adventure – Page 3

Day four – Reykjavik

Today will be consumed by just the one activity, we are heading down to the south coast of the island, somewhere we have never visited before. So today will be Black beaches, Volcanoes, Glaciers and Waterfalls. We’ve been looking forward to this one.

On our way we passed the volcano Nick named by those who struggle with the Icelandic language as E15. Why E15? Well it began with the letter “E” and has 15 other letters after it that’s why! Its proper name is Eyjafjallajökull, you will know of it, as it was the one the erupted in 2010 causing all the disruption to European airspace as its massive cloud blanketed Europe. It looked so serene from the bus as we passed by on our journey south.

Eyjafjallajökull from the route one road

Leaving early from the city centre we were heading out on Route 1, the island circular road that encompasses the island, we will be heading south for approx 2.5hrs towards Reynisfjara beach just outside the town of Vik.

From this point on I’m going to post some pictures as written text does not do these places justice.

Reynisfjara beach

And this video at the black beach sums it all up. It was shot in normal full colour mode but all you can see is black and white, maybe the odd colourful coat or two on passing tourists.

Full colour, but black and white

After some time at the beach just drinking in its mystical majesty and getting some fantastic pictures we moved on to the town of Vik, about 20 minutes away to have some lunch. A very pleasant Lamb Stroganoff later we moved on to our next point of interest.

Sólheimajökull Glacier

Sólheimajökull glacier is a perfect example of how global warming is effecting the last remaining glaciers in Iceland, that are retreating year on year at quite an alarming rate. However, it is a beautiful site, what is left. They say that within 150 years there will be no remaining Glaciers on this island.

Panorama capturing the glacier decline. Only a few years ago this entire lake was solid glacial ice, now the only remaining glacier can be seen on the far right.

From here we went on to visit our first of two waterfalls we would be seeing today and this first one has always been one I have wanted to visit.

Skógafoss falls

Skogafoss falls are purely wonderful. With a four hundred plus step climb up to its top you can look down onto the river as it makes its descent to the ground below. It is a magical and most beautiful site surrounded by volcanoes and lush green land. (As the snow has all gone)

From here we moved on to our second waterfall and last point on today’s trip. This waterfall has a uniquely individual twist to it, you can actually walk behind it if the weather is good enough, and today it was fine. Just be prepared to get wet as it’s a constant mist of water all the way around.

Seljandfoss waterfall

Seljandfoss waterfall is unique. Come take a walk around it.

It’s been a day of pure majesty and scenes of some of natures finest displays of grandeur and beauty. We haven’t even began to scratch the surface of some of the places we can visit here, there is so much more to see and do. And I’m certainly hoping we are back here again soon as we are both still very much in love with this island.

I won’t be posting a day 5 post as that will be a day of recovery from all the walking, some packing and dinner at the Hard Rock Reykjavik. All pretty boring stuff. I will however do a little recap post with some other pictures when we arrive back in the Uk. So thanks for looking in, it’s always appreciated. Back to boring old fixing stuff next week.

Stay safe, peace to all 🙏

Day three – Reykjavik

Anyone who’s been to this part of the world has probably been on the golden circle tour, which is a great introduction to what this area has to offer.

However we are not, as we’ve been here before and done that, so the next couple of days will be spent doing variations of that trip to our own agenda. Today was one of those days. We’ve spent the morning after breakfast browsing the area. I always look for an item to take home that will remind me of our visit and today I think I have found the item I would like. It’s a piece of art on glass painted by a superb glass artist named Ella Rosinkrans. Ella is one of only a few glass artists on the island and has been designing and creating these art forms for about the last 25 yrs. it also helps living near the Eyjafjallajökull volcano as all the black portions of her art contain ash from this volcano that caused so much disruption back in 2010 when its eruption closed airspace over Europe for a number of weeks.

Anyway I will be purchasing one of her items as a memento of this visit. We will be back to her studio on day 5 to collect it.

Whilst browsing the shops we came across this one. the shop name loosely translates as “The Golden Cat” it hadn’t opened yet, however patiently waiting at the door for opening time was….a black cat.

The cat patiently waiting for the shop to open

We then popped around to the original Reykjavik cathedral just down by the old government building.

As with a lot of Reykjavik this cathedral had a big connection to Denmark. it was built by the Danish king at the time, built for the people around a time of great hardship as a place where they could all congregate for safety.

We then moved on to our next activity.

The Blue lagoon here in Iceland is on the to do list for many. Based near the town of Grindavik the scene of recent volcanic activity, this is a geo thermal spa where the water is pumped from the local power station. The area has been subject to emergency closures and is still under such an order due to the unpredictability of the seismic activity in the area. We’ve visited before so this year we have decided to try another lagoon closer to the city centre. We have found one just 15min drive out side of Reykjavik called the Sky Lagoon.

