Europe 2019 : Day 25 Delays and Displays

When Robyn and I first started to plan this trip we had three major sections in mind: Ireland (for the worldcon and Rob’s family history); Iceland (because we always wanted to go); and France (to visit some of the World War I memorials and to visit our friends Eve and John Harvey). We were now heading to this third portion of the holiday.

Our 5am taxi was there as ordered and we made the airport with plenty of time to spare for our flight to Paris. Neither of us wanted a repeat of our Belfast rush.

Security at Kevlavik was vastly different to Belfast as well. Whereas the people in Northern Ireland went through everything, the Icelanders were way more laid-back. No hassles with laptops, no shoes to be removed, personnel being friendly and joking rather than stern and fraught. Seemed like old times all over again.

The only thing we had planned for the day was to be at the Sir John Monash Centre – an Australian museum concentrating on Australian involvement at the Western Front – near Villers-Bretonneux. We had booked in to collect an audio guide at 4:30pm and figured a quiet drive of 90 minutes or so from the airport was going to give us a bit of leeway.

Well, that was the plan. Charles deGaulle airport was achieved with a minimum of fuss and then everything seemed to stop. We found our baggage carousel and waited and waited. Forty-five minutes later the bags started to appear, and fifteen minutes after that we were at the car hire place.

I always book my rental cars in advance so can’t understand why anyone would take the chance of turning up at an airport and only then deciding on what car to rent. I had two of these in front of me so another thirty minutes of queuing time wasted until I got to the desk.

“I’m sorry, your car isn’t available at present. But we do have another premium car ready if you’d like that?” “Okay, what is it?” “It’s an Audi, but it will cost more.” “Then, no thank you.” “So you only want a compact?” “No, I just don’t want to pay more for a car that I rented 6 months ago.”

Fifteen minutes later I was wandering around the rental car area looking for my vehicle getting a total of zero help from the office staff. We were now about an hour later than I had planned and would probably be cutting it fine to make it on time.

Luckily the exit to the motorway only took a few minutes and shortly after that we were dodging through the traffic with a speed limit of 130kph. Needless to say there were still people in the fast lane flying past us like we were standing still. Robyn didn’t look happy. Front seat, wrong side – not a good combination for her.

As in Ireland my new GPS friend was very helpful in directing us and we pulled up at the museum with about 10 minutes to spare.

Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux

WW I tunnel sign

Tunnel entrance to the Centre

The Sir John Monash Centre is located behind the Villers-Bretonneux memorial which was built in the 1930s. The signage to the museum isn’t that good but we found it and then spent a very informative, though emotional, 90 minutes or so pottering around the facility, checking out the exhibits, and listening to the audio commentary. There were only about another half dozen people wandering around and I gather the museum hasn’t been visited as much as Australian authorities would like. Not sure why that is. It is certainly a place I’d recommend to people.

Centre interior

Main screen

French and Australian flags

Robyn had booked us into a local B&B so we dropped off at the supermarket for some supplies before we checked in. Once we had finalised that we headed off into town looking for something to eat.

The town was shut. We figured there were probably five or six eating places in the area and all were shut for Monday night. Oddly enough this didn’t dampen our liking of the town. We’d had a good day except for the airport hold-ups. Rotisserie chicken, salad and a few glasses of wine for dinner and we were done for the day.

Europe 2019 : Day 24 A Quiet Day in Reykjavik

Sunday 1st September

After the flat-out driving and walking tour of Iceland we'd just completed neither Robyn nor I wanted an overly busy last din Reykjavik. We'd booked in for a food walking tour around lunch time and had a one-day pass for the Hop On Hop Off bus which we intended to use extensively.

Other than that the major issue of concern was the early morning flight the next day to Paris. As I mentioned at the start of this Icelandic section, the main airport at Kevlavik is about 50 kilometres out of town, Our flight in the morning was leaving around 7:15am. Way too early to consider getting there form the centre of the city, so we had booked our last night in an airport hotel. We figured a transfer to that hotel late in the afternoon was going to be preferable to a 4am start the next day.

