I can now say Pingvellar (the name of the old Viking parliament place we visited on day 1) properly – and it is nothing like what it looks like – pronounced “thing-vet-lick”.

We carried on through Akureyri, where we stopped briefly at the Aviation museum, and then around Trollaskagi or the Troll Peninsular. This is another stunning peninsular with a number of long tunnels – we went through a 3km single lane tunnel, then a 7km two way, followed nearly immediately by a 4km two way and then later by another slightly shorter single lane one. The single lane ones had plenty of passing bays but still took a lot of focus.

We stopped in Dalvik, a tiny fishing town for some delicious Icelandic fish soup, which always seems to be served with an endless supply of fresh, homemade bread and butter.

We arrived at our hotel in Saudarkrokur fairly early. The hotel itself was in an old 18^th century building but our room was in the slightly newer annex next door. The bed was made up beautifully with the towels folded as swans on the end. We decided to head up route 748 to see if we could arrange a trip to Drangey Island for some puffin watching but no luck. Instead we settled for a quick soak in the natural Grettislaug hot pools – pleasantly warm but a bit slimy for my taste.

We had dinner in a small restaurant back in Saudarkrokur, Olafshus, where we tried the Icelandic Country Platter – a mix of foal steak, beef tenderloin and lamb. Despite my misgivings the foal steak was delicious!

Roger:
Wednesday 10 June

As we head west out of Saudarkrokur on Route 744 Sylvia has a different appreciation of the foals grazing on the roadside. Last night we had had a superb meal at Olafshus restaurant which included a very tasty foal steak.

We stopped at Blonduos for a coffee where we met a Utah couple who were touring on a BMW motorbike they had hired.

Continuing south we turned east on to route 50 then 518 to the Hraunfossar Falls. These are not specular but interesting as the water gushes out the side of the volcanic rock into the river forming a spring some 75m long. There is definitely no water shortage in this part of the world.

As we head up the valley we pass numerous farms with their large stock barns. Horses are more prominent than sheep in this area. Like most parts of this country farms seem to be carved out of swampy land with deep ditches running at the sides, ends and sometimes through the middle of the paddocks. Often ditches have been freshly cleaned out and the soil spread over the surrounding land. Ditch diggers have to be the rich guys around here. There are around 4.5 million sheep and 80,000 horses in this land. That’s one horse for every four people.

We head further east onto route 518, a shingle road heading up to the Surtshelli volcanic caves or tunnels stretching over 2kms with periodic openings. You’re supposed to be able to walk most of the way through them. With sharp jagged rock falls inside and icy snow some distance inside them we only did a few hundred meters underground. Sylvia demonstrated her rock climbing skills climbing a 3 m rock face to exit through the first opening. I had to follow.

Our plan was to head south on 550 but a sign told us it was closed. The many shingle roads here are really well maintained and easy to drive. Just now many are being graded I presume in preparation for the summer tourists. We headed west to the coast following it south. Around Hvalfjorour we passed a number of disused but well maintained fuel storage tanks. This area, it turned out, was a large allied naval refuelling base during WWII. There are also remnants of military buildings and gun emplacements around the fjord.

Arriving in Reykjavik we headed to the waterfront for a meal. We tried the tasting dish which included Minke whale. Very tasty it is. For all you “save the whale” folk, minke are a well-managed fishery in and around Iceland and Norway. Even the naturalists on the National Geographic Explorer seemed to agree with their harvesting.

In summary Iceland is a rugged land of intriguing beauty. One can appreciate the effort and hardship people must endure to live here. Even the basic things you see around the country homes such as heavily insulated water pipes and sewerage lines are just a small illustration as to how harsh the winters must be here.

Sylvia:
Thursday 11 June

Ever since we arrived in the Arctic I have been on the look-out for puffins and although we saw a few up near Svalbard they were very distant so this morning we had organised a one-hour puffin watching trip around an island in the Reykjavik harbour. There was only one other guest on board the small boat and we departed right on time at 9:30am. Within 15 minutes we were circling the island with many puffins in view, some sitting on the water, others flying and several on land standing in front of their burrows. They used to be hunted here but have been protected for the last 10+ years and seemed pretty comfortable with the boat. Apparently they are still hunted in the north of Iceland. We also saw black guillemots, eider ducks, arctic terns and northern fulmars before heading back to shore bang on 10:30.

We had a quick wander around the harbour – interestingly several of the older houses here are clad in corrugated iron – and stopped at the viking monument along the shore.

Before flying out to London we did a short circuit of the Reykanes Peninsular to the southwest of Reykjavik. We did a drive-by of the Blue Lagoon, one of Iceland’s most well know tourist spots, but at 60 euro per person for a hot soak I thought it was more than a little ridiculous, despite the beautiful blue water contrasting with the lava landscape. We also passed a couple of large geothermal areas and wandered briefly along the continental divide between the American and the European continental shelves.

After an uneventful flight to London we took the metro to arrive at our Charlotte Street Hotel. We were on the Piccadilly line to Cockfosters, which was announced at each of the 17 stops between the airport and our hotel, much to the amusement of the American woman in the carriage opposite us.