Sky Laggon Reykjavik (Picture Skylagoon)

Only opened in recent years this is a custom built lagoon / Spa where the order of the day is to take in the Skjól bathing ritual a seven stage experience that relaxes and invigorates you inside and out. I was sceptical but I must admit it’s a worthwhile experience although the cold sessions were quite horrendous seeing the outside temperature was -6. As I said it was a worthwhile experience.

The day finished with us all feeling refreshed, we then headed back to the city where we convened at a bar for some dinner. One of our party is a football fan whose team were playing and fortunately they won so the day came to a pleasant happy ending.

The Twister cocktail was a nice way to finish the evening, I believe it consisted of Rum. Peach schnapps and other bits. Oh, and an ice lolly on the top. Good stuff!

Have a great day.

Day two – Reykjavik

Well we are actually on day three but I’m writing this in past tense. I’m struggling to find the time to be honest, we’ve kept ourselves very busy.

Day two has been a quieter day, it’s Sunday and we had a late night last night, so today we are relaxing as we have a couple of busy days ahead. The plan today was just to saunter around, stay local and chill, and that is quite easy when wind chill is taking temperatures down to minus eight degrees Celsius.

So we did chill we went to a local museum/exhibition centre called Perlan

Perlan is an all exhibition of all that has made Iceland, its natural wonders, its wildlife and its people. It’s a fantastic place to spend a few hours learning something of the history of this island. It’s an immersive exhibition with a number of shows about auroras, volcanoes and glaciers, it also looks into global warming and the issues of protecting this fragile environment. There is also a 100mtr ice tunnel at minus 15 degrees that replicates an ice tunnel found in a glacier. The 360 degrees view from the observation deck are superb.

And another thing, the Icelanders love their signage, no messing about, straight to the point they say what they mean. Here are two examples, one is found on a sealed off door to a shop, the other is in a bar.

And here is the one in the pub. No messing.

So we finished the night at a new bar called Skor that we found, based on darts where you play different games. You hire the board in a way similar to how you hire a lane in ten pin bowling. This was a nice way to finish the day.

After that we wandered back to our hotel, look what came out to greet us for the second night on the trot.

Two nights on the trot. We have been blessed.

And what a way to finish the night. Two nights in a row, we were truly blessed.

Happy day all.

Day one – Reykjavik

This is our third visit to Iceland and today has been a long one due to us travelling for the most part of it. However I’d like to share these little snippets with you.

Last night was special we witnessed the Aurora Borealis right over our heads in the centre of the city. Quite a spectacular show. Aurora Borealis – Northern lights, Iceland

We also did a few touristy things and here is some of what we saw and did.

The old parliament buildings looking out towards the mountains. Looks so different without the snow that normally adorns the area

We popped in a local bar to watch a game of football and to grab something to eat and drink. The beer – local IPA was nice, the brand name was questionable though 😂

And did you know what the third most popular tourist attraction in Reykjavik is? it’s probably not what you think but it is, the Icelandic Phallological Museum otherwise known as the museum of the Penis. Stay with me now…it’s quite an experience.

The museum is a collection of “Penis’s” from animals around the globe and every mammal on the island is represented. It all stems from the curators fascination with the form from an early age and this collection was formed as a result. That said there are also “representative” examples of creatures from folklore such as “Trolls”. Just have a look at the link I posted above to find out more yourself.

However the cafeteria and bar area is quite something itself with tee shirts, gifts and food a plenty all in keeping with the subject of the museum.

The food and drink is of a very good standard, the surprising fact is that a massive 60% of all visitors are female. That is the very hing that strikes you as you walk in, just how many women work there and are also there as visitors. You do hear an awful lot of laughing and it is all mostly tongue in cheek fun. A day out. It’s worth popping your head in the door and having a visit though. I’ll save pictures of the exhibits for another day, as waking up to a barrage of penis pictures doesn’t feature high on everyone’s daily agenda.

Have a great day and peace to you all.

Aurora Borealis – Northern lights, Iceland

Day one in Iceland has been full on since we’ve arrived, we had a superb flight, good transport to the city centre, and have had a jam packed day since just doing everything the tourist does. Including booking a number of tours off of the beaten track rather than the usual ones we have done in the past.

We’ve had some dinner this evening and retired to the bar and everyone is very tired now. I doubt there is no one in our small group who hasn’t been up now for at least 19 hrs and we are all starting to flag. However, i have looked at the Aurora forecast map and it’s going to be a lovely clear night with at least a 40% chance of seeing the Aurora Borealis.

