Seljalandsfoss and Glúfurárfoss Sep 1 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Friday, 31 August

Yesterday Annika and I went into phase 2 of our Iceland holiday. We hired a car for a week. We had booked a VW Polo but we were lucky and got a brand new VW Golf as an update. That’s a great car to drive the 1332 km long Route 1 round the island (and probably some detours). We got our car at 12:30, went shopping and left Reykjavík as fast as possible to follow the Route 1 counterclockwise.

The first stop was at a huge parking place, where you could see the Seljalandsfoss, a 65 metre high waterfall. It is special in the way, that you can go round watch it from all directions. We were not the only ones, hundreds of other tourists went round as well, many of them without proper rain clothes and soaking wet.

A gravel path led to another waterfall, the Glúfurárfoss. It is not easy to reach, because you have to enter a hollow and wade through a stream to get to it. This waterfall may be less impressive in height and amount of water, but the scenery is more special, almost enchanted than the Seljalandsfoss. I was very glad to have not only rubber boots but also my waterproof camera with me, but half of the time I was busy with keeping the lens dry.

Black beaches and glaciers Sep 3 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Saturday, 1 September

Yesterday we hired our car, today we had the first full travel day round Iceland. We didn’t make many kilometres, since there are so many beautiful places along the Ring Road in the South of Iceland. There are quite famous, too, so we had to share them with a lot of other tourists.

Dyrhólaey

Dyrhólaey is a 120 metre high peninsula which is known for a large hole in the rock that gave the place its name: “door hole island”. Huge waves rolled ashore and broke at the rocks. No place for bathing.

In the east we already could see the Reynisdrangar, pillar-like rock formations in the sea. The sea was covered with spray and looked almost white, just like the sky.

Reynisfjara Beach

Reynisfjara Beach is the most famous of the black beaches near to the town Vik. Unlike most other beaches the sand consists of eroded volcanic rocks. The waves were as high as those visible from Dyrhólaey and many signs warn against the danger of being swept away. The beach at the parking place is quite is flat and white and the waves flood great areas of the black sand.

While I was taking these photos a huge wave came and pushed a lot of water to the beach. I got wet feet even with my rubber boots on.

From here you can also see the Reynisdrangar standing stoically in the sea. Only seabirds inhabit these inaccessible rock pillars.

One of the main attractions of Reynisfjara Beach are the basalt columns. Well, I tried to take photos, but this was impossible due to the many, many tourists standing there. At least the basalt cave was free of people for a minute.

Svinafelljökull

We found a nice overnight stay in Svinafell. As all accommodations it was expensive and you would get a hotel room with breakfast for less money in most other countries. Iceland however is an expensive country and you should know that before travelling there.

Quite near Svinafell there are two glacier tongues, Skaftafellsjökull and Svinafelljökull. Both of them are part of Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest glacier and you can see them from the Ring Road.

After checking in we returned to the Ring Road and turned into a gravel road leading to the Svinafelljökull. This was the worst road I ever drove. It was just 2.5 km long, but only made of deep potholes and rocks. It took me 15 minutes for one way. There’s a reason why so many people use jeeps or pickups in Iceland. Anyway it was worth the efforts, despite the grey weather.

Some photos:

Next day we would continue east and perhaps reach the East Fjords.

From glaciers to the East Fjords Sep 3 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Saturday, 2 September – from Svinafell to Reyðarfjörður by car

Annika and I woke up quite early and left our cabin in Svinafell already round 8 o’clock. That’s why we were almost alone, when we came to the lake Fjallsárlón into which the glacier tongue Fjallsjökull calves. Some larger and many small icebergs floated on the brown glacier water. We walked along the shore, touched some of the small ice blocks and watched them floating into the creek Fjällsá.

When we left the beach of the lake, many more people arrived, although this “first lake” is not as the “third lake”, the Jökulsárlón. The latter is much more touristic. Many cars stood on the huge parking place and hundreds of tourists walked around, taking pictures or took tours with zodiac boats or amphibian vehicles. The good thing with cold lakes: You always find the opportunity to take pictures without any tourist.

We didn’t see many animals yet on Iceland, beside of many sea birds and of course countless sheep (mostly in groups of three) and Icelandic horses. Here we saw the first wild mammals: seals swimming around in the lake, diving and reappearing again after some time.

After we left these lakes behind and continued east, the traffic on the Ring Road decreased more and more. We were on the way to the East Fjords that are far less touristic than the south of Iceland. It was just fun to drive the Ring Road and watch the scenery changing. Just a few pictures from some of the breaks we made.

