Icelandic stats

To conclude our road trip around Iceland I would like to record some statistic data. 

We, or better put Petr, drove 3,100 km in 21 days (thank you for that honey), we saw west, south, east and north of Iceland. We even touched the Arctic Circle. 

We saw thousands of puffins, many seagulls, skuas, geese, swans, oyster catchers, one seal, possibly a whale and many more wildlife forms including the Arctic flora. 

We met face to face with a handful of Icelanders, many sheep and horses. Interestingly sheep usually move along in flocks of three. This observation made me curious about sheep life :-)

Encounter

I found some answers on a very interesting site about sheep behaviour and also about sheep flocking 
followyourdreamfarm

Concerning geocaching we found 180 caches of 5 types (traditional, earthcache, multi, mystery, and an event cache) the caches brought us to various usually amazing places and served again as a guidebook. The highlight was our first event abroad we have ever attended. It was on our last night in Reykjavik and in Iceland and a bunch of geocachers of 6 different nationalities were standing in a circle at the Old Harbour of Reykjavik having a nice chat. We also met thUSA who we visited the island of Grímsey with a week ago. :-)

With thUSA on Grimsey

Puffins

Arctic tern 

Event in Reykjavik (last night in Iceland)

Reykjavík for the 2nd time

We are back at Reykjavik meaning at the end of our round trip of Iceland. It's been an intensive stay (more move) here. We learnt a lot about Arctic mature and local lifestyle and found many caches. Today we also attended our first even abroad and it was so much fun, meaning geocachers from 6 different countries and we had lots to share and talk about. 

It was a real summer day today, about 15 degrees. Unfortunately it was quiet windy in the afternoon and the wind was cold. Never mind the weather people were bathing and swimming in the sea near the city airport, We visited Perlan and the church again to enjoy the views. 

Akranes

Art of Reykjavik 

Hallsgrímskirkja

View of Reykjavik 

Hólar community

I'm We went to Hólar today. It is one of the most important places in Iceland historically. In its thousand years of existence it used to be one of the two main learning centres in Iceland, an important religious place - a witness of Icelandic conversion to Christianity and a seat of a bishop. Nowadays there is a small but compact community, a school of agriculture preparing for sheep and horse breeding, fish growing and there is also a college. Seeing just a couple of building it sounds incredible it can be such a centre. 

Hólar church

The top of Gvendarskal 

Just moss, lichen, and tiny plants ... And wild orchids

The Saudarkrokur beach 

Saudarkrokur lighthouse

Going West

When our travels reach the breaking point and the second half starts time begins to fly. Today we are making one of our last longer drives from place to place. We are leaving Akureyri for a little farm near Varmahlíd called Sydra - Skordugil. On our way we stopped at several places which geocaching pointed us at and we didn't regret. They were mostly off the beaten track spots which would stay hidden from us if traveling just by the guidebook. It was waterfalls again, wonderful views of the valley we were driving through, little forests and much more. After we got accommodated by the farmers we set off for the second part of our travels and hikes - to Saudarkrogur. There we had wonderful views of the Arctic Ocean, the fjord and Saudarkrogur and solved a mystery cache at the local cemetery, later we went down to the harbour and searched for a cache not many people could find among hanging dry fish being air and sun dried for export to Nigeria. Poor fish...

How many waterfalls can you see?

Blue Iceland 

Geofarm

Saudarkrogur 

FISK drying fish for export to Nigeria

Washing up while watching a grazing horse

Arctic Circle and Grímsey

I like talking to travelers when on the go. It doesn't happen very often as we are quite shy but in the Botanical Garden of Akureyri we met a lady photographer from U.S. and we had a very nice chat about taking pictures, Iceland and also about an island Grímsey. It wasn't on our plan but I like spontaneity and being inspired so the same day we bought tickets for the ferry going to Grímsey. It goes only three times a week and the journey takes 3 hours. 

Leaving Dalvík port

Grímsey

Puffins

Hraunsvatn hike

Hiking is our favourite activity and the best hikes of all are the hikes rewarding the hiker of beautiful views, Hraunsvatn was one of these hikes. 

The Lake Spirit

I failed in taking picture of every species I came across on my way down. There were too many of them, all in full blossom. 

Troll Peninsula

Today it was a day of driving the fjords, tunnels, geocaching, and lots of learning about present and past Iceland. 

We started at a former herring factory. It used to be a busy place till the herring disappeared in 1960's. Sad story. Overfishing makes me sad and is one of many reasons for our vegetarianism. 

 

We continued north through the tunnels and by the sea to Dalvik, Olafsfjodur and to Siglufjordur. It was a beautiful fjord trip from the rain to the sun. 

Guerrilla Knitting the First Icelandic way

Apart from the history of herring and the airplane accident we also learnt about the local system of avalanche prevention and it was a day of wild orchids. I haven't seen such a number of them in my entire life. They are so delicately beautiful.