{"id":6508,"date":"2019-01-12T18:07:08","date_gmt":"2019-01-12T18:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=6508"},"modified":"2022-04-11T16:39:01","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T15:39:01","slug":"mums-gone-to-iceland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/mums-gone-to-iceland\/","title":{"rendered":"Mum’s Gone to Iceland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last time we visited Iceland, I titled the blog post “Haydn’s Gone to Iceland<\/a>“. This time it was a family affair, with my parents and brother & sister-in-law also heading North.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After an evening arrival at Keflavik we did a bit of human\/suitcase Tetris and all squeezed into the car. With 80mph winds forecast on the Sn\u00e6fellsnes peninsula, our planned orca-watching trip the next morning was cancelled. Instead we visited \u00deingvellir, which was impressive last time and was just as interesting in the snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Almannagj\u00e1
Almannagj\u00e1 rift and \u00deingvallavatn lake, \u00deingvellir National Park.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We wandered along the Almannagj\u00e1 gorge, the edge of the rift between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u00d6xar\u00e1
\u00d6xar\u00e1 river, \u00deingvellir National Park.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\u00d6xar\u00e1
\u00d6xar\u00e1 river at Drekkingarhylur, \u00deingvellir National Park.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dad set the tone for the rest of his holiday by getting left behind while taking pictures, and we just managed to make it back to the visitor centre before the rain arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u00deingvallakirkja,
\u00deingvallakirkja, the church at \u00deingvellir National Park.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From there it was off to Husafell, further inland, passing Trolls’ Falls on the way. These were very nice, despite Becs continuing the building-piles-of-rocks behaviour she picked up in New Zealand<\/a>. I continued my kicking-down-piles-of-rocks behaviour (hers specifically) so thankfully there was no net gain from our time there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tr\u00f6llafossar,
Tr\u00f6llafossar, or Trolls’ Falls, at Fossat\u00fan.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Close to the Northern Lights Institute, we hoped that our hotel would be the scene of spectacular aurora displays both nights, but alas it was not to be. That didn’t stop us having fun during the day though, with the first stop being the Langj\u00f6kull glacier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View
Gareth looking out from Klaki base camp, below the Langj\u00f6kull glacier.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Climbing into the snow and then onto the glacier itself, our eventual destination was a series of manmade tunnels<\/a> excavated out of the ice. Our tour guide was relaxed and funny, and a perfect example of the laid-back attitude and impeccable English which makes trips to Iceland so easy. He also told us something I had no clue about previously: the UK invaded Iceland<\/a> (and the Faroe Isles) during World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time we emerged from the tunnels to re-embark on our converted NATO missile launcher, the weather had started to clear and the sun made a brief appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Atop
Atop the Langj\u00f6kull glacier.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After that it was across to V\u00ed\u00f0gelmir, and a trip down a lava tube cave<\/a>, formed – as the name suggests – when a tube full of lava emptied out and cooled down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Entrance
Entrance to the V\u00ed\u00f0gelmir lava tube cave.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was really interesting, and made more so by the fantastic guide who was clearly a massive geology geek and loved being quizzed during our tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Inside
Inside V\u00ed\u00f0gelmir lava tube cave – the photo does not do it justice!
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

600m into the tunnel we turned all our torches off for a few minutes to experience true darkness, which was quite interesting, but then some enforced silence with just the drips to listen to made it really cool. I think I could happily have stayed down there for hours. However, we had to leave and so emerged in fading light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View
View NE from V\u00ed\u00f0gelmir.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of January there are only a few hours of daylight – sunrise was at 11:20 and sunset at 16:10. This meant quite a lot of driving in the dark, particularly the next day when we had an action-packed itinerary to get through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Thermal
Thermal pool. In the background is Geysir, the main geyser at Geysir.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First up was Geysir, home of the geyser after which all others are named. I wasn’t massively impressed last time, but found it more engaging this time for some reason. Indeed, the only thing which took the shine off it was the \u00a330 we paid for a bowl of soup and tub of Skyr for lunch, the value of the pound having slid somewhat in the ‘wrong’ direction since our last visit!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Gullfoss.
Gullfoss. Almost identical to a photo I took last time, but with added snow.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ten minutes down the road to Gullfoss, which I was hugely looking forward to simply because I enjoyed it so much last time. I think it had the desired effect of impressing the rest of the family unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Seljalandsfoss
Seljalandsfoss waterfall, near the South coast.\n\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Onward, then, to the final stop – Seljalandsfoss waterfall, which is huge and can be walked behind, therefore being basically a guarantee that we would end the itinerary on a high. Fortunately we made it before darkness fell, and thus managed to round off a whirlwind four days in style. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"It's
It’s a family affair.\n\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last time we visited Iceland, I titled the blog post “Haydn’s Gone to Iceland”. This time it was a family affair, with my parents and brother & sister-in-law also heading North.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6513,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[1333,1332,1334,1123],"class_list":["post-6508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photography","category-travel","tag-glacier","tag-langjokull","tag-vidgelmir","tag-thingvellir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}