It was quite late when we arrived in the coastal town Reyðarfjörður, where we got a room with an own bathroom. Time to cook and wash some clothes.

The next day we would leave the East Fjords and head north.

Through the windscreen Sep 4 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Monday, 3 September

Today it was Annika who drove the car. I was front-seat passenger and took photos through the windscreen.

The route today: Reyðarfjörður – Egilsstaðir – Vopnafjörður – Bakkafjörður –Þórshöfn – Raufarhöfn – Kópasker.

As you can see: Nice weather!

As you can see: Not too many cars!

Some more photos to come, perhaps tomorrow …

Polar lights above Kópasker Sep 4 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Monday, 3 September

From Reyðarfjörður to Kópasker Sep 5 2018

Monday, 3 September

On this day I took most photos through the windscreen while Annika was driving. But we made stops, too. Some photos:

Jökulsá á Fjöllum Sep 5 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Tuesday, 4 September

Jökulsá á Fjöllum (glacial river in the mountains) is a river in the North of Iceland and offers some interesting places. We chose the road 862 on the western side with destination Dettifoss, Europe’s most powerful waterfall.

After some kilometres the asphalt road suddenly changed into a single-track gravel road, which was in a quite bad shape.

Some kilometres further at the turnoff to the Hljóðaklettar the road to the Dettifoss became an “F” road, meaning that it was open only for off-road vehicles. At least we could turn left to Hljóðaklettar which is known for its basalt columns. Here we parked the car and took a circular walk.

After our walk we had to drive back the whole bumpy road, turn east, cross the river and use the road 864 on the eastern side. It was quite bad, too, but at least we were allowed (and able) to take the road and finally arrive at the Dettifoss. We were lucky, since the eastern shore is more crowded and farther away from the waterfall.

Here some snapshots:

From this place you also have a gorgeous panoramic view of the canyon that leads to the north. If you followed this canyon you would come back to Hljóðaklettar.

Bathing in Sæberg Sep 6 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Wednesday, 5 September

Relaxing in a hot pool.

Relaxing in a hot outdoor pool in Sæberg, Iceland. In the beginning of September. With an air temperature of round 8 °C.

How is that possible? Iceland has so many geothermal areas, where the ground is hot, that hot water is freely available in many places. Our hot pool today had round 38 °C. If you wanted to cool down, you just had to go to the beach of the fjord Hrútafjörður and take a bath there. There the water was at least 30 °C colder. We started with the cold bath, but stayed much longer in the comfort of the hot pool.

Sæberg – Hólmavík – Ólafsvík Sep 7 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Thursday, 6 September

From our overnight stay Sæberg it’s only 177 km to Reykjavík, where we had to return our hired car. That’s not much for one and a half days by car. Therefore we decided to take some more detours.

First we followed the road 68 to Hólmavík, a city on Iceland’s West Fjords. We continued along the coast until we came to a junction, where the gravel road 608 crosses the peninsula. It would be possible to go round the inhabited part of the peninsula, but that’s a detour of 390 km.

Quite near the fjord Þorskafjörður, there’s a small city called Reykhólar. We considered staying there over night but since it was still quite early, we continued instead to the peninsula Snæfellsnes.

The weather had been warm, sunny, calm and friendly for the whole week. But now it worsened, low clouds appeared, it started to drizzle and got very windy. In Ólafsvík – yes, I have my own bay ;-) – we found not only a nice hostel to stay but also a nice restaurant that served us a delicious goat cheese pizza.

Sorry to say, I didn’t make a single photo from Ólafsvík that day. First we were too busy with our dinner, than with re-packing our belongings, because the next day we would have to return our car. Than it was too dark to take photos without tripod and too stormy to take photos with tripod.

The only photo I made is a snapshot I took from the bathroom the next morning. Still stormy, still rainy.

Keflavík – filling the car in stormy wind Sep 8 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Friday, 7 September

Faroe Islands and Shetland above Sep 8 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

After two weeks in Iceland Annika and I fly back to Sweden today. The first flight from Keflavík to København (Copenhagen) led first over the Føroyar (Faroe Islands), then over Shetland. Luckily there were some holes in the clouds to peek through.

Missing Iceland article I – Reykjavík Sep 9 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

While I showed a lot of photos of the varied Icelandic landscapes the last two weeks I didn’t write anything about the main town Reykjavík yet. More than a third of the Islanders lives there and almost two-thirds of the Icelanders in the Greater Reykjavík region.

I’ve never been in Iceland before and was curious about Reykjavík, too. Anyway I have to admit, that I prefer the smaller towns, the rural areas and the uninhabited landscapes, but I want to show at least some photos I took.

