Iceland

The long planned trip to Iceland, mentioned in the previous blog was, unfortunately, postponed because of an acute illness that presented itself the day before departure. After spending half a day in the Perth Emergency department for early treatment and a week of antibiotics, recommended diet and continual improvement, I was persuaded, thankfully, to go ahead with the trip. So, after a lot of reorganizing with airlines and accommodations in Iceland, we set out on Friday for a  very smooth approximately 5 hour flight on Icelandic Air.

Remember that you can click on any image to see a larger version.

One inside view of Brekka.

We arrived in Iceland at 11:30 pm (there is a 4 time zone difference). From the airport to Reykjavik, where we were able to pick up some groceries, is about a 40 minute drive. From Reykjavik the drive to our very pleasant nordic cottage, Brekka Lodge, which took us through a 6 Km tunnel under the bay, was another 45 to 50 minutes. So, though we arrived at 7:30 pm our time, by the time we reached Brekka and got settled it was well after midnight. We slept latish and relaxed a bit in our new surroundings. The view from the deck of water and mountains was quite spectacular and a great introduction to even more amazing topography that we were to see in time.

Below is a view from the deck of the lodge.

Later we drove to a relatively short distance to a waterfall (Glymur) - it was a long rocky climb from the parking lot and we discovered after more than an hour of walking that we still had another hour to go through quite difficult terrain so we aborted the walk.

At one point on our way back from the hike there was a nice view of the bay which we can also see from our diggs at Brekka.

Waiting for me.

Later Michael heard from his contact here that “you need a helicopter to get to that one”! After returning to the car we went to Reykjavik to shop for groceries and wine and beer.

We spent the evening editing photos and just chilling out. We intended to use the geothermal heated hot tub but initially it was too hot and later, when the hot tub was ready the weather had turned cold, windy and rainy and we were tired so some of us just relaxed, sipped some wine then went to bed.

Below is a view from the deck of Brekka just after sunset.

Because our time is so limited this may be both the first and last blog post from Iceland.