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After coming back from four days in Iceland I have been reflecting and created my good and bad list.

Fraught and Freezing

The price of stuff
Things are Expensive!! Sales tax is 25% and it cost and extra 15% or so to ship most things into the country. Add the countries historical inflation issues and you have a mighty expensive for tourists. Fortunately if your planning on visiting Iceland from next week they are dropping sales tax to 8% which should help things

Is that sulphur in your shower or are you just glad to smell me?
Often the hot water is source straight from the springs which is great. However the smell isn’t so hot.

Learner bus drivers
Okay this is more a gripe about our northern lights driver…just make sure your driver know where they are going and can drive a bus.

Cool and Classy
Renewable Reykjavik
The whole country is big on renewable energy. In fact the only non environmental friendly energy they have is the fossil fuels they use to power their cars and huge 4WD. However the country is currently trialing hydrogen powered buses and hydrogen petrol stations aiming to convert most of the cars by 2010.

Don’t step over that rope or you will die
Unlike health and safety mad England; the Icelandic view is quite refreshing. If you are dumb enough to step over the barrier, put your finger in the boiling hot water or whatever… then hey you deserve the consequences sorry.

Hurrah for Hot pools
Susan and I were loving lounging around and at only £2 a visit, the hot pools are a bargain.
It’s weird having your face burning from icy cold wind when the rest of your body is going wrinkly but you get over it.

Last night we went to the Reykjavik Ice bar, which was basically a refrigeration unit. But it was gimmicky enough to be interesting. After our drinks Susan’s fingers were starting to go numb so we decided to get outside and warm up

Susan had been harassing the receptionist in our hotel each night about possibility of seeing the Northern lights. Knowing it was her last chance to see them she made us trek out of the city in the hope to avoid some of the light pollution. Sadly it was a little futile as it had been cloudy most of the day. Still we managed to get lost and this gave Susan the opportunity to be right and me to be wrong. (Hope she is happy now)

This morning we went to the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport. Basically it is a clever use of the residue from the nearby geothermal plant. But hey it’s the most relaxing time we have ever had in the waste left by a power plant before.

Today we took a golden circle bus tour into the largest wilderness in Europe. We started at Pringvellir National park where rift caused the American and European tectonic plates separating has caused a large valley to form. It’s also where the Vikings established the worlds first democratic parliament. At the lookout Susan was almost blown off the cliff by the gale force artic winds.

After that we went on to visit Geysir. Not surprisingly the home of Geysers. The main big geyser called gusher only erupts twice times a day since 2000, but there was a regular geyser erupting every 8 minutes or so, called Strokkur. It was really interesting seeing these geysers and blue hot pools more because of the cold environment they are in. For instance seeing most of the water that sprays from Strokkur turn to steam is very eerily.

After thawing out a little we headed for the icy waterfall at Gullfoss. The most entertaining (and sometime worrying) part of this visit was watching Susan cling on for dear life as she walked down the ice covered path.

Iceland is a country rich in geothermal energy and natural Hot springs. It was interesting to learn about the ways they have harnessed this energy. In fact they produce more than 4 times the amount of electricity they need. They are busy trying to figure out how to transport this power because if it can get transported without degradation Iceland would be able to supply renewable electricity for most of mainland Europe.

Another way Iceland harnesses their natural recourses is to use natural hot water for heating. Most people don’t have hot water cylinders they just suck water straight out of the hot springs in the ground. They also use the hot springs to heat green houses using a radiator like system and then can produce all sorts of fruit and veggies and flowers that the Icelandic environment wouldn’t otherwise support.
Unfortunately with all these hot spring and geothermal activity there are loads of earthquakes. Our guide told us about a house to be swallowed up by a new created hot spring after an earthquake in the 70’s doh.

Waking up this morning was a little difficult after last nights hunt for the northern lights. We decided to take things a little easy and opted to take the local bus to a small town called Hafnarfjordur for the afternoon. After walking around the small fishing town we son realised this town was mega sleepy especially in winter so after walking around for 30 minutes we decided to try to get back to the city.

