Image above: With the changeable and windy weather that day, the sun burst its way through the cloud cover quite spectacularly. [Friday 28 May] | [View all photos]
Back at the end of May and with barely stopping over in London for 24 hours after my Philippines trip (including doing a ballroom dance class too!) I was back at Heathrow to fly out for a week long driving trip around Iceland with See Yun.
In a previous post I mentioned that one of the best aspects about travelling is the people that you otherwise wouldn’t get to meet. In Philippines it was the irrepressible Diva and in Iceland, it was Peter who was in the adjacent seat on the flight over. Having covered over 100 plus countries, it was amazing listening to the travel stories that he’s collected in his lifetime - including one trip where he drove from North American right down to the tip of South America – and really inspiring as I try to get to that figure myself. And, as always with great conversation, the hours past quickly and we soon were in sight of Iceland for the first time.
The next traveller we met was on the airport bus heading to the hotel who got chatting to us and decided to write us a poem based on some obscure rhyming device which went way over my head. It was a bit surreal but it did make an otherwise boring bus journey quite memorable.
Having checked into our hotel in Reykjavik and wondering what to do next, we then met Len and his wife Ethne at the tourist information desk who were booking onto the final bus of the day to the Blue Lagoon. So we joined them and soon we were passing by the moonlike landscape as we drove through the countryside to get there.
A quick change into suitable swimwear and braving the rather cool wind, I was soon enjoying myself in the warm mineral waters. And yes, I did take my rather expensive DSLR into the lagoon itself to take photos which really could’ve ended up going horribly wrong! Though when it came to trying out the facial clay, my camera got put away otherwise that would’ve been very messy.
At this point I would be linking to photos of See Yun beautifully covered in clay but since I can’t get clearance from her to publish them (and I value my life!) – you’ll have to ask her yourself! :)
With the weather being so changeable, it was quite breathtaking appreciate how the light played on the landscape as well as of the sun bursting through the clouds as the coach sped us back to Reykjavik.
There, the four of us ended up in Hotel Centrum for dinner at Fjalakotturinn where we started with some mouthwateringly fresh prawns. All of us went for local dishes for mains with Len and Ethne trying out the salted cod with herb potato purée, onion rings, vegetables and beurre blanc. Whilst See Yun and I tried the Minke whale steak with horseradish sauce, pickled vegetables and potato purée.
By the end of the meal, all of us were quite sated both with the amazing seafood and the flow of conversation. Len and Ethne were great fun to hang around and it really did make for a good start to the trip.
Coming up next … exploring a bit of Reykjavik before going whale watching in the North Atlantic ocean before returning to shore and starting the driving part of our trip.
- Iceland – Part 1
- Iceland – Part 2
- Iceland – Part 3
- Iceland – Part 4
- Iceland – Part 5
related posts:
