ICELAND EDITED: DAY TWO

Day two of our Iceland vacation was day one of our guided bus tour, Country Life. We met our fellow tourists, an american or two, a pair of Brits, a couple of Australians and a few Belgians who would become our favorite travelling companions  We were all the ones sitting at the back of the bus drinking cans of Viking Beer. We also met Anna Laura, our tour guide, a mountain rescue guide and climber, about 95 pounds of dynamite, wit and opinion. Her partner was Sigi, our bus driver, who wants to visit us in Canada so we can take him to Burger King

From Reykjavik we made our way north up to the Western Fjords. We passed small fishing villages and took a long tunnel under a fjord that was contested during World War II due to its depths, the Allies sunk massive fuel dumps in it to service submarines and fighting ships. We got our first taste of Icelandic Coastal weather and were very happy for bringing the really good rain gear.

We got off the bus at Arnarstapi, a little fishing village that featured a giant Viking made out of basalt and some pretty spectacular coastal features, where surf had pounded its way into and through the volcanic rock

Anna took us along the coast and guided us through this narrow draw, with the rain stinging out faces, to an inlet where the surf pounds in so hard, it smashed to pieces a steel Russian fishing trawler; all that is left of the vessel now is just some random junk.

We had an opportunity to wring the salt water out of cameras on our way to our next location: A museum that was actually just the house of a fisherman, a shark fisherman. This is an example of Iceland resourcefulness. Isolated as they are, you find many farms with their own museums and their own churches as well. This old fellow made his living from fishing Greenland sharks. He puetrified them then served it us .. and yes, it pretty much tasted the way it sounds

After lunch (ahem) we made our way to Hraunfossar. We came to know Iceland as the land of waterfalls but even in this country the ones here are special; a waterfall that burst out of the Hallmundarhraun lava plain

Just up the road is Barnafoss, the Children's Waterfall, another example of the power of water, erupting out of the lava field

And of course, I had to perch on top of it to get some shots

And here is what I saw