Had a very chilled out night last night and went to sleep very early. Only woke once during the night. It was so light I thought it was nearly time to get up, but when I checked my phone it was only 12.30am! Never dark here.
Left this morning on another tour - this time to the South Coast and for a glacier hike. Learned a couple more interesting things along the way....
- Because of the green energy they can so easily produce here Icelanders leave all their lights, appliances and heaters on all the time. It's not considered wasting energy because they produce it in an environmentally friendly way! Their power bills are like $70 Aussie maximum a month too
- On average there are only 1.2 homicides here per year. It's a very safe place!
It was interesting comparing yesterday's landscape with today's. Today once we got to the South Coast there were huge cliff faces to our left, and massive sea flats to our right. These are caused by glacial water that melts when volcanoes erupt and they push sand and gravel out towards the sea. It was a really stark contrast! We drove past the volcano that wreaked havoc in 2010 called Eyjafjallajökull (DON'T ask me to pronounce that!).
I spent the journey gazing out the window thinking to myself as after five months on the road my iPod headphones decided today (with 7-8 hours total in the bus) was a good day to die! Never mind.
Then we arrived at Sólheimajökull glacier. Out of our whole bus load, six of us were doing the 'Walk on the ice side' glacier walk. The others all went to some more waterfalls and a museum. So we got our equipment and hiked the glacier.
Our guide (whose name I can't remember) was really kind and very passionate about the affect global warming is having on the glaciers. This glacier has lost 16m of height in the last year alone, and is melting at an exponential rate. The way it's going within 100-200 years it won't exist anymore. There's now also a lagoon at the bottom of the glacier that just 20 years ago was completely covered by another part of the glacier.
We hiked up and saw a tunnel on the way, the result of melting. We got to climb through it and see the blue colour of the ice. This is due to it being so dense that red light can't get through.
I've climbed Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand but I was only 8 years old. From what I can remember, the main difference between the two is that today's glacier was covered with mounds of volcanic ash. Some of it was from eruptions 100+ years ago, some from 2010 and some from 2014. The volcano attached to the glacier hasn't erupted in 70 years and they're getting a bit concerned because it normally does every 40 years!!
I meant to mention yesterday that in the national park our guide told us to fill our drink bottles because the water here is so pure. I did yesterday, and today our guide said the same. So we used her ice pick to bend down and taste some of the water, and again I filled up my bottle.
Overall the experience was really cool, although a little difficult to manoeuvre on the way down. It was a bit expensive but I'm glad I did it!!
We met up with the rest of our group and went to a huge waterfall. The guide told us we had no time to climb the cool looking stairs up to the viewing platform. So what did I do? I climbed them! Challenge accepted - climb up and back within 15 minutes. Ran the whole way up and enjoyed a really cool view and then made it back down with minutes to spare. Never in doubt!!
Back on the bus and it started to pour down rain. We had been so lucky today with only a drizzle coming on the glacier. It rains in Iceland 300 days a year so so far I've been really lucky!!
We stopped at one last waterfall and then made our way back to Reykjavik. I met Marleen at the hostel and we went and had Icelandic hot dogs at Bæjarins - a little shed that's been running for almost 80 years. They put onions, fried onions and some sauces on and we had two each. Oh my god amazing!!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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