[vinayrathore]

Where art thou Tanveer? My F5 key is going to come out.

Waiting eagerly for the next installment.

[speed_edge]

Tanvir,

Missing you here, please keep stuffs coming
From last many days this thread is open browser and dont know for how many time I did refresh.

Regards
SE

[tsk1979]

With dark clouds rolling in from the sea, the idea of a beach excursion is thrown out.
So what next?

Some questions get spontaneous answers, and we see a road going up a mountain


We really do not have much idea what is this road and where does it go. As we climb up the steep climb the traction control light starts flashing. The front wheels are losing traction. Gravel roads can do that. I flick back to Auto from 2WD(fuel saving you see), and she takes up up without fuss or Ado

We have absolutely no idea where does this road go, but it ends up here, at some kind of huge crater.
Looks like a Volcano crater, but mined for something


Its raining, so not many pictures
But even with rain, the sun comes out from time to time. Unfortunately, no rainbows here


As the winds pick up, and we start getting sand blasted, we decide to head downwards. There is a break in the clouds, and we can see as far as the ocean. Its spectacular. From rainy and grey, the landscape has suddenly become like a fairytale land


But there is not much time, dark clouds are rushing in


And slowly the grey starts returning.


The weather forecast for today is like our fortune teller. Gale force winds and torrential rain. I guess its time to head home
Slowly we make our way, as the winds pick up. A lone waterfall fights a losing battle against the wind. Shall not let you fall, the winds say.


We take a last look at the Sun, as the grey overcomes all


Its time to head homeward, and just relax, waiting for the weather to blow over


Its been a short day. Nothing was planned, except the swim, but sometimes, the most fun days are the unplanned ones.
Porsmork was never in our plans, but sometimes, roads take you where they want to take you.

Tomorrow, hopefully will give more sunshine, and a little less wind!

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by vinayrathore

Where art thou Tanveer? My F5 key is going to come out.

Waiting eagerly for the next installment.

Originally Posted by speed_edge

Tanvir,

Missing you here, please keep stuffs coming
From last many days this thread is open browser and dont know for how many time I did refresh.

Regards
SE

Sorry about the hiatus. Back from my year end trips so will resume again

[tsk1979]

A short timelapse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZtGHvuC4yo

[vinayrathore]

Hey Tanveer, I know you might be busy but the urge to see the remaining Iceland gets the better of me. Try to restart this thread

[tsk1979]

Sunlight.
Never thought it could give so much joy. In our corner of the world, most of the Songs, the poems etc., are addressed to the clouds, pleading for them to come and give new life to the scorched earth.
Makes sense in a hot and dry region.
Over here, its the opposite. Its quite fascinating, how the weather can influence culture.
And guess what, even though we come from a culture which loves the rain, over here, it was Sunlight which was in demand.

And today, Sol delivered. Sure it was partially cloudy. And windy too. But then its Iceland. Its supposed to be cloudy and windy.
But the sun was out, shining brightly on the black beach.


The sentinels stood, watching, waiting, and the waves crashed on the shores.
Time for a stroll on the shores. OF the black beach. There were a few people here today, but I am told, in Summer, you can't find a place to stand, it can get so crowded. After all, the black beach is one of the highest rated attractions of Iceland!


However, its not just the beach which is fascinating. Even the basalt columns are quite a sight, as if sculpted by hand.
Who knows, an army of trolls may have felt artistic?


There is even a cave here. When it rains, this gets quite crowded, as everyone tries to find shelter here. Today, however, there were no crowd issues. We had the beach pretty much to ourselves.


A view towards the Atlantic. If the earth was not curved, you would see Antarctica. Yes, there is no landmass from here to Antarctica. That is why the waves are so ferocious.


Another view of the mountain


Black and white. White sands are beautiful, but black... its something else.


The weather was being generous today


Click logs while the sun shines?


Or watch the crashing waves?


Well it was almost one, and the weather report gave us clear skies till almost sunset. So what next? Well, we would make the most of our neck of the woods today. Its time to head out!

[tsk1979]

Scattered clouds and scattered sunshine is what the forecast said. And as usual it would be accurate. With a few hours with us, it was time to capture one of the most visited waterfalls of Iceland. The Skogafoss.

Legend says that there lies a chest full of treasure at its bottom. Well lets find out.

So we set off, with the blue breaking out. The landscape changed colors, and we saw a new face of Iceland


And with sun came the tourists. Our beach now resembles a carnival.


Time to hit the open road, in search of gold




But, where how do you find gold? Well you follow the rainbow. After all, I guess this is where rainbows were invented


Slowly we make our way, reluctant go give up rainbows, and its almost three when we are at Skogafoss.
Our reluctance is unfounded, for the magnificent Skogafoss has its own private rainbow


So how big is the Skogafoss? Well its big. Very big. Falling like a gigantic carpet. Winter or summer, Spring or Autumn, Skogafoss always flows in full glory.


