To put it in a word, it did not look like much. Most of the stuff was priced high and the selection was not to our liking. So we moved on to the downtown area, where we joined the Free Walking Tour of Reykjavik.
The tour guide was entertaining, due no doubt to his regular job as a stand up comedian. We were about 15 in the group and we criss-crossed our way thru the downtown area, learning a lot about the history and customs of Iceland. The tour took about 2 hours and tho' it was not the best walking tour we have taken, it was a good way to pass a rainy and cloudy day.
Wednesday morning looked promising weather wise and so we left early as we wanted to drive the Southern Coast and visit a number of places that had been recommended in many travel blogs that I had read in preparation for this trip.
Our first stop was after leaving the urban centre and driving about 30 minutes between Reykjavik and the small town of Hveragerði, at the Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant and Energy Exhibition, where in the visitor centre you can learn about how they take the steam from the ground, turn it into electricity, heat the water, and then pump it back underground, and deliver to to the citizens of Iceland. You can see the huge turbines they use to do this, in addition to all manner of displays, touch screens, informative displays and nifty gadgets.
During the course of the 20th century, Iceland went from what was one of Europe's poorest countries, dependent upon peat and imported coal for its energy, to a country with a high standard of living where practically all stationary energy is derived from renewable resources. In fact, Alcoa and other primary aluminum manufacturers (a process that requires the use of much electricity) built smelters in Iceland because of the low energy costs.
Iceland is located in one of the most tectonically active places in the world with over 200 volcanoes and 600 hot springs. Of the hot springs, there are 20 that are high temperature steam fields of at least 150 degrees C, with some reaching 250C. The geothermal energy harnessed from these steam fields are used to heat houses and provide hot water in abundance.
In 1907, a farmer ran a concrete pipe from a hot spring that led steam into his home. In 1930, a pipeline was constructed in Reykjavik to heat 2 schools, 60 homes and the main hospital.
Beneath the visitor centre is located a large high temperature source of water and in order to access it, they are drilling down about 3000 metres (roughly 2 miles)! There are plans to drill further (5000 metres) to access even hotter sources of water. The hot water is sent to a steam separator which then is used to a) heat colder (closer to surface water) and b) to be activated in a turbine to create electricity.
The hot water is sent by pipeline 27 Kms to Reykjavik and in that journey only loses 2C of its heat. The pipelines in the district heating system created by this project are over 3000 Kms long, roughly the distance from Reykjavik to Milan, Italy. The amount of water running through the system in one hour at peak usage is equivalent to the water that would fill 440 large oil tankers. Almost 100% of the homes in Reykjavic are supplied with water and heat through this system.
To put it into perspective, the cost to a consumer living in a 100 sq. meter residence, is about $100 Canadian per month for all his heat, electricity, hot and cold water; i.e. in a 3000 square foot home in Canada, it would run about $300 per month!
And whereas in Ireland, in every apartment we rented, there were switches to turn on before using hot water or electricity of any kind (in order to conserve energy and because of the high cost); here in Iceland, the instructions for the apartment we rented were to use as much electricity or hot water as we wanted; leave the lights on if necessary, as the cost is cheap and renewable.
As we left the centre, we could see the lines of zig zag pipelines (constructed this way to allow for flexibility in the next earthquake...yes, they are expecting them every day.....yikes!) that traverse the distance to Reykjavik and beyond.
We now headed east on Route 1. Before we tell you about the town of Hveragerði, we must tell you about the area through which you are driving. It is called the heath, (defined as an area of open uncultivated land) and it is one of the strangest landscapes that we have ever seen. Miles and miles of mossy covered craggy volcanic lava rocks as far as the eye can see.
There is no life, just this mossy colour and rock everywhere. We just had to stop to really experience what we were seeing. We pulled over to the side of the road and it truly was an eye opener. Instead of what we expected as a very hard ground beneath us, the surface was in a word "spongy"! You should watch this video to really understand what we are trying to depict.
If you stay on route 1, 45 km. East of Reykjavik, the heath ends abruptly with a steep descent into the charming town of Hveragerði, and you can see lots of columns of steam rising up, here and there, in the town and in the surrounding valley, surrounded by the Hengill Mountains.
Hveragerði, whose name comes from the Icelandic word for hot spring, "hver", is one of Iceland’s most popular tourist destinations. The reason: the town is built above a geological hot spot. Throughout the year white plumes of steam stretch to the sky, which in summer is joined by the colour green. Trees grow all over Hveragerði––a green revolution of recent years––and the residents perennially work on making their town bloom.
As you enter the town you pass an area of greenhouses which have provided the country with much of its home grown produce since the 1920s.
