ICELAND EDITED: DAY SIX

Day Six began with another unscheduled stop. Hengifoss, the Hanging Waterfall, is one of the tallest in Iceland, falling some 120 meters

Anna wanted to take us up to see Hengifoss and another waterfall even further up. The day before had been hours of hiking through lava fields and we still had a full day ahead of us; I knew that if I made this hike my ankle would be pretty pissed off for the rest of the day so Collette and I and one of our Belgian friends from the tour hung out at the bottom of the waterfall with a few other newfound friends

I would be remiss to post blogs about Iceland without talking about sheep. Sheep, both in wool and meat, is the number one export of Iceland. Like Icelandic horses, the sheep are a breed unique to the island and they are handled in a unique way. All Icelandic sheep are "free range". During summer farmers let their sheep out and they roam wherever they please. The sheep are marked to each farm but they know no boundries. The only bounds they have is that northern sheep are not permitted in the south, southern sheep not permitted in the north, if so they are killed, to keep blood lines pure and to prevent any possible cross contamination. Of course, I doubt many sheep could make it over the pretty much impassable, uninhabited middle of the country

Hengifoss overlooks Hallormsstaoarskogur (it's a language that rolls off the tongue isn't) which is something rare in Iceland; a forest. For two people from Ontario when you say forest it conjures up images of tall trees, leaves, undergrowth ... in Iceland, forest usually means what we call underbrush and even so, that is rare. There is a lot of green in the country, lots of grass but really no forests as we would consider them; hence all the happy sheeps and horses

After our fellow travellers raced up the steep trail as quickly as possible for no reason I could actually understand, we were back on the bus and travelling into the eastern part of the country, passing more unamed (at least to us) waterfalls and more spectacular Iceland landscapes

After travelling a bit, we made a stop for lunch in the fishing village of Djupivogur.

Collette and I had come up with a plan. At an earlier stop at a highway grocery store we had purchased some bread, cheese, cold cuts, fruit, juice etc that would could use to throw together a lunch on the bus, so while the others went to a local cafe we set out to explore the shores of this pretty village where fjord meets ocean meets mountains

On our way out of town Anna had us stop to look at some "dragon eggs". Dragon, perhaps not, but certainly eggs of Iceland, from deep inside the island's womb

Back on the bus and travelling east, passing by Alftafjordur, the swan fjord, named for pretty obvious reasons. There are several swan fjords in Iceland, the most famous is actually in the Western Fjords but this one was pretty impressive too and we were able to see hundreds of swans settled here as part of their annual migration

We continued southeast, into the territory dominated by the Vatnajokull ice cap, the largest glacier in Europe. We could see it dominating the skyline and would occasionally pass by enormous glacial tongues that poured down the sides of the massive cap

We would be going up on to the glacier proper another day but this day our destination was a glacial lagoon, where chunks off ice break off from the ice cap, bob into the lagoon as ice bergs then float their way out to sea

We boarded an amphibious craft that took us right out on to the lake, cruising around the bergs that offered an amazing variety, some as tall as three story buildings, some the size of a couch, all shapes and sizes and colours, some mostly snow, some lace like ice, many of them striped by the as from the recent volcanic activity

We were having another truly glorious day, the sun was shining, it was quite mild, the lake was very calm and although the boat's motor was a bit rumbly, it was a perfect situation in which to watch the ice bergs float by on their way to the sea

Here is a remarkable shot that Collette got looking across  the ice bergs up the glacial tongue with the glacier looming in the distance

The day was almost over but we were in Siggi's part of the country and he knew that several us showed an interest in old cemeteries. He took us to one of the most unique ones in Iceland, located behind this preserved church with an old style sold roof

This was a Catholic church, who Anna liked to tell us the Icelanders "kicked" out of the country about 1,000 years ago but there was still a remnant of a stoup that once contained holy water

As you'll see in the video the graves are all above ground, the only place in the country where this is so. Anna was not sure why they did this but being Iceland, I suspect it has something to do with geology

ICELAND EDITED: DAY FIVE

Day Five began where Day Four ended, on the shore of Lake Mytatn. Although our trip was a guided tour one of the great things about was that Anna our guide and Sigi our driver really worked hard to give us the best experience that they could. Because we were experiencing such great weather we make an unscheduled trek to Yrrifloi bay, a shallow bay that was home to many kinds of ducks and old lava rock well covered in vegatation

From this tranquil lake setting we travelled into some truly dramatic Icelandic landscapes. Hverfell is a black cinder cone formed by a massive volcanic explosion some 2500 years ago. There was melt water in the middle of it and some fringes of snow. The snow appears dirty, that's from the ash of recent volcanic activity.

