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.

From Reykjavík to Hveravellir – 10 + 1 photos Aug 29 2018

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

Wednesday, 29 August

Ten plus one photos from today’s six hour bus tour from Reykjavík to Hveravellir in the Highlands of Iceland.

Landmannalaugar Aug 28 2018

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

Sunday, 26 August – Monday, 27 August

There are only a few roads leading across the Highlands of Iceland. Most of them are only open for cars with four-wheel drive because it is necessary to ford rivers. Even though the road to the Landmannalaugar, our destination for Sunday, is not the toughest, we decided not to hire such a car. They are expensive, we don’t have any experience in fording and there are busses making such trips as well.

Sunday morning we entered the bus to the Landmannalaugar. The whole trip takes round about four hours and goes mostly on normal asphalt roads: through Reykjavík, along the Ring Road that runs around the island, then along a minor road. Finally we reached the junction where the gravel road starts and the bus ride became a bit jumpy. We met some other cars, some of them huge jeeps, some of them small SUVs. After a while we approached the first ford, where a small Dacia Duster crossed the water, followed by our bus.

The other two fords are within sight of the Landmannalaugar mountain hut. There were deeper and many of the drivers with smaller cars decided to use the parking place nearby instead of fording. The bus however splashed through the water and brought us to the mountain hut, where we had booked two places to sleep.

After we unpacked our sleeping bags and put them on two of the narrow mattresses we put on our jackets and boots and started a hike through the amazing landscape. Annika has been in Iceland before several times and told me about the almost unbelievable colours and shades of the mountains and she was true. Some of the mountains were orange, some brown or yellow, some green and one of them red. The lava rocks were black, partly covered with white-green moss and the higher mountains had white snow fields on their colourful slopes. Take a look by yourself:

Iceland has a lot of tourists, last year more than 2 millions. To protect the sensitive environment and avoid destroying the flora you mustn’t leave the trail. There’s another reason for sticking to the trails: Iceland has many geothermal areas where you could break through the thin crust into bubbling mud or boiling sulphuric acid. Some of these spots are visible, they smoke and you smell the sulphur compounds.

After some hours hiking (including an ascent of a mountain) we returned to Landmannalaugar. There’s not only the mountain hut providing 75 beds and a camp ground with place for at least hundred tents, there’s also the Mountain Mall, an old bus where you can buy food.

We enjoyed a rest with two cokes before we headed to the next attraction: A warm bath in the river. Because of the geothermal activity the ground is partly hot and heats up the water to temperatures between round 30 °C and 42 °C. We were not the only ones bathing, but there was enough place for all. You could even decide how warm you wanted your bath by just moving another metre. Great!

After a saturating dinner with spaghetti and pasta I took another walk and some more photos. Then I went to our room and got to bed.

Amazing! Although more than 15 people had slept in the room and the mattresses were so narrow that we could hardly turn around Annika and I slept very well. It was very quiet, hardly any snoring, no talking, no rustling with plastic bags. I experienced much worse when I had spent nights in alpine mountain huts in Germany or Austria.

After breakfast we took another bath and then another hiking tour. I hardly made any photos due to the drizzle and the strong winds. At least I could take some pictures of the sheep grassing on the plain.

Drizzle became stronger and turned into rain. We went to the ford and looked at the cars crossing. This time I had my waterproof camera with me. Look at the snorkel of the white jeep, I guess this car could almost dive!

The rain got stronger and stronger and when we entered the bus our rain clothes were soaking wet. I looked through the rain-wept window for a while, tried to make same photos, but the autofocus couldn’t handle the situation. After a while I fell asleep.

Conclusion: A great experience! Yes, Landmannalaugar is touristic and crowed, but for good reasons. It’s absolutely worth a visit. Here you can even start a four-day hiking trip but you have to reserve the mountain huts years before. I’m quite eager to do this trail, perhaps in 2020 …?

From the #archives: winter season Jul 29 2018

The weather of the last weeks has been hot, mostly too hot for me. Even today’s thunderstorm and heavy rain showers didn’t manage to cool down the temperatures below 20 °C. I’m really longing for cooler weather. Since I cannot change the weather itself I can only provide some winter photos from the archives. Voilà:

2016-03-20 – The lighthouse on the island Kågnäshällan

2016-04-25 – Heavy snow shower in Skelleftehamn

2018-03-23 – icicles hanging from the roof of a boat house

Opening the bicycle saison in Skellefteå May 14 2018

Today it was the first day where I used the bicycle from home to Skellefteå. That’s about 19 km per direction and I want to use the bicycle at least twice a week on my way to the job. Let’s see if I can do it. At least a first beginning is made.

Skelleftehamn – Skellefteå:

The peninsula Kallholmen in Skelleftehamn

Stackgrönnan – here’s the ice bath in wintertime

“Strandpromenaden” – beach promenade in Skellefteå

Skellefteå – Skelleftehamn:

Tour rules: Use a complete different way back to Skelleftehamn.

Photo rules: Take only photos from the bike, cycling or standing. Do not crop any photo. Use only basic corrections.

Lazy sightseeing in Visby May 13 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-05: Gotland”.

