Last year I started writing a list of stuff to do before I get too ancient to do them. It was probably going to be included in some sort of blog post I never finished…
Anyway, one of the first things on the list was to see a whale. Any kind of whale would do, I'm not fussy! In February, I hopped on a flight to Iceland to try my luck.
I took my adventure buddy Hugo, and both with lovely new cameras to try out we planned to spend our three and a half days packing in as many scenic things as possible. Being the (evil) genius I am I was going to attempt to tick off two things from my list of wonders in one holiday. The first attempt was a few hours after we arrived in Reykjavik.
After checking into the very Scandinavian-looking Hotel Klettur, we jumped on a coach to take us into the middle of nowhere. Our first aim was to see the Northern Lights.
Reykjavik is a weird place. It's the largest city in Iceland and about 60% of the whole of the country live there…Since the total population in Iceland is only 300,000 people this makes it a pretty mini largest city. It's about the same size as Bournemouth. We were only on the coach for about 10-15 minutes before we were leaving the capital and surrounded by pitch black.
Getting out of the city, the only thing we could do now was to gawp out of the window and shout if we saw anything we thought might be the Northern Lights. Luckily after not too long we heard a walkie-talkie crackling and the coach changed direction; there had been a sighting.
Pulling over on a narrow road, we all scrambled out to see what we could see. The coach lights were switched off and visibility suddenly reduced to nothing. If Hugo had taken three steps away from me I wouldn't have been able to find him. As we got used to it we realised we could see every single star in the sky and that there was an expanding wave of green spreading across the sky. The Northern Lights!
The green wave was sometimes one big mass, sometimes a few horizontal stripes. It was certainly a good first test for our cameras! I don't know how long we ended up standing out there in the cold but we were frozen iceblocks by the end. Eventually the sky clouded over and it was back to darkness again.
Tick! One thing off the list done, one to go.
On day two we travelled around to see a bit more of Iceland as a country. We went on a group trip to the south coast with a few stop-offs on the way. Apart from the odd small town the whole country is practically deserted. The black volcanic rock is covered in snow or long yellow grass and every now and then you see a group of thick-haired Icelandic ponies (Apparently these 'ponies' are actually horses…but I think ponies suit them better)
The day started well and when we stopped off at Skógarfoss waterfall we got some good photos. The sky was a bit grey and dull so it wasn't as good as it would've been in summer but winter is the time to go if you want to see the Northern Lights or whales! When we stopped off at Mýrdalsjökull glacier the sleet arrived and I started to regret being out in the middle of nowhere in the wind and cold.
The cold only got worse as we arrived at the coast with no shelter from it. We took refuge for lunch at a place by the roadside where I can honestly say the hot stew probably saved the blood from freezing in my arteries.
After that, we braced ourselves and went onto the pitch black Reynishverfi Beach. The old boots I was wearing, which were already held together with glue, were completely destroyed by the little black pebbles. By the time I got back on the coach the fronts were flapping like a boot that gets fished out of lakes in cartoons and I had a shoe full of tiny stones.
Retreating from the beach, we started to make our way back towards Reykjavik…Then back to the beach because we had left two people behind…
Our next stop was the Skógar Museum, a folk museum full of old wooden ice-skates and boat-building tools and spinning wheels for wool etc. Because of the weather and the detour to rescue the people from the beach we were running late and the museum was about the close. A little old man hurried us around each room and pointed at things, obviously eager to go home.
"Fishing net, sewing box, ice pick, snow shoes. Quick quick!…"
He did take the time to stop a few times and sing us some songs though which was lovely!
I found out a bit more about the man once I got back to England. The museum was opened in 1949 and has been the responsibility of this one man, Thordur Tomasson since that time. He's now 91 years old and still going strong.
The rush prevented us from seeing any of the outdoor bits of the museum. There's a church and a schoolhouse and some farm buildings with turfed roofs. I'll have to go back in the summer one day and have another look.
By now it was snowing properly and every now and again the coach driver would have to stop and get out to straighten the windscreen wipers that were about to snap off in the gale. The last stop before going back to the city was another waterfall. It was a smaller one this time and was actually blowing either sideways or back upwards when we got there. I decided I'd rather keep my life so I stayed on the coach for this one. I amused myself by taking photos of the last toilets in civilisation from the window. They didn't look very inviting.
Tomorrow was Whale Day so I had to get back to Reykjavik! Would I make it or would I be stuck in a snowdrift in the middle of nowhere?!*
*Clue: I always say this and I always survive…I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't survive...