Continuing our lazy day we went to the local swimming pools. The pools were outside but conveniently heated by the natural geothermal water. It’s a very unusual sensation to be shivering on tippy toes in wind chill of -3 then jump into a 38 degree pool that has steam coming off. Standing up for a minute or two, your body soon seemed happy to be emerged in the hot water again. While at the pool we stumbled along light lamps that the Icelanders use to try to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Trying to find food was difficult. Food is really expensive but we ended up in a tapas bar. Susan was a little disgusted when I ordered the Puffin tapas and waved Piwi in my face.

We are in Iceland at one of the best times of year to see the aurora borealis. However the two key ingredients for a successful northern light viewing are:

Good Weather
Crisp clear sky is a bit of a must. So if you can see clouds you probably cant see the green flickering goodness.

Darkness
It pays to be in a light pollution free zone. I.e. not in Reykjavik city.

Unfortunately the weather has been patchy since Valentines day. In fact the receptionist at hotel was surprised the tour was on. Dubiously he commented on how our tour operation believes they have a spot that’s clear.

While on the bus Bob, (our tour guide for the Northern lights tour) commented ‘We are going to give it our best shot’. things were not sounding promising.

We drove out to a small town in the middle of nowhere called Gullfoss which is about 1 hour away. Unfortunately our driver was a complete novice and the glacial pass road Bob decided to take was a little treacherous in places.

Sadly Gullfoss was as cloudy as Revkjavik so we lacked a key ingredient and at 11:30 we gave up hope and hopped back on the bus. Resigning to watching aurora borealis DVD during the long trip back to our hotel for 2.30am.

Nevermind

Friday we had a smooth bus ride in to Heathrow from Bristol. An American girl was sitting behind us on her way to New Zealand. Isn’t amazing how almost all American’s are infected with verbal diarorea and insist on talking even if there is nothing to say. Maybe it was just tiredness from work but after an hour of droning on ‘like about nothing’ I decided to go to sleep.

Arriving slightly tight for our flight to Reykjavik, We dashed across Heathrow with our packs fearing we would miss check in at Terminal 1. Susan was her routine stressed self as we panicky checked in and anxiously queued through security only to find our flight was delayed.

Our flight was really good. We sat next to an Icelandic girl who was going home for the school holidays. She tired her best to teach us Icelandic but soon realised it was futile.

After a late arrival into Kefelaik airport, we joined the lengthy customs queue manned by two officials. The two guys must have been bored wishing they were doing a traditional pub crawl (Runtur) instead of stuck at the airport at midnight. They decided they were going to question all the good-looking Aussie and Kiwi girls thoroughly. We were exhausted after the 50 min drive to our hotel.

In the morning, we had a look around the town. It’s not surprising from the architecture and the exorbitant price of everything that Iceland has strong Norwegian roots.

After walking around in the artic wind for about l0 minutes, we realised our weak kiwi ears were going to drop off unless we took preventive action. We dashed to the local knitting store for some hats.

Armed with our new headwear we made a b-line for the Hallgrimskirkja an impressive 75m tall church in the centre of town. It was surprisingly light and airy since it was built completely of reinforced concrete to survive the frequent Icelandic earthquakes.

We then briskly walked to the Saga museum to learn a little of Iceland’s history. Apart from the indoor geyser they had a good audio guide providing info about how Icelanders descend from exiled Norwegian Vikings and Celtic slaves. In addition, we learnt the interesting story behind Iceland’s religious unification. In 1000 AD the countries leaders decided two religions (Norse and Christianity) could only lead to bloodshed. They sent a Norse lawmaker to develop a solution. After 3 days of contemplation lying on horse hair he decided all of Iceland should immediately convert to Christianity. So they did and no one killed each other…. sounds all too simple.