Once we'd breakfasted, checked out of our hotel and had the transfer all sorted out for 5pm, we headed off for a walk into the city. The main aim for the morning was to get to our tour meeting point at the Harpa building by 11. So we took it easy, strolling along in the fine sunny weather looking in a few shops and stopping to check out a few places we'd seen on our original walking tour on day 1.

A brief trip on the Hop-on Hop-Off bus, during which we saw on the street two groups of people from our bus tour, and we made it to Harpa with plenty of time to spare. Magnus, our guide, took us past a few familiar spots but quickly turned off to some of the smaller side streets in the city. First stop was at a small bar to try Icelandic meat soup (not that novel to us as we'd had plenty of this over the previous week, dried fish, a white ale and some fermented shark. We'd been looking forward to having a shot at this fermented shark ever since seeing Rick Stein try it out on one of his programs. The major sensation you get when you first bring this one-centimetre cube towards our face is that someone must think you've fainted. The ammonia smell cuts right through to the back of the throat. Some in our group really struggled at this point but we weren't to be deterred and stuffed it in as quickly as we could. The shark is actually quite creamy in texture, without a lot of strong flavours. Which comes as a bit of a shock after the smell. The beer was a welcome cleanser. Even more so as Robyn hates the stuff and I just couldn't leave a full glass behind on the table.

Over the next few stops we tried smoked trout and cottage cheese on rye bread, smoked lamb on flat bread (must try smoking lamb over the coming summer), and rye bread ice cream at Cafe Loki, and Arctic char at Messinn. This last is a fish in the salmon family native to arctic and sub-arctic waters. Excellent eating and we were sorry we hadn't tried this previously on our trip.

By this time we'd completed a loop around the centre of Reykjavik and found ourselves back at the famous (or infamous) hot dog stand. Coffee and cakes followed for desert at a nearby cafe and we found we'd been out and about for close on three hours. An excellent little tour with a knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide.

Reykjavik shops

After the food and the walking Robyn wanted to find some Icelandic wool and a knitting pattern. That took a while.  All the shops had completed items. Luckily we remembered our tour guide had mentioned a shop in the main street run by some older women that proved to have what she was looking for. 

Knitting shop

After that we decided the only thing to do was to head off towards the nearest bus stop back at Harpa. We've used these Hop On Hop Off buses in a number of other cities, and while we probably don't utilise them to their greatest extent we find we get our money's worth out of them. A couple of hours sitting up top at the front and you get to see parts of a city that you'd normally just skip.

Streets of Reykjavik

Perry finds a new friend

The transfer to that night's hotel was completed with little fanfare and we were starting to be sorry to be leaving Iceland. It had been a good trip, though probably not one we'd ever repeat. The distances are just too much.

Europe 2019 : Day 23 Searching for Snorri

Saturday 31st August

This was to be our last driving day of the tour. We had by now entered the west of Iceland and were heading for our hotel drop-offs later in the day in Reykjavik.

Our standard early morning departure was followed by a visit to Grábrók, a volcano crater surrounded by a lava-flow landscape. The climb up to the crater rim from the car park was helped by the installation of a wooden walkway and steps, with some very well-placed stopping points along the way. We didn’t stay overly long, and it was windy up there.

Crater and surrounds

Stone sheep pens

A brief stop at the Gianni waterfall was followed by Deildartunguhver Thermal Spring, the most powerful hot spring in Europe. The water from this spring is used to heat houses up to 60 kilometres away.

Gianni waterfall

Thermal spring

The Hraunfossar cascade and Barnafoss waterfall were next but by this time we were starting to get more than a little jaded with waterfalls. Even the tragic story behind the naming of these as the “Children's Falls” didn't really help

And were really waiting for the next stop, which was the former home of Snorri Sturluson, who lived in this region some 850 years ago. Robyn and I had both gained a liking for Snorri from the stories about him told in Sagaland. He certainly seemed to have had a huge impact on Icelandic history, being a historian, poet and politician. He has been credited with being the author of the Prose Edda, and a number of other works which are considered to be the basis for most of the Icelandic sagas. He was also involved in setting up the original Icelandic parliament, becoming the lawspeaker of the Althing, possibly the most important public position in all of Iceland. But he was really his own worst enemy, being more than a little arrogant. He met his end in 1241 when, during a siege of his property, he left his inner enclave to visit his hot spring pool for a bath. For whatever reason he hadn't extended his fort's walls to surround his spot and his enemies were waiting for him there.

