Iceland 2022
Sept 26
We headed into the town of Akranes for breakfast, did you guess that we went to a Bakery?
While we were there we also checked out the Old Akranes Lighthouse. There is actually two lighthouses here, the older lighthouse built in 1918, and a bigger one that you can pay a small fee to go up and enjoy the views.
It's some pretty steep stairs making there way up numerous levels, each with a small art exhibit. The acoustics are amazing, and Norine has to stop me from breaking out my full Freddie Mercury masterpiece. Three or Four flights later you climb out a small hatch to the lookout/light level, and can see for miles.
The old lighthouse served the fishing town until it was deactivated in 1947 in favour of the larger structure. It has even been nominated one of the 6 most iconic and picturesque lighthouses in the world.
From the lighthouses we wandered back into Akranes town to peruse some of their street murals. We kind of had too, cause when we asked the TI girl at the lighthouse about some art we had seen coming in, she gave us a hand researched map of where all the best art was when we came out of the lighthouse. You just can't put that hard work to waste, although it may show she was a little bored.
Handicapped accessible
From Akranes to Reykjavik there is a little shortcut that opened in 1998, the Hvalfjörður Tunnel makes crossing/bypassing the fjord take 7 minutes instead of about an hour.
Reykjanes Peninsula
Rather than return to the big city of Reykjavik, we decided to bypass the city and head to the Reykjanes Peninsula.It is the lowest left sticky out bit in Iceland, and where the airport (Keflavik)is located. The whole peninsula is extremely volcanically active, covered with moss-coated lava fields and cone-shaped mountains. There were no recorded volcanic eruptions there for 800 years, until Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted in March of 2021, lasting for 6 months. In August of 2022, the volcano erupted again, proving that the previous one was not a fluke. In 2001, an earthquake beneath the lake Kleifarvatn led to a 25% decrease in the lake's surface area. Since then, hot springs have been bubbling up from the bottom of the lake.
Our first stop in this hotbed area was the Seltun geothermal area. It looks like a mars landscape with a variety of colours and steaming vents, the site is covered with bubbling pools of mud, fumaroles and hot springs. There are well-maintained wooden walkways around the springs from where you can observe, with several educational signs about the geothermal effects at work here.
Apparently you can hike up this trail to the other side of the mountain and there is a natural hot spring there.
The Cliffs at Krysuvikurbjarg are stunning, but it is about 3 kilometers from the main road, down a very bumpy and twisting trail through the lava; the cliffs are just a minute’s walk away from the "parking lot". There is only one other vehicle there, an old Vanagon with a hippy couple that were on their cellphones inside the entire time.
There is chains keeping you back from the edge and warning signs as some of the cliff-sides have started to erode away.
Those aren't the same pictures, but I included both as there wasn't much else to look at here after that bumpy drive in.
The real excitement started on the way out. following the trail back to the road, we stopped to take some pictures of a couple sheep. While I was taking pictures, Norine opened a bag of chips, and one of the sheep must know that sound, looked right at me and came running over to the car. In fact it came right up to the window and started rearing up like it was going to jump in the car for that bag of chips. I had to swing my hand at her to stop her. F ewe, I'm not paying for sheep damage at the car rental place.
We threw a bunch of those chips on the ground, shouted "Start the car, Start the car" like in the IKEA commercial, and then raced away while they were distracted. They did follow the car for a bit, but we got away safely without any sheep hoof marks on the car.
No volcanic eruption had occurred for 815 years on the Reykjanes Peninsula until March 19th, 2021 when a vent appeared in Geldingadalur to the south of Fagradalsfjall mountain. The 2021 eruption continued for 6 months emitting fresh lava until September 18th. Shortly after 1 p.m. on August 3rd, 2022, a 500 meter long fissure opened up in the Meradalir valley, erupting a few cubic kilometers of lava per second. The eruption site is conveniently located right beside Geldingadalur, right on Reykjavík’s doorstep. It is still considered ongoing, although there has been no visible activity since August 21st, 2022.
We missed the fire and brimstone action of the eruption, but we were able to hike right up to the lava flows edge.
You can clearly see steam rising from the lava's crust, and signs warn people not to climb on the lava flows, but you know the Instagram crowd...dumb-asses.
After all that heat, we made another Gas Station food stop for make your own Blizzard/McFlurry Ice cream treat. Our gas stations in Canada and the US really need to step up their game.
We drove to our hotel, a very unique spot recommended by a friend, the Hild Fisherman Village, conveniently located between Reykjavik and the airport. Conveniently the key is in the door waiting for us.
Hild Fisherman Village is a combination museum and hoarder hotel, all kinds of sea based memorabilia laying around. The rooftop of the wood structure has a couple hot tubs and a sauna, but we had other plans for the night.
Blue Lagoon was huge and impressive from a visual pool perspective , it is huge with a unique milky colour. Svartsengi is home to a geothermal power station that produces 76.5 MW of electricity from the 475 liters of 90° C water that gushes from the earth every second. The mineral-rich surplus water fills up the Blue Lagoon spa. The water's milky blue shade is due to its high silica content. The water is also rich in salts and algae.
After getting setup with a MasterCard charged wrist band to activate your locker, you take a shower then enter the lagoon through a mystical door, or you can go straight out the front doors, but why?
The silica forms soft white mud on the bottom of the lake which you can rub on yourself. They gave you one gloop of silica gel to put on your face, just like a lunch lady serving sloppy Joes. Leave it on for 15 minutes till it dries, then wash it off for smooth skin.
The most popular spot in the pool is the swim up bar, where you can tap your wrist band for over-priced alcohol and fruit drinks.It's nice to have a glass to refill with the free non-milky spring water they have around the pool to make sure you stay hydrated.
We wandered/swam around the different areas of the huge lagoon, and then they couldn't get us out of the lagoon fast enough. at 8:15 bells are ringing and announcements made that you have 15 minutes to get out. Mass exodus, bathrooms are closed, cafe is shut down at 9:00 and almost all staff is gone. Definitely not on the customer experience level of the other 3 thermal baths we went to. When we come back on our way home, we would prefer to go back to Sky Lagoon.
Our last full day in Iceland, and we didn't even see 1 waterfall, but we saw the cooling remains of last months volcanic eruption and more Icelandic things like sheep trying to jump in our car cause we had chips.
Sept 27
We woke up and packed up, headed to the airport and made one last Icelandic bakery stop. We filled up the car at the advertised "the cheapest gas station", then drove past a cheaper gas station and dropped off our Renault hybrid and our pocket WiFi.
A quick shuttle to the airport... one last tippy table in the airport cafe, and it's goodbye Iceland, it's been fun.
For the continuing adventures of this 3 part trip, click below.