Iceland's Ring Road

     Five months ago, my sister Vicki and I flew to Iceland and rented a diesel 4x4 Duster with a tent on top. 

     Besides driving on the paved major road known as the "Ring Road", we traveled on gravel roads where 4x4 was legally required.

     To be on the safe side, we purchased an expensive rider on our rental auto insurance for gravel damage. The best time to have a gravel road all to ourselves was between 6 and 10 am.      

     Fuel stations provide free water hoses to keep vehicles clean because muddy gravel roads are common everywhere.  

     We're both athletic, independent and adventuresome, so the tent on top was an ideal choice for us to explore Iceland for 12 days -- campgrounds were usually wonderfully scenic and also much cheaper than hotels. There was usually a scenic spot designated for tenters while those of us in a campervan or motorhome were put in a parking lot.

      Some campgrounds were packed with campers, but others like the one in below photo, had plenty of space.

     We traveled the "Ring Road" mostly, but we made a few excursions off the major roads on gravel roads. This was our route for 12 days.

     Iceland is "awesome" and "magical". Yes I know they're over-used words so I'll let these photos explain my captivation with this wonderful little island country. Some are my photos, some are my sister's.

     Iceland is "in-your-face" green and mountainous! See the little barn lower left? 

See the sod-covered barn and the steel barn to its left?

     Lots of green pastures for the Icelandic horse. 

     And lots of grass cut and rolled in colorful bales for sheep, cows and horses during the long winter months.

     We drove by many pastures with more than 100 horses. When I asked a local horseman how any rancher could care for 100 horses (hooves, hay, teeth, vet bills, etc.) he explained matter-of-factly that Iceland had slaughtered many of its 70,000 horses for Russia's meat consumption before its' trade ban three years ago. Yes, my sister and I were shocked; one blemish on this country.
     

     But not everything was green, there were dreary cold rainy days when everything looked black and white.

      Despite being August, it was cold, wet and windy most days. We slept in our clothes; sunrise was about 5 AM and sunset was about 10 PM. We were usually quickly on the road (heat!!!) by 6 AM.

The reason I like this photo (above) is all the little red steel roofs on the lower right of photo in the setting sunlight (below is a close-up of the same photo).

                  Spectacular views at many campgrounds . . . perfect weather for many rainbows.

And spectacular off-road adventures; that's me in photo lower right near the cavern opening.

Another photo of the same area which was near the southern coast.

                                Black lava fields . . . 

Iceland's flora is similar to Greenland and Scotland, plenty of fungi and alga. 

Fungi and alga covered lava fields account for the majority of Iceland's flora.

We saw millions of "cottongrass" blooms. It should be the national flower but Iceland thinks a national flower is silly.

Many farms are built against a mountain . . . 

Wonderfully isolated places to hike; that's my sister in photos below.

We walked at least a couple miles every day . . . 

. . . walking in good and bad weather. 

There was always a beautiful place to take a walk for a couple of hours.

Fortunately, the tourist busses were too big to park near these beautiful places.

     This was an exceptionally nice sunset at a campground.

The Hverir is a special place too.

     Steam plumes, solfataren, fumaroles and boiling mud pots.

Pastel-colored . . . 

And glacial tongues galore!

     We ventured out on a lake with mini-icebergs with a group of kayakers -- photos coming next post.

     This seashore (photo below) is near the little town of Vik; those iconic spiral rock towers (lower left) are known as Reynisdrangar rock formations. 

      Here's a close-up shot of those iconic towers of rock.

     We drove up a gravel road (photo below) and then hiked up to the top of a mountain overlooking those iconic towers in the sea. 

     We were rewarded for that rainy wet cold windy hike! The puffins were hunkered down on a cliff in the bad weather, offering us a close-up view.

     

     We returned to Iceland mid-November on our flight home to the USA from our Eastern European adventures, spending three days in Reykjavik and staying at a hostel. We walked around the big town (doesn't fit the city-category) amidst the foggy weather; daylight hours were very short, windy, cold, rainy. Saw the former British consulate building . . .

. . . where Reagan and Gorbachev held their October 1986 meeting about a number of issues; nothing was resolved at the time. I suspect Reagan was warming up his Russian counterpart to a larger plan (his famous speech at Berlin nine months later).

This time around in Iceland, daylight hours were very short - sunrise was 10 AM and sunset was 4 PM.  We were hoping to see Northern Lights. But, unfortunately the atmosphere and weather weren't conducive to Northern Lights. Plan B was a very informative visit to the Northern Lights Center in the city where we took this fun photo of ourselves. The exhibits and film are outstanding, worth the $12 USD entrance fee. The scariest part was learning about the solar storm of 1859 and how another storm like that one could devastate our technology-based livelihood.

    By the way, I didn't predict a language problem. I had assumed groceries and road signs would be bilingual (English and Icelandic). But we were on our own at grocery stores and other places to figure out what the labels and signs said. Many younger tourists had instant translation on their smartphones, which we didn't have. The Icelandic language bears no resemblance to the Romance languages, it's long on consonants and short on vowels.

      But most Icelandic folks can converse a bit in English more so than we Americans can converse in Icelandic. Did you know that the Icelandics believe in elves? I met one :)

And my sister befriended an unhappy ogre.

More Iceland stories coming up in my next post . . . this post is just the tip of the iceberg :)