No matter how you look at it, its magnificent


The howling winds may make us cover, but the sheep relish the damp grass.


What is better than a rainbow? Well, two rainbows


We spend an hour here, catching the light. People came and went, constrained by their package tours, but us, we could just sit here and relax, watching the raging torrent.


And then, the rain clouds move in, and that usually is a good time to move. We decided to head where the skies are still clear.
Destination? Solheimajokull, one of the countless glacier tongues which grace this area.
And we did beat the rain. The sun was setting, and the glacier bathed in orange light.


We were the only ones here. But the rain clouds were not too far away too!


And with the rain, came the rainbow.


As the Sun went down, we decided to head back. There were other wonders to capture and we wanted to make the most of a beautiful day.

The beauty of this area is that there are so many amazing attractions within minutes of driving. You could go from the glacier to the ocean in minutes!


And guess where we landed up. On the other side our ocean creek. Far away the sea stacks can be seen


Time to head to the lighthouse and savor the views. Far towards the west, a massive storm system was building up




Towards the east, our black beach, still dry and oblivious to the pounding its about to get


A very interesting thing to see from the lighthouse is the sea arch. Some daredevils fly airplanes through the arch. I am sure they do it when its not too windy. I wonder if such days every happen here!




And before we call it a day, I guess I have to show you the lighthouse.


And on that bombshell(apologies to Jennifer), the day ends. Today has been the driest days on the island, and we saw a new side of this magical land.

But, today is also our last day here.
Between cooking and packing, we wonder whether we should have spend another day here, but then, the the rest of Iceland is waiting, with its waterfalls, snowfields, glaciers and... volcanoes.
Who knows, what wonders lie ahead.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by vinayrathore

Where art thou Tanveer? My F5 key is going to come out.

Waiting eagerly for the next installment.

Originally Posted by speed_edge

Tanvir,

Missing you here, please keep stuffs coming
From last many days this thread is open browser and dont know for how many time I did refresh.

Regards
SE

Originally Posted by vinayrathore

Hey Tanveer, I know you might be busy but the urge to see the remaining Iceland gets the better of me. Try to restart this thread

Finally restarted the thread. Will be more regular now
More updates coming today!

[tsk1979]

Iceland is one of those countries, where you can go from one end to the other, and still have daylight left, provided you leave early enough.
Our next destination was in the far north, and usually such long drives involve an early start.
After all, we are at the southernmost tip of the country, and our destination is the northernmost tip.

By my reckoning it was about 10-12 hours via the long east coast route, or about 8 hours via west.

So an 8 am start is quite good. No need to break your precious sleep. After all, sleeping is one of the most wonderful activities you can do. If you are the 4 hour zombie, lemme tell you, you are missing paradise.

The wonderful feeling you get after 10-12 hours of straight uninterrupted shuteye something which must be experienced, atleast once a week.

Anyways, I am digressing. Where were we?

Well yea, 8am start.
However, at 8am we had just started dragging myself out of the bed. I wanted to get an hour more, after all we slept at midnight last night. All the food cooking for the long journey, and cleaning up the cottage etc., does take time, right?

But I had to get out now, for today was very very unusual. Extremely delightfully unusual.

I remember Ragnar telling me "You can see the glacier from your window". For the past few days, I had been wondering what glacier is he talking about.

Well, thanks to today being a very un-Icelandic day, I could see the glacier.



Yes, the truly spectacular, clean white(all that rain you see), ice cap in full glory. Somewhere under that sits a magma chamber, which can erupt anytime and end the world.But anyways, for now its quiet and white and nice and shiny. And the best part, its visible!


And its visible because.... Blue skies, bright sun, and hardly any wind!

Still in summer clothes, I decide to head out, to click the lighthouse


But its quiet frigid, and is better to stay inside for now, until the polar bear clothes come out.

Slowly and steadily, we start the activities of the day. Setting the cottage, getting ready, putting luggage in the car, blah blah bleep.

If anybody had observed us, they would have thought, these guys don't seem like they intend to go to Akureyri tonight.

Well, that somebody would have been right. We did not plan to get to Akureyri tonight. After all, our booking starts from "tomorrow night".

[tsk1979]

Day 7 #2: The plan for a beautiful day

The stars have aligned perfectly. The ocean currents are cooperative. The weather gods are similing, and so is the weather forecast. Till tomorrow, there are going to be clear skies wherever we intend to go.

What what is that exactly?
Well, you have to spend the night somewhere.

And this is what we intend to do. Infact we plan to spend the night at two places. The first of them is Jokusarlon. Yes, we have seen the magnificent ice kingdom, but no visit is complete without witnessing its glory under the stars and the Aurora.

