Nearly two years ago, I visited THE most amazing country on the planet….or so I think. Iceland! I went with my school friends and the trip was actually an educational geography excursion, but this was not like any other school trip i’d ever had, it was one of the most memorable experiences of my lifetime.
My friends and I would repeatedly say to each other how fresh, clean and crisp the atmosphere was, because it really was, it was like breathing in the purest form of air giving you a feeling like your lungs were being cleaned whenever you opened your mouth.
First on the agenda upon arrival in Iceland was the blue lagoon, a naturally heated sulphur spring. This happens to be the only image I have of the lagoon as I didn’t dare bring my camera into the water or get out of the water for too long! The area around the pool was vast, complete with foregrounds of empty volcanic fields and horizons of snow capped mountains, making it freezing to be outside of the gloriously heated pool. The bottom of the pool was coarse so you had to be careful when walking around, it was sulphur which has an appearance of a white porous rock and a texture of sandpaper. Around the perimeter of the pool were small bowls made in the rock which contained a mud that you can put on your face and body which supposedly acts as a natural mask, I tried it but really hate the texture of masks as they set like concrete when dry, but it was good fun to play around with.
Next stop was the black beach. A beach with sand made from volcanic ash from the nearby volcanoes. This was a geographers heaven. There were stacks, stumps and arches created from the rocks over the years in the horizon and on the beach was an even more unusual rock formation…
The cliff edge had a formation sort of like steps, the rock had columns integrated in it that you could walk across. We all did walk across them too, but I sadly don’t have the picture of this…
We watched the sun set over the ocean on the black beach.
It was magical.
As we drove back from the beach on our coach, we noticed how vast and empty the landscape was, every now and again you would come across a random little house or farm looking like a dot on the horizon.
There were small waterfalls in the hills dotted all around (a waterfall lovers heaven!) so the coach would often stop so that we could explore.
We trekked up the hill.
It was no easy challenge.
And if you were wondering, Iceland really is icy.
We came across this small cave near the top of the hill which had a story behind it about a famous man that had to hide in it for three months…or something like that, the story wasn’t that memorable, but it was great to listen to at the time!
We left the little waterfall in search for a bigger one!
This one you could actually walk behind but the guide advised us that it was the wrong time of the year to do so as the walkway would have bee nothing but sheet ice, and for my clumsy bambi legs it seemed like a good idea to listen to the guide! A missed opportunity though, so obviously I need to go back at some time to try it out..!
It wasn’t long before our guide got us trekking up another huge hill, which was actually an extinct volcano. The picture doesn’t do this one justice, it was really VERY steep.
But so worth it in the end. Being at the top of this hill really was the freshest breath I have ever taken.
We had a victory picture for making it to the top.
The next day we had a wander around Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik. I saw this family (left picture) just walking the dog and ice skating on a frozen over lake in the middle of the city. I thought that was pretty cool. On the right is an image of a very famous church that they have there built in a formation sort of like the cliff edge from the black beach.
Then we visited a site where the tectonic plates meet and we literally walked in between two continents, not too shabby eh.
Geography geekiness aside, this was a beautiful serene place to be.
Calm was everywhere you looked.
A real photographers heaven too. This image shows the edges of both plates pulling away from eachother.
We were told that you can actually SCUBA dive between them…another reason to go back to Iceland!
The next day was geyser day. Not to be confused with geezer…
What a sight these were! It was incredible, we were surrounded by steaming pools of bubbling water waiting to explode into a tall cloud of dense white steam.
I really couldn’t take enough photographs, I think this was the most snap happy moment I had ever been in!
Hmm this was slightly random but I found somebody’s stone balancing masterpiece at the geyser park and thought it was pretty worthy of a photograph. Not bad.
WATERFALL! I think my obsession with waterfalls is quite clear now…this is another one which literally took my breath away.
It was hard to get a close up image of this waterfall because it was just so huge!
So, just a small post today then…I could go on for days about how great Iceland is and how much of an impact this trip has had on my memories. This is not going to have been my only visit to the stunning country, i’m sure about that!
Head in a Glass 