Though most are wanting to hit the sack, I convince them to give me 20 minutes more just to take a walk down to the harbour. It’s blowing a hooley. The wind is biting and it’s almost -8 in temperature. It’s not a pleasant evening.

But, boy were we treated to a beautiful light show in the heavens tonight. Lots of people pay good money to go out on these Northern light hunting trips, when for nothing, tonight a show took place above the city as it usually does, when the conditions are right, for free.

What a fantastic sight, and whilst walking back to our hotel it was lovely to hear people say. “We are glad we followed your advice tonight Dave, and went out for that little walk.” The thing is that time in situations like this is precious and you have to make the most of your time. We could have missed this spectacular scene for the sake of being controlled by tiredness.

We’ve seen them in the past at a very low level, but tonight surpassed our expectations. It’s not often that nature puts on a show for free, but when she does, she does it in a spectacular fashion.

Tonight was a spectacular show

What a night.

Thanks for passing by. Peace to all.

Stupid volcano

I know this sounds like a stupid title for a post, it is really, it’s one of those impatient child like statements that we, so called adults make from time to time.

We’re off to Iceland again this weekend and it’s always been one of my dreams to be able to witness an erupting volcano. However not a massive one, a small inconspicuous non invasive one would do just fine.

At the moment the weather in Iceland is actually warmer and better than it is here in the East Midlands, and that always confuses me due to their proximity to the arctic circle. I lay money on it, what usually happens is we head on home and then the land blisters and there is a new eruption for a few months. But when we plan to return the land seals up like a small surface cut and then scabs over.

It’s quite frustrating

I constantly check in with the local news streams, as well as looking at the large amount of Volcano cams that are online and providing live coverage of the most susceptible areas.

That said we are really looking forward to our break in the land of ice and fire, however at the moment there doesn’t seem to be much of either.

Happy days.

Just another reason to not go wandering

I’ve seen this news article and it just strengthens my reasoning to never visit Australia.

I have relations in Sydney who were over here about 6 months back. They are constantly trying to sell me the dream and trying to get the wife and I to visit. I’ve always been of the opinion that everything that lives there wants to kill you, both big and small and this article just broke the camels back as they say.

The attraction for me is less now, after spending over 24hrs in the air do I really want to face my biggest fear – Spiders. I’m not just afraid I’m totally petrified of them, we don’t have venomous ones here in the Uk, but all the same if you see a guy running down the road screaming its probably me as the wife deals with the issue…she really is the brave one.

Whilst speaking to Cousin Bob who is a builder on the outskirts of Sydney, he was casually trying to convince me to travel by saying that in all his time there he has rarely seen a large spider, however he said just watch for the little “red backed bastards” (pardon my language). Why? What will they do? I asked. “Ah they’ll probably kill you” he casually replied.

My mind was made up. Never going.

Happy day everyone 🕷️

Never too late to try new stuff

In the last ten days I’ve done a whole lot of things I probably wouldn’t ever had thought I’d probably be doing at this stage in my life. But I guess I can now tick them off the to be done list.

The wife and I took a few days away at Hopton on sea on the east coast just a couple of miles from Great Yarmouth, it was a Christmas present to each other as to be quite honest there was nothing we needed so we thought we’d just treat ourselves.

My wife is a few years my senior (I won’t tell her age as she’ll probably kill me 😂) and I’m just into my sixtieth year, so I’m not particularly old, however I do have asthma and arthritic issues and a long running issue with my kidneys that are under constant scrutiny, that said, I tend to ignore being told what I should be doing, and will give anything a go if I feel up to it. Here’s what occurred this week.

Archery – I’ve tried this in the past and whilst I was on holiday I happened to be teamed up with someone who was a professional, made me look pathetic. However using his guidance I managed to get some good scores and clocked up a medal for a high score so I was happy with that.

Rifle shooting- Again I was originally teamed with a young lady who had her own gun and was an Olympic competitor, I didn’t stand a chance, again with some coaching I was able to bag another medal with a pretty good score. This was on a Ten metre range.

Climbing wall – Have always enjoyed watching this in the olympics when the athletes get up these walls in about 4 seconds flat, like Spiders on speed! My attempts were a little more serene and I managed the green route in about 45 seconds. My second and third attempts resulted in me falling and hitting my back on one of the hand grips right in the position of one of my bad kidneys creating quite a nice bruise. Wife wasn’t happy but I was, as I’d actually achieved something I didn’t think my body would let me do…but I proved it wrong.

Segway – never tried one of these before. Just two wheels and a balancing act to get it moving, however once moving I became a master of it and can’t wait to try it again, the wife wasn’t as happy and gave up after a few minutes as she thought she was about to fall off. But she tried.