Sægreifinn – The famous and delicious lobster soup

Jólahúsið, a whole year round Christmas shop

Lopapeysa – the typical Icelandic wool pullovers

The record shop 12 Tónar. The photo shows Björk with the Sugarcubes

Missing Iceland article II – the cars Sep 9 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-08: Iceland”.

Icelandic tourists come from all over the world. They are young or old, rich or not so rich (best not to be poor, because Iceland is expensive), hip or square, but most of them have one thing in common: their hired car.

As long as you do not choose the three-day ferry crossing from Hirtshals in Denmark or go on a cruise you will arrive in Iceland by plane. Since Iceland has limited public transport, it’s best to hire a car. Many tourists do. Some models are quite popular as for example the tiny Hyundai i10 or the ever-present Dacia Duster with 4WD.

There are however roads in Iceland, that you may not (and cannot) drive with such cars, the so called F-roads. F stands for Fjall, the Icelandic word for mountain. The challenge of these F-roads is however less the roadway itself but the river crossings. So you may not manage most F-roads with your average “pick-up-the-kids-from-school”-SUV.

That’s were the real off-road vehicles come into play. I saw a lot of of them, some with Icelandic registration but many coming from Germany, Switzerland or other countries. Some are classical off-roaders as the Land Rover Defender, while others look more like armoured military vehicles. Some of them have foldable roof top tents, some are buses used for touristic day trips.

Off-road vehicle III – Land Rover Defender

Off-road vehicle VII – Toyota pickup with tent

Off-road vehicle IX – old car from the German “Technisches Hilfswerk”

Off-road vehicle X– Mercedes tourist bus

I have to admit, that I like such cars but I definitely have no use for them. My Subaru Outback probably never will ford rivers, but I’m sure that it consumes less than half the gasoline than even the smallest of the off-road vehicles shown above.

Visst är det kul att skotta snö! Sep 9 2018

After two weeks in Iceland Annika and I arrived in Skellefteå today. The first thing I saw after leaving the airport building was this front loader.

The banner fixed to the shovel says “Visst är det kul att skotta snö!”. In English this means: “Sure it’s fun to shovel snow (manually)!”

That’s an interesting welcome in the middle of September.

A herald of autumn Sep 12 2018

It’s still quite warm in Skelleftehamn, hardly below 10 °C the last nights, but today it rained and some of the birch trees start casting off their leaves. Summer 2018 is history, autumn is coming.

“50 Shades of Red” Sep 14 2018

Foggy Skellefteälven Sep 17 2018

When I saw the fog moving above the river Skellefteälven this morning I had to interrupt my drive to work to take some pictures. It was the coldest morning that I experienced here since last winter. Air temperatures were still above zero but the first ground frost was visible.

When it comes to seasons I like winter the most, but autumn is so beautiful, too.

An autumn morning in Skelleftehamn Sep 25 2018

Two days ago was autumnal equinox, start of the astronomical autumn. Today I managed to be at the coast shortly before sunrise at 6:26. The sea was amazingly calm considering the wind of the last days, and the small cotton-wool clouds were coloured rose.

The sun rose over the island Flottgrundet and started to illuminate the rocky shore and the coloured trees.

Three trees, three and hundreds of colours

The mushrooms sprout in the meadow next to the house of the pilot station. I lay down in the grass and made a photo from a small fly agaric covering the sun.

The morning was crisp which temperatures round 1 °C and for the first time I had to scrape ice from the windshield of my new car. While Skelleftehamn looks autumnal, other places as Hemavan or Kilpisjärvi have got the first snow these days. Even though I took my first winter bath already yesterday (water temperature 9.4 °C) it will be some time before winter comes to Skelleftehamn.

Time to collect some warm autumn colours and time for a strongly over-edited photo of the trees on a breakwater. It’s kitsch in some way, but I like it anyway.

The first frost Sep 28 2018

The first frost this autumn · temperature minimum last night: -3.9 °C · air temperature this morning: -2.5 °C

Upside down photos from an autumn promenade Sep 28 2018

Far and near Sep 30 2018

Two photos from yesterday morning: The Baltic Sea seen from the peninsula Näsgrundet some minutes after sunrise. The frost covered blossom of the autumn hawkbit in my garden.

Today it’s the last day of September. This week brought the first snow to the fjäll and the northernmost parts of the country. Even in Skellefteå and Ursviken some single snow flakes had been spotted some days ago! And according to SHMI it is officially winter in Stekenjokk since 23 September.

From Wikipedia: The Swedish meteorological institute (SMHI) define winter as when the daily mean temperatures go below 0 °C (32 °F) for five consecutive days.