ICELAND - PART 1

Iceland had been firmly at the top of the "countries I most want to visit" list since arriving back from my world trip in March 2010. I didn't want to book that first year due to the volcano. When another eruption came in 2011 one of the lads at work commented that "someone up there doesn't want you to go to Iceland!!!!" It was a risk I was going to have to take, so I went ahead and booked anyway.

Getting there was a nightmare in itself. I might have only been in the air for about two and a half hours but after getting all the way down to Gatwick airport on two trains with long waits inbetween then ages at the other end waiting for the shuttle bus it was over 12 hours between leaving home and booking into the accommodation. I had a very sleepless first night, the fact that it's only dark 2 hours a night was something I had never came across before. The other problem which was someone else snoring is a regular problem when trying to sleep in dorm rooms.

The first day in Reykjavik was a "walk round and find my feet day". It seemed more like a small town than a capital city I didn't do too much because of the rain. Back at the hostel the lack of people gave me the impression this was the kind of place where people spent most of the daytime out on trips. So I headed back into town and booked for the following day.


In the afternoon I headed to Videy island and spent about 2 hours walking all the way round. Despite being near the city it felt like it was miles away from anywhere.

I got an early night in and headed out the following morning for the golden circle daytrip. I'm not a massive fan of organized daytrips but like Jordan 11 months earlier there are lots of tourist attractions that cannot be reached by regular public transport.


It didn't take long to get out of the city and into the real Iceland within an hour I felt as far away from civilization as you could get. This picture was taken at Skalholt.


Gullfoss waterfall was difficult to get a picture of without loads of other camera clicking tourists in the background.


A still picture at Geysir is not good enough to be honest.

It didn't take long to find a clip on youtube.


Pingvellir national park is the point where Europe and North America are slowly pulling apart. So geologically speaking at least I can say I have set foot in America. Looking back I wouldn't have minded staying here a night.


The day after the tour I left the capital for the second city. I found it shocking that there was only one bus a day between the two places but there were 7 flights which only took about 45 minutes. A couple of hours before I left I took some pictures from the top of Hallgrimskirkja.

It was an eventful first couple of days, I was not going to make the same mistake as I did in Sri Lanka earlier on in the year trying to see too much in a one week trip.


The domestic airport had to be one of the smallest I had ever seen. Pity there was cloud 90% of the flight or I would have got loads of great pictures.............