Bowling – Where we were staying is where they hold the World bowls championships every year, so we had to give that a go. My Brother in law and his wife are regular players and they were my coaches on this day. Absolutely enjoyed it but I don’t think it’s something I’d take up as a full time hobby, just as in all sports you have to participate regularly to improve, and with my work commitments I can’t commit to such involvement. However I’d like to try a game every now and then.

Silent Disco – one night after all the entertainment had ended there was a session of silent disco. Basically you wear headphones that have four different genres of music and that’s it, you just strut your stuff as you would do in a normal disco environment except no one else can hear you….until you start singing. Absolutely loved it.

Dancing on tables – Total surprise this. Our Neighbour Celebrated his 60th birthday. We were invited to a brilliant venue in Leicester that serves great food, and when everyone is finished it just becomes a big party where they actively encourage you to dance on the tables! So strange but such fun and a brilliant night was had by all. We will definitely be back. And I managed to not fall off. Result.

So in all it’s been a great 10 days. It was only as I was talking with the wife in the bathroom earlier today that I said we’d done so much in the last week or two, I just didn’t realise all those things we’d done together for the first time.

I guess the moral of this post is that you are never too old to try something new and that you definitely can teach old dogs new tricks.

Stay young, stay happy. Just enjoy yourself, don’t worry about making a fool of yourself as you probably won’t bump in to those who witness you doing so ever again.

Walking

I love walking but over the last 18 months or so I’ve not done so much. I don’t mean everyday walking, I do loads of that especially at work, I mean the type of walking where you set a route, go out, get some good thinking time, clear the cobwebs from your head and get back to nature.

I used to walk miles when we had our dog Alf, but as he aged and became increasingly unwell my own health started to decrease as the purpose and need started to dwindle.

We regularly did the walk 1000 mile challenge over the course of a year and we both loved it.

As we now move on up to Christmas, my wife has gone out for breakfast with her friends, I have work later today but I’ve told her I’m going to retrace some of our old walks and maybe pop in to have breakfast somewhere and I’m really looking forward to that now. I don’t know, it’s just that sometimes you just need a good old kick in the pants to get motivated and moving, today may well be that day.

I did what I said I’d do and clocked up a nice 3.6mile walk at a slow pace, just as I would have done if I had my mate with me as he would be stopping every few yards for a sniff. I took his lead with me today the first time I’d carried it since he passed on the 16th August. I must admit I was a wreck and had tears in my eyes all the way round, so many beautiful memories came flooding back, I miss him so much.

I carried his lead, only one thing missing….

There is an old saying:

Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our
tears once in a while, so
that we can see life with
a clearer view again.”

Anon

And I believe this is true. There is no shame in being emotional, and what with it today, being the 20th anniversary of my mother’s passing, it is going to be a highly emotional day for me. To love and be loved is an amazing gift to possess, and to be given, but it hurts like hell when it is taken away. A lot of tears however have been shed recently and the view has not yet cleared. Here’s hoping and praying for better days.

I walked the routes we always walked, refusing to take shortcuts or to go down roads where we never used to venture, that would have been cheating him, holding his lead was strange but also comforting.

We stopped at a new Cafe strangely called “Cafe 55” I had a lovely coffee and a breakfast roll. It had a lovely atmosphere and was a nice clean environment. When I got the bill I realised where it obtained its name from as it seems to be 55% more expensive than anywhere else in the area. That aside, it was a pleasant stop over.

The last mile home allowed me to get myself together, a nice cuddle from the wife when I arrived home is always appreciated. We talked, again, we both shed tears, then realised just how fortunate we are for what we have, and for what we have been blessed with in the past.

Life is a puzzle, but once you have the borders sorted, it all starts to fall into place one small piece at a time.

It was a lovely walk. It needs to happen more. And it will.

Peace & Love.

Spontaneity

We had a lovely lunch out yesterday, it rained as it always has of late, it was so damned wet that we didn’t get to look around the 38 gardens at Barnsdale created by Geoff Hamilton off of BBC Gardeners world.

As we were pretty miffed at this we made the spontaneous decision to bugger off to Devon a day early so we could benefit from an extra day on the coast.

We left the East Midlands about 16:00hrs and arrived at our destination at around 20:15, a good journey with the only real traffic experienced as we circumnavigated Birmingham’s rush hour.

It was obviously dark on arrival, very windy and you could hear the waves crashing on the sea walls, the hotel is comfortable and we have had a cracking nights sleep. Just had our first cuppa and the sun is rising, it looks gorgeous out and guess what….it is dry!

Hallelujah

Have a great day all…

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this: