Berjaya Iceland Hotel.

The hotel was clean, the rooms were large with plenty of room to relax and enjoy the awesome view from the huge window. The bed was comfortable and there was plenty of tea and coffee available. It had a good shower and a great breakfast, as it was with all places we stayed on the tour.

Ever hopeful, we boarded the little red boat and disappeared into the mist. Strangely though, even the mist was exciting as we could’ve been sailing to the edge of the earth for all we knew. However, it wasn’t long before the mist started to clear and the opposite shore appeared with a hot spring waterfall leaking into the fjord.

The water was like glass, the distant mountaintops were covered in snow and it started to look good for catching sight of the elusive whales. Blue sky showed on the horizon and we all hoped the clouds would clear giving some warming sunshine because it was bitterly cold.

Cold, camera, phone and woollen gloves. Unfortunately, the gloves were off more than they were on, but I guess at least I managed to stop the camera and phone splashing into the icy depths of the fjord! In the end I just hoped my fingers would remain attached to my body; wrapping them around a cup of hot chocolate helped enormously!

Did we see whales? Well, sort of! We’d almost given up and were cruising slowly around in circles when our captain received word that another boat had sighted a whale, so we quickly turned and sped back the way we came. It was like the boat had been given new life and we all frantically scanned the fjord for our first sighting!

Eventually, in the far distance a lone minke whale surfaced and cameras and phones were given a serious workout, but I would defy anyone to say they actually got good photos of the mammal. The scenery was awesome but the whale itself was just a one second blur. Would I do it again? Hell yes! Just the boat ride itself was worth every cent I paid for it – and yes, I did see a whale! Sort of!

Back at Akureyi we had time to explore the township so we all drifted in various directions to browse the shops and buy souvenirs. Lunch was a delicious, a warming leek soup before we headed back to the bus and into the mountains.

I said goodbye to Akureyi with regret. Set amongst the snow topped mountains and edged by a glorious fjord it was a place you could spend many more days exploring. But there were many more glorious sights to come and I was grateful that the lady in the seat next to me didn’t seem as obsessive as I am about taking photos. She generously allowed me to occupy the window seat for the whole tour. Our next stop – the first of Iceland’s many waterfalls.

At 30m wide and 12m high, the water rushed over the edge of the beautiful, horseshoe shaped falls.

Dark, volcanic rocks edged the path and it was one of those occasions where I wished I was several years younger so I could climb down over the rocks to the river. But sometimes sanity must prevail and as good balance is not one of my attributes now, I wasn’t going to risk the rest of the trip by falling on the jagged protrusions down below. So, I watched from above as others quickly navigated their way down.

Trivia: Legend has it that the Chieftain, Þorgeir Ljósvetngagoði, threw statues of the pagan gods into the waterfall after he decided that Icelanders should adopt the Christian religion, thus the name Waterfall of the Gods. The Skjálfandafljót river is approximately 180km long and flows from the glacier Vatnajökull. Goðafoss is the largest waterfall along the river and one of the great waterfalls in Iceland. Lava in the surrounding valley is more than 8000 years old.

It was never more evident that winter still had a grip, however loosely, when we arrived at the pseudo craters. Lake Mývatn was covered with a layer of ice, not something in which to take a refreshing dip!

Trivia: Pseudo craters form when molten lava flows over water. The water starts boiling under the lava and causes explosions when the resulting steam escapes. Lava around the steam vent is ripped apart when the explosions burst through and form around the vent causing a pseudo crater. This seemingly placid landscape was once a bubbling, boiling nightmare of steam and lava.

But before we settled for the evening, however, in a treat was in store! Mývatn in Northern Iceland is renowned for the restorative properties of its Nature Baths. It took a lot of courage to strip off and go outside into the bitter cold wearing nothing more than a bathing costume and a towel. What made it worse was the fact that an all over shower is mandatory, so you were walking, dripping wet, out into the freezing cold. It was – well – invigorating. It wasn’t just bitter cold, it was glacial! But sinking into those turquoise, warm waters was absolute bliss.

As I travel on a budget I made my way to my room angry and upset, more so that I was stupid enough to agree. The evening deteriorated even more when the glass I dropped in the bathroom shattered into a million pieces and I dropped chocolate on the pristine white hotel sheets. Sigh! Time to go to bed! But not before I ‘swept’ up the million pieces of glass with toilet paper and frantically tried to remove the dark brown stain from the sheet.

Continue to » Iceland Tour, Day 4 (1)