Our next stop was Leirhnjukur, a long valley in the Krafla volcano, essentially a volcanic cone that collapsed in on itself thousands of years ago. This was where they brought the Apollo astronauts to train for the Moon

It is a spectacular landscape with black lava verging on golden sand overseen by a high hard blue sky. There are wooden boardwalks that snail through the area and it's advised that you stick them, in some areas if you stepped off, you could actually burn your feet from the geothermal activity

Next we were on to Namafjall Hverir (rolls right off the tongue doesn't it) an area with some incredible boiling mud pots and natural rock cones where steam hissed out of in long streams

There is sulphur wafting out of these pots, so the entire place was filled with that rotten egg smell. It's a smell you get used to in Iceland though our guide told us that this spot was so potent even Icelanders found it difficult to take

After we got a good glimpse, and a good whiff, of one of Iceland's versions of Hel, we made our way to Vatnajokull National Park. The glacier for which the park is named is the largest ice cap in Europe and covers more than 8% of Iceland. We would go up the glacier on a later trip but today we had another objective in mind.

We got to experience one of the great thrills of Iceland, a variety of geographical features so rich that they can combine in sometimes shocking fashion. Siggi drove us to this amazing canyon area, bleak basalt and other volcanic rocks really did seem like it could belong on the Moon

As we made our way through this bleak landscape the last thing we expected to come across was not one, but three major waterfalls

The waterfall that we visited was Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe. More water pours across these falls than any other in Europe, at high flow about 500 cubic meters of water per second that smashed down into a miniature Grand Canyon

Awesome is a word I overuse when describing Iceland but this place was more than worthy of it. To just stand there and watch that incredible volume of water flowing over this 50 meter tall drop was pretty astounding. The sound was huge and the mist that if flung into the narrow canyon towered higher than the falls themselves

The colour of the water was almost a dun grey, shaded by the vast amount of silt resulting from a volcano eruption just a couple of weeks before we arrived. With my luck, how that eruption didn't happen while we there, I'll never understand

Iceland is a country of  contrasts. Giant volcanic calderas that exist beside long deep fjords fringed by the greenest vallies you've ever seen that in turn border arid rocky canyons that lead to tonnes of pouring water.

In Iceland though, that no matter where you go will find two things: Waterfalls ..

... and churches

Note about the video: Normally I post the videos in HD but this was a big day for us and by the time I finished the edit, the size of the video file was more than twice what Vimeo can handle, so I'm posting the SD version instead

ICELAND EDITED: DAY FOUR

We began the third day of our guided tour through Iceland with a great deal of anticipation. This would be the day we would go whale watching. We would do this from the pretty fishing village of Husavik

The first day of our Country Life tour (second day in Iceland) we had experienced the kind of weather which we had come to expect: Cool and rainy and windy. But as we made our up along the northern coast, the weather greatly improved. As you'll see in the video, this day was quite beautiful; sunny with temps in the high teens, low 20's Celcius. Still, we would be going out on the ocean and the weather would be unpredictable so our crew suggested safety outfits; yes ladies and gentlemen, my dream career of a male stripper is still ongoing

Iceland is home to many species of whale but there is, of course, no guarantee that you will ever see one. Off we went and we caught our first glimpse of an indigenous species we wanted to observe, the puffin

Iceland is home to all kinds of species of whales but the one most prevalent at this time of year, in this location. A baleen whale, minke's are relatively small, going to around 24 feet in length and about 14 tons. Minke whales are legally hunted in Iceland, you can see them on the menu in Reykjavik but our captain assured us that the locals really don't eat it, so if you don't like whales being hunted, don't order it. We didn't order any.

We not only lucked out with the weather on our trip but we did indeed see minke whales. The captain followed a flock of circling gulls and found us a pair of feeding whales, finding a pair such as this, we were told, is rare

The whales came to the surface to breathe before going down to the bottom to feed. They would break surface once, twice, then a third time to long a deep breath, this third one would be the longest time and you could often catch a glimpse of the head, then the whale would be down and moving as it scooped food from the bottom of the sea

We chased the whales around for an hour or so and got some pretty good shots of them as you'll see in the video.

Back on shore and continuing north to Lake Myvatn, or "midge" lake. Iceland has no stinging or biting insects but this shallow lake is home in the summer to these little flies, also home to a large selection of water fowl and ducks

The lake is also home to pseudocraters, large vents created by steam that was superheated as molten lava poured into the lake some 2 thousand years before

A short jaunt up the road and we came to the kind of area that brought us to Iceland in the first place: The cliffs of Dimmuborgir are acres of lava formations that give you the impression that you are more on the surface of the moon than on Earth. In fact, not far from here, Neal Armstrong was brought to do some training before his trip up there.

Earlier, in the southwest, we had seen fields of low lava covered in moss. Now we walked amongst formations largely bare and sometimes towering, forming shapes and pinnacles of virtually every size. Iceland is a country fond of its churches so it's not surprising that the lava would form its own: This is the formation called The Church

We ended the day driving across a plain where steam vented up between massive cinder cones from volcanic activity as recent as the mid 80's.

I was somehow convinced to schlep my sorry old butt up one of these cones just so I could stare down into it. And yes it was worth the climb

Here's the video