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