That is the end of the Arctic and Iceland leg of our journey. Several people commented when we were in Iceland and they found out we were from NZ, why have you come here – it is the same back home. From my perspective there are similarities yes – geothermal activity, sheep, lots of coastline etc but also significant differences and I am very glad to have made the trip. Now on to the beginning of the next chapter in our travels….

Sylvia:
Sunday 7 June

 We woke to a glorious sunny day and set off from Hofn heading up the Northeast coast to Egilsstadir. (The Iceland language is incredibly tricky with lots of funny vowels and letters that sound like something else. For example Hofn is pronounced Hopn, Pingvellar is prounounced Thingvellar – all very confusing).

The guidebook, which has a tendency to rather over-use superlatives, described this area as the most stable with the same beautiful fjords, waterfalls, mountains etc only in even more majestic proportions… The scenery certainly is impressive, even if it doesn’t quite live up to the guidebook descriptions.

We took a brief detour to Stokksnes with some great views over a very calm sea towards the glacier and mountains. Unfortunately the road to the end now requires payment to the owners who have set up a viking café. We decided to continue on instead. Alongside the road, steep shingle banks (something we became very familiar with over the course of the day) lead up towards craggy peaks that looked like they could easily slide down the slopes on top of the scree.

We left behind the whooping swans and greylag geese of the lagoons in favour of the eider ducks and oyster catchers of the fjords. The plains gave way to steep mountains, often topped in pyramid or cone shaped peaks and all striped from the layers of basalt. We also saw a lot more sheep, a lot fewer Icelandic horses and even a few reindeer.

We arrived at the small fishing village of Djupivogur and stopped for traditional Icelandic fish soup and delicious carrot cake at a lovely café in an 18^th century building by the harbour. As we were driving out we stopped to photograph a series of sculptured eggs atop posts beside the harbour – sculpted by a local artist to represent all the birds of the local area.

We then wound our way up and down a number of small fjords passing some quaint fishing towns and one rather odorous one with a large factory on the wharf. We stopped at Reydarfjordur to visit a War Memorabilia museum. There were a number of Nissan huts and old WWII vehicles as well as some good dioramas depicting scenes from the war when the allies used the town as a base. There were a couple of very interesting women taking money for tickets etc – almost like something out of the movie “Deliverance”. They were quite harmless though and resumed their card playing as we wandered around the exhibits.

Early evening we arrived in Egilsstadir and had some fun trying to find our hotel. The GPS kept directing us to a very dilapidated looking building and I was getting a little concerned but when we finally gave up and went to check the building was most of the way through restoration and had in fact only opened 2 days earlier. The room was small but clean but the restaurant was not yet operating so we headed into town for dinner at a small café with some great “healthy” pizza.

Roger has attracted a number of sideways glances over the last few days from people wrapped up in gloves, hats, ski-jackets and hiking boots who don’t seem to be able to believe their eyes when they see this bloke wandering around in shorts and jandals. He does deign to put on his jacket every now and then but regularly comments on how warm it is when we pass temperature signs stating 7-degrees. I am definitely looking forward to warmer climes when we get to the rest of Europe but am not sure he will enjoy them as much.

Roger:
Monday 8 June

An average breakfast at the newly opened but not quite finished Valaskjalf hotel in Egilsstadir, set us on an interesting journey into the high country. Heading northwest on highway number one we viewed some pretty barren country with hints in places of the Central Plateau in NZ. Large areas of just rock, volcanic shingle, stunted shrubs and the odd excuse for a tree.

Turning west onto route 901 we headed through the high country farms. At 400 odd metres above sea level there is still lots of snow on the hills above us. Remembering that Iceland, although just below the Arctic Circle, is considered part of the Arctic as the average temperature in July doesn’t get above ten degrees. As with coastal lands, every now and then there are green grass paddocks mostly with deep ditches running around and through them. It seems that anywhere that grows anything more than a few weeds here is swampy ground. Like the rest of the farms there is no sign of irrigation, the green must come from good hardy grasses and fertiliser. The wintering stock sheds up here are huge.

The guide book’s wine-bottle description of this land goes “on a clear day the lack of vegetation on this route is compensated for by the fascinating vistas, featuring remote lakes, rocky passes and rushing streams. But, when the rain shadows and mist descends, obscuring the view, the atmosphere becomes charged with eerie presence, creating the brooding mood and scenery that ghost stories are made of!”

Funny thing is after finding route 907 to the south closed we arrived at Morudalur, one of the earliest settled farms around here, now with modern turf roofed buildings a 1949 church and a cafe. The girl in the café, working there for the summer, had just completed her degree in creative writing – maybe she will be writing guide books one day.

Getting back onto route 1 we headed northwest to route 864. Five kms up the road and it is barricaded closed. Next was 862 to see Europe’s largest volume waterfall. Hyped up in the guide book this was somewhat disappointing. We had seen for more impressive falls through the high country.