On the right side of the road is Sunnumörk Shopping Mall, a small mall with a supermarket, bank, a Tourist information centre, a couple of souvenir stores and the reason we stopped, an exhibit called "Quake 2008". The exhibit shares the experience of the huge 2008 earthquake of more than 6 on the Richter scale, the damage it caused and how it affected local residents. There are television screens with videos taken by locals who were shopping in the centre and how items crashed to the ground from supermarket shelves.
To fully appreciate how quickly and dramatically this can occur, watch this 18 second video:
Apparently it is not the first time that the town was in the middle of a quake. A huge earthquake crack that was found at the building site in 2003 is covered in glass and visible to visitors at the centre.
The exhibition is free except for a short simulator that can be experienced by visitors. It simulates a 6+ Richter earthquake and we decided it would be something we should experience. It only lasted a minute or two, but it gave you a real feeling of total helplessness that one would experience when caught in the middle of one of these freaks of nature.
The town is also the site of the Icelandic National Gardening School which has greenhouses that gain enough heat from the hot springs to grow bananas, tomatoes and avocados.
We wanted to visit the Geothermal Park, where a short trail leads around a number of bubbling, smelly hot springs. We were told that one could buy an egg to boil in one of the pools and we thought that might be a very interesting (and kosher) experience. But in the days before our arrival, the heat in the hot springs had gone from boiling temperature down to 80C and that would not allow us this experience. So our geothermal experience of cooking (or baking) would have to wait for Thursday afternoon...more to come on that.
We had now completed all our indoor activities for the day and we spent the rest of the day on our long southern drive doing what we love most; seeing amazing nature and more of God's wonderful creations. Mountains, amazing scenery, the North Atlantic Ocean, small villages, and waterfalls galore.
Along this route there are three waterfalls that are what one would call "do not miss" highlights of Iceland.
About a one hour drive from Hveragerði is Seljalandsfoss, an incredible waterfall which falls 60 metres from the river Seljalandsá. What makes it incredible is not its height but rather the fact that where it hits the ground, there is the mouth of a cave and you can literally walk all the way around the waterfall. It is a very beautiful place and yes, you will get wet. Want to give you the real feeling...so first a short video and then two pics that we took and one that we did not take.
It was quite windy when we arrived and fortunately we had brought with gear for the wet experience of this waterfall. So we bundled up and got involved in the total experience of this walk around waterfall.
Had I not read a number other travellers blogs, I never would have known that just a half a km. up the road, there was another waterfall, one that is somewhat hidden and which many visitors miss totally. It is called Gljúfurárfoss (‘Canyon river waterfall’).
It is located within a mini narrow slot canyon and because most people often miss this site, you sometimes have the experience totally to yourself. It is hard to describe; you walk a short distance from the parking area to a cave opening. There is a small stream running out of the cave and you sort of have to walk on slippery pebbles to get inside this slot canyon. A slot canyon is one that is totally closed except for a narrow opening at the top of the canyon where you can see the blue sky above. So you are in a cave with light seeping in from above and lo and behold a waterfall coming into the cave.
I was the only one inside, and it was truly an awesome experience. I took some pics but would like to share with you mine and a much better pic that I found on the Internet. First mine....
And now some that I found online:
We drove another 30 minutes to reach Skogafoss, another impressive waterfall, that seemed to have a rainbow above it the entire time we were there. Once again you can walk right up to it and walk through the very shallow stream that resulted from the immense amount of water streaming over the cliffs.
Along the road, continuing east, you drive past Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano/glacier whose eruption grounded many flights in 2010, because of the ash that was strewn up into the atmosphere. At the time we were in Israel and our Air Canada flight was cancelled and we were diverted to a Continental flight thru Newark in order to return to Toronto. Two pics follow, the first is now and the second is while the volcano was erupting.
The picture of the farm right below the volcano as it looks today, is an amazing tribute to the resilience of the Icelandic people who seem to be able to rebound from these periodic natural disasters and rebuild their lives and homes.
Finally, we reached the very tiny fishing village of Vik where we parked and walked down to the beach. Vik is located along a dramatic stretch of coastline, between glacier topped mountains, rugged sea cliffs and black sand beaches. Vik is Iceland’s most southerly village and one of the most popularly photographed areas in the country. Here is a short video showing the black sand.
We noticed that earlier visitors had taken white stones and had printed out their names and the names of their countries on the black sandy beach. So feeling kind of patriotic (and to underscore the fact that Iceland rarely sides with Israel), we created a stone Magen David and sang Hatikvah on this remote beach on the southern coast of Iceland.
It was a long 2 hour drive back to Reykjavik. It had been a beautiful and very fulfilling day.
More to come
All the best
Fran and David
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