ICELAND part 2

ICELAND RING ROAD part 2 (July 14-25, 2018)

Woke up at O-Bright early! 24 hours of sunlight is pretty cool, however confusing to this first timer at this latitude. There is an official sunset time close to midnight and sunrise around 0330hr, but it never gets dark. We brought black eye masks to sleep with, we used these several times during the trip and they helped.

The ladies slept in until 0700, then I made a full breakfast of eggs, bacon and potato. Most of our lodgings had kitchens, usually with tiny electric stoves. If you like breakfast sausage I don't think you'll find it here, but the bacon is very nice. The ladies like yogurt, cereal and fruit...that is plentiful!

Headed out around 0900hr and traveled north on route 35. This section of route 35 is part of the very popular Golden Circle loop. If you only had a short time to visit Iceland this is THE recommended tour loop, I recommend a rental car and not the bus tour. After 20 minutes or so we drove past "The Geysir" geothermal area which sits right on the road, we actually saw a geyser shoot into the air as we drove by, cool . There were already several tour buses and cars in the parking lot, so we decided to push onward to the Gullfoss falls then come back later. What a beautiful drive, wide open spaces! the terrain was very flat, perfect for grazing Icelandic horses and sheep, which there are many! Seeing the snow capped mountains and a large glacier way out in the distance was breath taking.












There are 2 parking lots at the Gullfoss falls and both are super convenient, we chose the lower lot. Once out of the car we immediately heard the roar of the large falls and felt their cool mist on our faces....we put on our rain suits! There are nice walkways here, the upper decking is pretty dry but walking down right next to the falls gets pretty damp, awesome! I carry an Overboard backpack to keep my gear dry, but this trip I also purchased a couple clear plastic camera bags, they were an inexpensive smart purchase! For any photogs reading , another camera item purchase was an ND filter (3 stop neutral density), basically sunglasses for my lens, figured I'd try it. Most pics I'm posting are from my Canon 7D MkII, with 17-40 or 24-70 lens. I'll probably sneak in a few phone pics and my daughters pics using her Canon 60D.















We decided to venture further north onto the dirt/gravel "F"35 road. 4x4 is required on all "F" roads. We only drove an hour or so and saw 2 or 3 other vehicles. It's definitely the path least taken by your standard tourist, some of the pot holes were so bad I was zig zagging and bouncing through them at just 5 mph. We were wise to bring our soft cooler loaded with snacks and drinks, we didn't see any options for several hours. My wife and daughter loved seeing the acres and acres of purple Lupine spread out as far as we could see and of course they were happy to find plenty of stones to stack!









Early afternoon... time to start south bound again. The Geysir area was still hopping with people when we returned, I'm sure it always is. Our experience with Iceland's "in season" crowd was really not bad at all. Sure there are lots of people at the main attractions, but we never felt overwhelmed by crowds. From what we learned the famous Geysir has been temperamental the last few years, doesn't keep a normal schedule, but Strokkur geysir a few yards away is very active shooting 20 meters high every 5-10 minutes. Pretty cool!









Back in the family truckster we continued south to find a beach. The weather was beautiful by the way, so much for the rain everyone was talking about! We ended up driving back through Selfoss, where we stopped for coffee and a snack. We continued driving south until we ran into the Atlantic, nice secluded black sand beach with rocks to stack, cool.






After playing in the sand we drove to the once booming fishing village of Eyrarbakki, not much of a major port anymore...but way back in the day it was. This must be where the tiny house phenomenon started, really cool cottages line the streets here. Eyrarbakki is also home to the primary prison in Iceland, I think I read the population is something like 70 inmates. Can you imagine 70?...fyi, Iceland routinely ranks #1 in various safest country polls, another great reason to visit.















On the way back to our cabin we decided to make one last stop at the volcanic crater Kerid. Fun stop but an unusual thing about this sight is that they charged us to walk in and around it, must be private property because we didn't pay at any other sights. Down by the crater lake we were swarmed by the seasonal fly population...crazy! Time to buy head nets?!









Start to finish this was a 12 hour day running around. Having no concerns about what time darkness would fall was a cool thing, we ran and ran until we knew we were getting tired...so that's when we went home, kinda like Forest Gump! Which happened to be one of 2 dvd's at the cabin in English! It was also cool to see people fly fishing the rivers at 10 pm, next trip I'll have to try that!






To be continued...

Wow, amazing sights, in a place called ICELAND!!

Rick, I’ve kept looking on this forum wondering about your Iceland trip.
You never disappoint. Fantastic as always!
Thanks for taking us along

JPH

Thanks JP, next post will have some interesting shots, pretty cool stuff everywhere!

Without a doubt Iceland is a perfect fit for a Beerman family getaway!
Loving the pictures!
Did you haul along a tripod this trip or enlist someone or a rock to capture the Beerman family?

Hey Tom, it was perfect for us. I took a lighter Manfrotto tripod, it was worth carrying!