Next was route 863 to the Krafla Crater. It was by now blowing a gale to the point we had trouble standing on the top of the crater rim. As we walked back to the car some guy asked me how the swim was in the crater lake. I explained the lake was iced over and he looked surprised. For some reason he thought my long shorts were swimming togs!!

We checked out the Myvatn Nature Baths. Picturesque as they were with great views, the wind was so strong we passed up the swim.

Arriving at Sel Hotel on the south side of Lake Myvatn our room had a great view over the lake and a number of small perfectly shaped craters. The wind is so strong it’s creating white caps on the lake and rocking camper vans in the car park. The locals just accept the weather as “this is Iceland”.

After leaving Tromso we headed ever northward, first to Bear Island and then on to Spitzburgen, the main island in Svalbard. We eventually made it above 80 degrees longitude and explored many of the fjords and waterways around Svalbard enjoying some great hikes and fantastic wildlife viewing.

To read more click on the links below (Note – due to technical difficulties I have had to upload four separate documents…

Arctic Svalbard

Arctic Svalbard_2

Arctic Svalbard_3

Arctic Svalbard_4

We continued northward stopping in a variety of fjords and at several of Norway’s northern islands – the last few days before we head far North to Arctic Svalbard. Now we are in 24 hours of daylight.

To read more click on the link below:

Norway 2015_4

FYI – we realise that picture quality in these postings is not great but we are limited to satellite internet coverage. We will post photos into the photo gallery once we are back with reasonable coverage.

We continued up the coast of Norway, stopping in fjords and at small offshore islands to explore the picturesque scenery, eventually arriving at the Arctic Circle…

To read more click on the link below

Norway 2015_3

After spending the morning in Bergen, we boarded the Notional Geographic Explorer and started of on our journey north via the fjords of Norway to Arctic Svalbard.

To read more about our first few days on board click the link below:

Norway 2015_2

The first few days of our trip were spent exploring Oslo and then heading to Bergen. Due to join the National Geographic Explorer on 20 May to explore the Norwegian Fjords and Arctic Svalbard these few days were more about overcoming jetlag and adjusting to the time zone while exploring some of the beauty of these two Norwegian cities.

To read more click the link below:

Norway 2015

Roger:

Saturday 16 May
Landing in Sydney around 10 am I took the opportunity to go and see an old karate mate. Joe now runs “Joe’s Boxing” at Five Dock.
Sylvia flies in from Wodonga around 3pm. After checking in we head to the lounge to await our 9 pm flight to Dubai.

On board the A380 it is all pretty flash. We are in first class. It is made up of capsules of about 1.5 m wide and 3m long.
Our capsules are side by side with a wall that drops down between us. The seat which turns into a bed also has a massage function. Large TV, pop up drinks bar, make-up mirror and products to name a few. We are handed PJ’s and head off to the bathroom to get changed. The bathrooms are huge with shower included. In spite of the size “one person at a time”  the hosty who is always stationed outside tells us. What are they thinking we might get up to in there ?!!!!!
The flight under way, Dom Perignon is served and dinner order taken. Couldn’t resist the Caviar entrée. A piece of baramundi was cooked to perfection for a main. Sylvia had a thai prawn salad, rack of lamb and a chocolate caramel bombe.

The bed is made, the electric doors close for the best aeroplane sleep ever.
2 hours out from Dubai we are called individually for our shower –  “what ever happened to saving water?”
A great breakfast is served prior to us arriving feeling fresh and ready for the flight to Oslo.
A bus with large leather armchairs takes us on a long drive around this massive, busy airport. Planes are stacked in all over the tarmacs – know anyone who has lost an aeroplane its probably here.

Sylvia:

Sunday 17 May

We had a very short stopover in Dubai – really only time to buy a few cigars and find the lounge before we had to board – right from the lounge. This time a 777-200 but first class configuration with the same – eight seats but we were the only two passengers with three crew to look after us! A pretty straight-forward 7-hour flight, some movies, more Dom Perignon for Roger (the crew were very attentive and kept his glass well-filled), a delicious lunch and we landed in Oslo.

We caught the express train into the city and walked out of the station into crowds of happy people, many in traditional dress, celebrating Norway’s national day. There was a huge parade with lots of bands and we could even hear cannons firing in the distance. It was quite interesting hauling our cases over the cobblestones and trying to navigate our way to the hotel through the crowds – we even had to dash across the road in a gap in the parade at one stage.

A quick rest at the hotel and then we headed out to wander the streets, enjoying the crowds and the sites. We wandered up to the palace to where the obligatory guards were being photographed, then through some beautiful parkland  – displaying wonderful spring greenery and some gorgeous tulips – and around the city before heading back to the hotel. I was quite taken with the national costumes. Women in their dresses with lace up bodices, aprons and bucked shoes and men in “lederhosen” style pants, long socks and velvet jackets, some with tails. Those not in national costume were generally smartly dressed with many of the men in suits and ties. The dresses and suits are in different colours depending on where people are from.

We retired very early as we were both feeling the effects of jet lag.

Click here to see video of parade