Snorri

His hot pool

Our final official stop of the tour was at Sturlureykir Horse Farm. Here we got a chance to get up close to some Icelandic horses and learnt a bit about the history of the breed. No horses have been imported into Iceland in a thousand years, so the Icelandic variety has become a very weird strain all of its own. They can't mix readily with any other breeds as they have no immunity to even minor equine viruses, hence the ban. This farm told us the story of one of their favourite stallions who was taken to Germany for an exhibition and was then not allowed to return.

Robyn finds a new friend

The tour group

The drive back to Reykjavik had us passing around Nhvalfjörður (Whale Fjord), a very scenic spot. We made it back to our hotel around 6pm that evening and were rather sad that the tour had come to an end. On the other hand we needed a rest.

Europe 2019 : Day 22 Whales and Chocolates

Friday 30th August

About ten or twelve years ago Robyn and I took the family (including Rob’s mother) to Hervey Bay in Queensland. This was partly for Robyn and her mother to re-live the long driving holidays they used to take back in the 60s and 70s. But it was also partly for us to go whale watching on a half-day cruise in the waters between Fraser Island and the mainland. On that occasion we were lucky to get some close-up views of a couple of humpback whales who are regular visitors to the area.

So when the itinerary for this trip including a whale watching cruise we were quite interested. So interested that Robyn decided to upgrade us to the speedboat, suspecting that this would give us a greater opportunity for sightings. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way.

As noted in the previous blog entry we had stayed in a small hotel in Darvik overnight as we had an early start and we all needed to be fitted out with wet weather body suits which also act as full flotation devices. Suitably outfitted Robyn and I clamoured onto the speedboat with about six others while the rest of the group stayed with the main bigger vessel.

Robyn poses

The boat awaits

For the next three hours we belted around all over the Eyjafjörður fjord, catching a glimpse of one whale breaching in the distance four of five times. We had been hoping to see any or all of humpback or minke whales, or white-beaked dolphins, but it wasn’t our day. The weather was good and the seas calm for the most part so the trip was enjoyable, just not quite what we hoped.

Fjord mountains

As an aside, Iceland still undertakes some commercial whaling. Our guide Sindri told us that the basic Icelander doesn’t eat whale meat and that the bulk of any sold is sold to tourists. This seemed a little disingenuous to me. The solution to the problem was very simple. If you take it off the menu then tourists won’t eat it, won’t know about it and in a few years will have forgotten it was ever available. It just takes a bit of nerve and conviction.

Lunch spot

The larger vessel group had had the opportunity to fish on their way back to port and the whale watching tour company put on a small barbeque of the catch when the tour was over. This was the appetiser for lunch, which we took at a small restaurant a few hundred metres down the street. Sindri had recommended the fish soup which didn’t disappoint.

The weather had started to turn as we headed off north towards Siglufjörður. Robyn in particular was interested in this town as it is the setting for the Dark Iceland series of crime novels by Ragnar Jonasson, one of her current favourites. There isn’t much to the town so most buses just keep driving straight through. But Sindri knew of Iceland’s only chocolatier who had opened a small café there and an excellent little sojourn was had by all. The interior decoration was certainly different.

Toilet decorations

By now the weather had turned to rain and sleet as we headed north through tunnels and around fjords until we hit a spot were Robyn and I had asked Sindri to stop, it being the furthrest point from home we had ever been. Not that we stayed out in the weather very long.

A long way from home

The rest of the day was a long drive across the northern parts of Iceland, skirting fjords and mountains until we reached our overnight hotel in the small university-centred community of Bifröst.

