The Land of Fire and Ice

As we lost our dog last year, this year we said we’d have a week abroad to have a slightly different type of holiday and we pondered for ages trying to decide where to go. I said perhaps we should go for culture as we spend most of our time away in the hills, but in the end we came full circle and settled on…….lakes and mountains!

We’d been to Iceland 21 years ago when I won a promotion through work which paid for the two of us to go for four nights. Then, we went in April when it was still pretty cold, stayed in Reykjavik and took a tour of the Golden Circle as it’s called, part way along the south coast. It takes in waterfalls, geysers, a glacier, some traditional turf roofed houses and some pretty churches.

This time we decided to go in July and self drive for added independence. I was more than a little nervous, given that Bro had had keyhole knee surgery 6 weeks before and wasn’t driving and I’d never driven abroad on the other side of the road before…

As it turned out, the driving was fine. There’s really only one ring road round the whole of Iceland which, for the most part is very straight and flat, has hardly any traffic and has a speed limit of 55mph. Hire cars all seem to be white and the locals have obviously learnt to give them a wide berth! We were lucky with the weather which was mainly very warm and still, but there was quite a bit of cloud cover. The scenery was wonderful.

Iceland is staggeringly beautiful and a little other-worldly in places. Obviously hugely volcanic, it has enormous, jagged, impenetrable central mountains, huge glacial valleys, spectacular waterfalls and awe-inspiring glaciers. We drove right along the south coast to the Skaftafell National Park, visiting black sand beaches with their puffin colonies (puffins were on my bucket list), and saw huge waterfalls. We walked to glaciers, marvelled at icebergs on the beach and wandered amongst miles of wild purple lupins with their minty fragrance.

We took the ferry across to the Westman Islands which was like visiting an island from Jurassic Park, climbed the volcano and watched the sea birds. We saw puffins, gannets, arctic terns, skuas, seals and pretty Icelandic ponies. We walked in lava fields, were amazed at the midnight sun and listened to icebergs calving while sitting in the sun.

It really was such a special, beautiful and unique place to visit.

Seljalandsfoss Waterfall

Reynisfjara Beach

Beautiful wild lupins

Iceberg at Glacier Lagoon, Jokulsarlon

Icebergs on Diamond Beach

Svinafellsjokull Glacier - right behind our hotel!

Leaving the Westman Islands