After four days of cycling and driving Annika and I use the Friday to take it easy and stroll through the old town of Visby, including sightseeing and visiting restaurants. It is our last day on Gotland, tomorrow we’ll fly back.

We have fallen in love with Gotland a bit, both with the varying landscape and with the beautiful old town. We were incredible lucky with the weather: Sun from morning to night and day temperatures between 20 and 24 °C.

I won’t tell much more about Visby, I just show some photos, all made on Friday:

Sunday afternoon, 13 May: I’m back in Skelleftehamn. No snow is left in my garden and the Baltic Sea before Skelleftehamn is completely free of ice. And finally the birch trees have got fresh green leaves. That’s more spring than one year ago!

First impressions of Visby, Gotland May 7 2018

This article is part of the series “2018-05: Gotland”.

And now to something completely different after all that snow and ice.

Yesterday Annika and I took the plane. First to Stockholm Arlanda and then to Gotland – Swedens largest island – where we’ll stay in the Visby – Gotland’s main town – for a week.

Some first impressions from our yesterday’s walk through this wonderful medieval town:

Valborgsmässoafton 2018 May 1 2018

30 April

Valborgsmässoafton is the last day of April. On this days many people set fire to big bonfires, partly as an event being celebrated with friends, partly for burning last years gardening rubbish (and more …).

This year I was invited by A. and M. who I’d got to know exactly eight years ago on another valborgsmässoafton. They are among my oldest friends in Sweden and I’m very happy that they exist. Their stuga – or summer cottage – is located in Bygdeträsk south of Skellefteå.

This time I come from Umeå, where I spent the weekend. I try to avoid the larger roads and prefer the small gravel roads. Mostly they are in good conditions, only some parts are quite muddy and have deep ruts in the clayey ground. Less and less snow can be seem, but there’s still snow left.

There is still ice on the lakes as well, but it looks soft and grey and near the shore there are more and more open patches. You can still see the snowmobile tracks, a vague reminder of the winter.

Some hours later: I’ve arrived in Bygdeträsk and with the help of A. I manage to park my car without getting stuck in the soft clay of the property (which happened to a craftsman recently). The other guests have arrived, too and – of course – the bonfire is burning!

But what about the hot tub? Wouldn’t it be nice to take a hot bath outside later in the evening? That of course needs some preparations. While M. cautiously tries to split the thick ice block in the hot tub with an axe I put on chest waders to wade a bit into the lake with a long hose attached to the water pump. First I thought I had to chop away ice, but near the shore the lake is just filled with knee-deep slush. Soon the pump starts to fill the hot tub with ice cold water heated by the wood stove.

To make a long story short: it will take eight hours until the water is hot enough for a relaxing bath and I will have fallen fast asleep when the only two people still being awake will start their bath.

Anyway, there are other things to do as e.g. watching the whooper swans on the ice and in the water.

Two whooper swans on the lake Bygdeträsk

Then there is a lot of eating (M. is a great cook and grandmaster of barbecuing) and talking and playing games. Every half an hour someone goes out, adds wood to the oven and checks the water temperature, that sloooowly increases. I become more and more tired but I want to have a bath. At 1 o’clock in the night however I give up. I’m just too tired! I pump up my camping mat in the workshop, unroll the sleeping bag and soon I’m fast asleep.

1 May 2018

After a late breakfast I say thank you and goodbye to the others, jump into the car and head home, again with many detours. I see some cranes, some reindeers and a black grouse (called orre in Swedish) that flies away before I can slow down the car for taking a picture.

Many gravel paths lead through forests. Left and right are old walls of snow that the sun has not melted yet. Leftovers from last winter’s snow clearing.

A normal “first of May” gravel path through the forest.

Again some patches are rutted, some are wet and muddy but no problem, until …

Luckily I see this obstacle in time and manage to drive around this hole in the street. (My car is the red one in the background.) One of the rare opportunities where I’m glad to have a car with all wheel drive.

One hour later I’m home again and I hardly can believe my eyes. Five days ago my backyard was still covered with 30 centimetres of snow, now the snow on the lawn is almost gone and beside of some small white patches brown grass is everywhere! Even though I’ve been living in Sweden for eight years I’m astonished again how fast snow melts in springtime.

Two hours later heavy raining is pouring down. Hej då, vinter!

Between the seasons Apr 18 2018

Still a lot of snow in Skelleftehamn, still freezing temperatures every single night, still no rain since last year (if I’m right), but …

The snow around the tree trunks is thawing

Instead of spring flowers: cars reappear

… spring comes nearer. According to smhi spring has already come to the town Skellefteå some days ago. Seems to fit, because I saw the first coltsfoots in bloom in Skellefteå yesterday. Unlike Skellefteå, Skelleftehamn is located by the Baltic Sea and the Baltic Sea is still covered with ice that cools down the air and causes the beginning of spring to delay by several weeks.

The snow piles on the first two images are remnants of the continuous snow clearing the whole winter. When walking around while taking these photos I experienced snow depths between 0 and 60 cm. Round 60 cm of snow lie in my backyard, too. At least all fences look out of the snow again.

Translation:

English	German	Swedish
coltfoot	Huflattich	tussilago

3× black and white Apr 9 2018

Using the pavement? Rubber boots recommended