As darkness falls, this landscape transforms into some other world, and this is what we will witness.

And that brings us to the second place. The second place was something of an enigma. I had spent countless hours scouring the internet, asking questions here and there to find it. Finally, after a long search, a kind soul gave it to me.

Well, not exactly the place, but nearby. A set of latitude longitude coordinates. Go there, and then find what you seek, that's what he said.

On paper, on my phone, and even in the saved locations on the duster's GPS system, I had entered this location, just to be safe.

So what was this location. Well it was supposedly one of the closest point where you could have a safe viewing of the the erupting Volcano, Bardarbunga.

Rumbling for months now, this gateway to hell was spewing out Lava and sulfur, turning the entire area to a glowing wasteland, and panicking travelers throughout Europe, and sending Airline stocks tumbling down like tumbleweeds in autumn.

Few years back, a small tiny volcano called Eyjafjallajokull brought Europe to its knees. Bardarbunga was bigger much bigger. Infact, it was as big as Laki, which erupted over two centuries ago and made the world shake.
Monsoon as far as India was weakened, North America got their coldest and longer winter ever.

In Europe the consequences were much stronger. Sun turned blood red, weather turned so hot that it spawned massive thunderstorms with hailstones which killed cattle. Over 8000 died in the resulting chaos in the UK, and mainland Europe had to battle with biblical floods.

It is said, that the resulting famines were a trigger for the French revolution!

However, it was in Iceland, that the consequences were much much move severe and dire. Over 25% of the population died. Around 80% of sheep, 50% of cattle and 50% of horses died.

So, initially, when the eruption started, there was a lot of worry, and rightly so. But currently, it was more or less clear that this is a fissure eruption which will run clear.

Nevertheless, even fissure eruptions are a spectacular sight. With most of the area closed to visitors, I had to find a spot on the still open roads from where to see this. And thus, the coordinates.

The plan was simple. Reach Jokusarlon by nightfall, spend a few hours there and then set out towards the location in the eastern highlands before midnight and watch the eruption till the Astronomical twilight ends.

And the beauty of this plan was that it gave us a lot of time to kill. So how to spend time?

Well? Cooking. We needed almost two days of sandwiches. We would reach civilization about midday(how wrong we were!!), and that meant an entire night of supply.
For caffeine there was Coke Zero(An amazing discovery made in Iceland, thankfully now in India too!), and for calories there were Ham and egg sandwiches.

Other misc dry stuff carried over from India would have to fill in for the rest!

All said and done, we were out be 11. I met our host Ragnar, and set out for the road. There was no agenda, no worries about time. Just drive where it seemed nice.

This was a big problem. Everywhere in Iceland is nice.
Go left or right?


Well for starters, lets go left, towards the lighthouse.
The landscape looked incredible in bright sunlight.


The winds have picked up, but the waves are not too high here. Not good for surfing I guess


We head to a secluded section of the beach. ITs black, but no tourists come here as its not so famous


That is the arch we saw


Its massive!


Also seen, this massive stone. Anchoring anyone?


From a slightly elevated perspective, the crashing Atlantic breakers


We head upwards towards the top, and decide to take quick shots of the arch and the cliffs




But what is even more striking is how black the beach is


And guess what, turn the camera a bit, you get a riot of colors
White of the glacier, blue of the skies, the orange green of the glass, and the blue of the lakes made from storm wash.


In May these cliffs teem with birds. In Autumn most of them are gone, but the fertile cliffs are perfect for moss and grass


That said, the swans are still here.


Well, its well past noon now, and its time to move on.
For an unplanned day, we have made one tiny little plan. Swimming in Vik. Vik has a geothermal swimming pool, and at just 450 ISK(220rs odd), its a bargain for a swim. After all, a foul smelling swim in Noida costs more!.

So we do have couple of hours more to kill before we head to Vik. So what next? A glacier eh?

[tsk1979]

Deadlines. How I despise the word. Infact, I feel, a deadline encourages us to procrastinate, pushing everything to the last moment.
As we head to the main road, our agenda is aimless wandering. This means, spending time with a black sheep.




These black grey sheep are fairly common. I reckon, you would find maybe 4-5 of them in a flock. Some are grey, some jet black.

On the ring road, we drive on looking for a road turning towards the mountains. And soon we find one. It starts as a track, and within half a km becomes a rocky nightmare.

A half fallen signboard seems to suggest that it is closed ahead. So I decide to ask around.

The first guy I ask has absolutely no idea. Even after asking multiple times, I am unsuccessful in getting a reply. This is the first time, not knowing Icelandic has been a hindrance.
So, I just decide to click his picture, as he silently wonders what I am asking


There is a small collection of hutments nearby belonging to some glacier tour company. The offices are open. We walk in, looking for people, but there aren't any. However, they have a very nice collection of Automobiles.



