The Icelandic Landscape

There are too many different Icelands to count. That is, you can drive around the UK for days and all you'll see is green hills, or green plains. Iceland is a relatively young country, however, and bits of it are far older than other bits. Here's the scene when we arrived in the Leifur Eiriksson Airport in Keflavik:

Flat and barren but with lumps of sharp rock sticking out everywhere- lava that cooled quickly and stuck in weird and dangerous shapes. You'd never be able to walk across this type of terrain for long without at least twisting your ankle.
It was also like this in Reykjavik, although that's on a bit of a hill, and obviously it's been flattened out to put roads and houses on. As soon as you leave the suburbs it's like this as far as the eye can see!

However, it's quite different on the North coast, where we went the day after we arrived:

As usual, click any of the images for a larger popup.
This is the campsite we lived in for a week. Notice the dramatic change in scenery! This area is as old as it gets in Iceland and so there are rolling hills and cliffs, and grasses, mosses and even trees have begun to grow up. There are no large (natural) trees anywhere in the country, as it simply isn't old enough to support them naturally. The Icelandic people have planted a lot, though.

It's interesting to note that it never gets any darker than this in the summer. If the mountains hadn't been in the way then the sun would never have set! Travel tip: If you're going to Iceland, take some kind of blindfold.

This isn't the only thing you can see in the North, though.

This is pretty much a desert. Driving at 40mph in a coach along this type of ground is rather bumpy! No, there wasn't a proper road, just a well-ridden track. It's still in the North, but away from the sea, where there's less water during the summer months. Eventually one day I guess this'll be green and full of plants and trees as well, but not yet.

This is near a place called Dettifoss, which is so far from anywhere it doesn't have electricity or water, and the only building is a little toilet shack that's only really a hole in the ground. It looks just like a lunar landscape - the desert would have looked like this now if it wasn't made of sandstone, which has crumbled away over the years.

There's still some signs of life even here, though, and here's a sneak peek at something I might cover later!

Finally we head back downwards right to the South coast, and the geothermal power station near Grindavik, and the famous Blue Lagoon. The water you can see is heated to about 38 degrees C by mother nature and provides power for half the South coast. Not wanting it to go to waste, the clever people have built a spa next door and you can have a very relaxing swim in the water, which is basically a giant vat of moisturising cream. It worked wonders on all the cuts and bruises I had after the jamboree!