Europe 2019 : Day 21 The North

Thursday 29th August

If you had asked me before I went there this year I would have guessed that Iceland was about the size of Tasmania, some 68,000 sq km. Given the amount of driving we had been doing I had come to the conclusion it was bigger than that. I asked our guide Sindri if he had any idea of its actual size and he mentioned it being similar to England (not the UK combined but England only). Well, not quite. England is 130,000 sq km, and Iceland 103,000. So let's say halfway between Tasmania and England. In any event it was bigger than I expected. Note to self: do a bit more research before you leave home.

We were heading towards the thermal bath part of the tour today but had a few stops along the way. Möðrudalur is Iceland's highest farm at 469m above sea level, and possibly one of the most deserted. It's rather strategically located just off the main road between the eastern and northern parts of Iceland so appears to be a standard stopping off point for tourists. The farmer here seems to have built up quite a business with a farm shop, cafe and self-built church. The landscape is bare and it must be extremely bleak in winter.

Möðrudalur church

It's our turn in the front seat

An Arctic fox puts in an appearance

After a brief interlude admiring an Arctic fox and home-made Icelandic sweaters we continued on our way to Dettifoss, reputed to be the most powerful waterfall in Europe. This is fed from another run-off river from the Vatnajökull glacier along with other smaller streams across a large area of northern Iceland. The run-off silt from the glacier gives the river a greyish-white look. It is certainly impressive and the waterproofs were a welcome addition.

Lave flow landscape

Dettifoss

We continued on our way to the geothermal area around Námaskarð. It's all flat, bare landscapes with sulphur-tainted springs and boiling mud pools. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge cuts through the area, hence the extensive geothermal activity.

Robyn steps tentatively

Each guide appears to like to add in a few extras during the drive. Sindri was a fan of the Yule Lads, an Icelandic Christmas tradition. These mythical creatures leave gifts for children, over the last 13 days leading up to Christmas, in shoes they leave on their windowsills. Needless to say, naughty children get eaten, as they do. We stopped for a short time at a spot from where they were supposed to have originated. As I was the only one in the group who looked even vaguely like the depictions I posed in their cave.

Perry acts the idiot

Not far down the road lay the Myvatn Nature Baths where we were booked in for a long soak in the hot mineral-rich alkaline water. Robyn is a real fan of these so we soaked in there for a while until I thought I'd lost the top two or three layers of skin and my finger pads started to look like prunes. It was getting late in the day and I needed lunch.

After we'd been fed and were back on the bus it was over to yet another waterfall, Goðafoss. You could be forgiven for starting to get a little jaded with waterfalls by this time. There are probably thousands in the country and we were hitting the high points only the route. They all had their specific attractions though I was starting to notice that the amount of time the group spent at each spot was starting to diminish a little.

Gooafoss

Time for a break

This was turning out to be a long day and was looking like being even longer. The hotel we'd been booked into for the night was in the small town of Dalvik. We had an early start in the morning to go whale watching and our tour guide was required to have at least an eleven hour break between driving stints. That meant we needed to be as near to our morning spot as we could overnight. Unfortunately Dalvik didn't have a restaurant so it was off to Akureyri for dinner.

Akureyri is the largest town in northern Iceland with a population of 18,000 or so. It is situated on a deep fjord and is a favoured stopping off port for cruise ships. These ships generally flood the Myvatn Nature Baths with visitors when in town so we'd been lucky to get a soak between arrivals.

Akureyri shopping street

At this point we were only about 100km from the Arctic Circle but the town was situated in a relatively warm spot and looked rather prosperous. A small idiosyncratic note was the use of love hearts instead of circles in some of their traffic red lights. Our guide wasn't sure why but it just added to our view that Icelanders are generally pretty friendly.

Robyn and I hit a local backpackers for dinner – anything other than soup – and I was able to get a few cheapish beers in during their happy hour. Which I was happy about as the Irish Whiskey had been finished by this time.

We made our hotel at Dalvik at around 9pm. This had certainly been our longest day so far.