The most beautiful among them is this old lady. A Defender!


Its refreshing to see her without huge tires or heavy modifications. This is as pure as they come.

For those of you with a size fetish, well, you have these too. Want to take your entire family on the glacier...? Well hire this


As we road about, a tractor appears, and thankfully they speak good English. The road, as we suspected is closed. Washed away to be precise. Can the Duster do it? Well there is over 3 feet of water in the stream on the way.
So that settles it, and we slowly make our way towards Vik. A warm hot swimming pool was waiting.

So, its time to hit the road


The views are awesome today, like any other day. Whoever wrote "Agar Firdaus..." never came to Iceland.








Finally, little past two, we are at Vik!


This is their sports complex, and we will spend next two hours here, lounging around.

Swimming is a popular pastime here, even when its less than 5C like its now. The plan is to do a few laps of the pool, but trust me its a lot harder when you have a nice warm hotpot at 40 degrees. The pool at 27 degrees feels frigid.

Since its not tourist season, we have it pretty much to ourselves, and unfortunately, sooner than anticipated, its almost four. We have to drag ourselves out of this warm paradise, and get ready for the road.

Goodbye Vik!
It was nice knowing ya. The first five days have been amazing, but now its time for a new adventure


One last goodbye to the quaint little town from the Church.


This is the highest point of the village, and is also the assembly point just in case there is a sub glacial eruption.

As the sun starts going down, we start our journey again. The car is packed, the coke is chilled, fuel is filled. Its journey-time folks!

[tsk1979]

The Autumn Sun heads downwards, as we rush east, once again, on the same old road to Jokusarlon.
Progress is swift, thanks to zilch traffic and, lesser breaks. After all, we have already done this route once.

But still, sometimes, you have to stop and soak it all in!


Its an amazingly clear day, and far away you can see the wind whipped glaciers on top of Volcanoes.


Its like a ticking time bomb, erupting every few decades. The moss covered lava fields are a mute testimony to the fury unleashed eons ago


That said, the landscape is not the only thing interesting. Most birds have left, but the cranes still linger on




A perfect spot for a sandwich break, what say?


That's where we are headed now. The sun will set by the time we reach, but no worries, after all, its night time what we seek


Every now and then, there comes a moment when the sky goes absolutely clear. This is extremely rare in Iceland, esp in Autumn


We go on, and the sky starts changing colors. This is magic.


This offers more solitude than even Ladakh. I can count on one hand the number of vehicles which have passed us in the last couple of hours


Sunsets are incredibly long in these high latitudes, and guess what, it means more pit stops


Its almost seven as we hit Skaftafell. The wind has picked up and the temperature is fast plummeting. Its going to be a frigid night.




One last pit-stop here, before we reach our current destination


Jokusarlon, here we come! Will there be Aurora tonight....?

[1lokesh]

Fantastic! Brilliant! Awesome! Out of the World!! I'm falling short of words here, Tanveer!

Read the whole thread with various breaks, but never moved out of this travelogue. Chrome seems to be straining a lot of memory since its been 3 days the laptop hasn't been shut, because I didn't want to lose the track of your posts

I almost felt being in Iceland myself. Wonderful photography, very well described and its just binding.

Thank you for this, Tanveer. Keep them coming, more and more :-)

[tsk1979]

The night has fallen, the stars are out, frigid cold winds howl in the clear night.

We are not alone though. There is an army of photographers, of various shapes and sizes, armed with tripods of various shapes and sizes, and loaded with cameras of various shapes and sizes. Of course, in Darkness there is quality, you could not tell a Canon from a Nikon. All you can tell is that there are too many of them.

We decide to head towards the sea shore. The crowds seem less that side, and guess what we are right. The main object of obsession is the orange glow of the Bardarbunga volcanic eruption towards North, and the main glacier from where the icebergs break.



That said, the night is not dark. Far from it. The moon hangs low in the southern quadrant, shining brightly. The icebergs glitter, and the whole landscape looks like another planet.


The night is here, and so are the satellite flares... and the Aurora!


Looking north. The Aurora paints the sky green, and the volcano paints the clouds red. Will the show intensify?


Well looks like it!
WE drive back to the other side, to where the crowds are. With luck we will catch the skies in the still waters of the lagoon!


The heavens light the sky green, and the fires of hell paint it red. Heaven and hell, all in the same place. This is Iceland


Waves after waves start hitting. It is not particularly a very spectacular show, but considering its the first "stormy" night of the solar kind, we are pretty excited!


During the daytime, these contraptions take you in the Lagoon, but at night, they lie like silent sentinels


Towards the East, the seven sisters are rising


Whoever wrote that "Agar firdaus" thingy never came to Iceland I guess.