Iceland 2013 II

Last day in here.. Today were were just wandering around Reykjavik, looking for some geocaches, visiting a flea market and so on. Too bad the week is over, it has once again been way too short. I guess we have to return back to Reykjavik later in a couple of months..

Or one whale, actually. We took a whale watching trip with Bror and saw a lot of white beaked dolphins which played around the ship and also one actual whale, a minke whale which surfaced a couple of times nearby.

We got lucky with the weather, according to the ship engineer the weather is almost never this good. The sea was almost calm which in this country is not that common, and the dolphins were easy to spot in clear water.

Today we took an another daytrip from Reykjavik, this time up to the northwest corner of the country. About 1000 kilometers, westernmost point of Europe, puffins, beautiful mountain landscapes.. Long but great day.

Tried to find a couple of geocaches in Reykjavik area. Not much luck with the caches, one out of three found. Didn't matter that much though, it was fun to see new places in the city.

Video of our drive yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tNUMlTyUwk&hd=1

As we were home at 3am yesterday, not much was done today. We slept until midday. Me and Mia went to Icelandic Flight Academy, rented a Cessna 172 and flew to check out some of the same places we were photographing yesterday. Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Skogafoss waterfall and the DC3 wreck for example. We circled a bit above the DC3 for Mia to get some photos of it and then returned back to Reykjavik.

Unfortunately some idiot (that would be me) first forgot the camera suction cups into our car and then forgot to turn on the only camera.. So, no video of the flight. The 323km flight was relatively uneventful though, if not counting a small incident with Dash8 engine turbulence on landing. There was a Dash8 of some local airline doing preflight engine run-up just as we landed and we hit the propeller stream which made our landing.. a bit interesting. The air traffic controller saw the landing and asked if we received some turbulence from the Dash8. Anyway, the landing was still relatively smooth and seems like I also survive fine with Icelandic air navigation and radio traffic now. :)

The sun is setting down soon, so I guess we will go out to take some night photographs and then sleep well before heading up the western coast tomorrow for puffins.

http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/miuqu/bim06r8l8b83lslv GPS log of the flight

Today we visited Glymur waterfall once again. In February we didn't have time to climb all the way up to actually see the waterfall. This time we went there early enough and spent most of the day climbing up the steep hills, looking for best photography locations. I have the feeling that I'm going to have some sore muscles tomorrow, and Mia also has nice bruises after falling down a couple of times..

Check out a video of our drive back, with some extremely beautiful sunset views: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQUtOsy9ysA&hd=1

First full day was spent exploring the areas nearby Reykjavik: Gullfoss waterfall, Geysir and so on. Some F-road driving (highland roads which are generally in bad condition and only allowed for 4x4 cars), some mountain climbing and a lot of photography, a nice outdoors day.

It's fun to see how much the familiar places have changed in just three months, when the snow is gone and nature is starting to show signs of spring. :)

Some random blog entries and photos are also posted on http://nerdsiniceland.blogspot.com/ by Mia and Bror.

Timelapse video of the beginning of our drive today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrq722WoMs&hd=1. Tomorrow we will remember to take a Contour camera charger with us, so we can actually record the entire route..