Iceland 2009

Our High Arctic expedition cruises' final destination was the capital of Iceland called Reykjavík, but before reaching this city, we visited Heimaey, the largest and most populated island off the Icelandic coast where we stayed for 2 nights.

Heimaey Island located south of Iceland

Heimaey became famous in January 1973 when a relentless lava flow from nearby Eldfell volcano destroyed half the town and came close to closing its narrow harbour, its main income source from fishing.

Lava at the back door

The entrance by ship into the harbour is very narrow and it took a massive effort by the town's population using sea water pumped non-stop onto the lava to halt it.

Enterance to Heimaey harbour

We climbed the still active Eldfell Volcano during our stay here and climbed some of the coastline to view one of our favourite birds.... puffins.

Climbing Eldfell Volcano

Heimaey enjoys a very beautiful rugged coastline and abundance of wildlife. We enjoyed observing this as a result of multiple exploration sorties by zodiac around the island.

Cruising the coast of Heimaey Island in a zodiac

Apart from Heimaey Island there other islands nearby as part of the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, home at this time of the year to literally millions of seabirds like Guillemot, Manx Shearwater, Auks and Northern Fulma to name very few.

Small island off Heimaey covered in nesting seabirds

As we cruised the coastline, we were also lucky to be able to follow in the zodiacs, a family or pod of Orca (killer whales) as they majestically cruised the ocean and exerted their presence on everything, including us.

Following males and female orca in zodiacs

After reaching Reykjavík and bidding farewell to our fellow 'expeditioners', the fabulous guides and Russian crew we picked up a rental car and started our exploration of Iceland as the map below shows.

Route around part of Iceland

Let me say up front that after visiting Iceland... it is definitely a country we want return to and see a much more of it because of its natural rugged beauty in so many ways.

Rugged southern coastline of Iceland

Iceland sits just outside the Arctic Circle which passes just north of the island and is a country with a very rich Viking derived history and culture and is home to over 300,000 very friendly residents.

Looking into viking history at Amarstapi

Old flow of lava now covered by very spongy moss

Iceland is also home to numerous very active volcanoes which have over time created the dramatic landscapes constantly visible once you leave the city.

Lava formed rock on coastline

Through Iceland passes one of the world's major fault lines separating the American plate from the European plate and the fault line is large enough to walk through, which was a little unnerving.

Rob looking into the fault line

The island is also the location of the original geyser, in fact we visited the town of Geyser to visit THE geyser and watch it erupt on a very regular basis.

Geyser going...

...going

...gone!

Located where it is in the far north of the planet also means Iceland is home to some of the largest glaciers in the world...

Can you spot the people on the glacier

and with glaciers come two other sights in the form of small icebergs calving into a lake in the south of the island and...

Small icebergs from Fjallsarlon glacier

waterfalls, quite a few famous and very beautiful waterfalls.

Skogafoss waterfall 

Gullfoss waterfall

All this thermal activity within the island allows Reykjavík to run on geothermal power and our last destination on Iceland as we headed to the airport for our flight to London is a result of that power generation... the world famous Blue Lagoon.

The Blue Lagoon, Iceland

Here we thoroughly enjoyed a very relaxing swim in the warm waters of the lagoon pondering the trip that was and the amazing experiences we had, and we will be back!