Iceland - Day 10

Breakfast at the church was odd, it was full of English teenagers who were stealing all of the food, which seemed to be allowed as they'd give you lunch bags to fill up. But the woman restocking the shelves had to move faster than an Ethiopian on supermarket sweep in order to keep up with demand.

After food, we checked out and Mark asked the confused receptionist guy if he could use the printer. He had no idea what we were asking for, but didn't say no so we used his computer on reception and printed out our boarding passes ready for tomorrow's flight.

It had snowed overnight, there was a light dusting on the roads and landscape which turned into proper snow as we increased in altitude. This weather was by far the worst of the trip so far, heavy sleet, cold, very windy, and low visibility.

Our first stop was at the base of a volcano, despite being stood on it, we couldn't see it because the visibility was so bad, so we walked to a nearby waterfall. The rain got worse here and we got drenched. We hastily moved on to the next stop!

Somehow, the rain got worse, so at the beach Keith stayed in the car. The idea of coming to the beach was that there were some stones here akin to those from Worlds Strongest Man. The idea being that if you can lift them then you're strong enough to be a fisherman. We didn't even make it to the stones as the rain up on the cliff where we parked turned to ice and the wind was blowing us off the path. So we had a quick look around and retreated to the car again, on the way, Martin found a rock, lifted that, and if now going to pursue a career as a  fisherman.

We were now about an hour ahead of schedule and the next stop was some lava plugs. These are huge rock formations protruding from the sea. We could see them from the road, but still investigated closer so that we could get soaked some more. This time Keith and Stuart stayed in the car. Mark and Martin walked to the cliff edge and lost about three layers of skin to the ice storm that was going on. It totally wasn't worth going but they told the others that they'd seen some killer whales eating seals or something.

Onwards, and just around the corner was a sea arch, we were really stretching this journey out as you can tell, but felt as it was our last full day we needed to do everything along the route. The rain persisted and we all went to look at the arch. It was just a bit of rock really, so we legged it to a nearby cafe to warm up and dry off.

Lunch consisted of cake and a drink whilst huddling a radiator. It was -4C outside so we felt justified in our wussiness. At this point, Keith decided it was time to put on his waterproof trousers, a little late perhaps, but he'd need them later!

Warm and fed, our next stop was a big one, a glacier that we could drive up and then hike to the top. It probably wasn't the weather for it, and turning off the main road there was only one set of tyre tracks ahead meaning that only one other idiot was attempting it in these conditions. Further up the track we saw the other people's car abandoned, blocking the road, so we had to do some careful manoeuvring to get around them. We probably should have stopped at this point but why not carry on for a bit eh?

The track got much steeper with a 70m drop to the right hand side and the snow varied between 4 and 20cm. We engaged 4x4 mode and slowly ascended, however the engine soon overheated and the track got even steeper. We stopped to let the engine cool and Martin the explorer scouted ahead. The snow looked deeper and he struggled to keep his footing so we made the call to go back down.

The problem was that we couldn't turn the car around so we had to reverse down. Wisely the others got out and left mark to reverse next to the cliff edge. Keith and Martin guided and Stuart supervised. Slowly we made it back and the people turned up who had abandoned their car to say that it wasn't worth the walk anyway. It was more scary than it sounded, Hollywood will probably make a film of it, except the Americans will save us.

With that adventure out of the way, we headed to our final stop, a seal colony. This time Mark opted to stay in the car whilst the others ventured out onto the sandy beach to find that there were no seals, those bloody killer whales must gave eaten them all after all.

It was mid afternoon by now so we opted to nail it to Reykjavik where we'd be spending our final night. It was a two hour drive stuck in traffic as much as you can get stuck in traffic in Iceland and then we checked into our hotel. It was still raining so we collapsed to recharge the batteries and warm up for a bit.

For our final meal we had our free burger meal earned from when we were last in Reykjavik, so we cashed that in. Four awesome BBQ bacon burgers later and we were licking our lips. So much so that we had another burger partly because the first burger was free and partly because we're fat bastards. Afterwards we had buffet ice cream and then returned to the hotel for an early night.

Tomorrow we get up at 4am to catch our flight home, so that's the end of our adventures until next time. Thanks for reading and visit Iceland!

Iceland - Day 9

We arrived for breakfast bang on opening time so that we could get to the pastries first. We definitely did this then Mark had a go on the waffle machine which took about 10 mins cook a waffle that was so small that it was eaten in 20 secs. Other people turned up so the woman working there had to do overtime to replace all the food we'd scoffed.

It was a long drive ahead today so we filled up and go going. We'd stop for pics and to stretch our legs occasionally. Mark launched the drone and accidentally caused a group of horses to stampede. Oops. It does beg the question though where you could enter a drone into One Man and His Dog.

Further down the road the tarmac ended and it was rough terrain, with heavy potholes, this was hard work and battered both of us and the car for about 30km. 

We finally found tarmac again and then a garage where we stopped for lunch. Before we came to Iceland everyone told us about the hotdogs, so we thought that it was about time that we tried them. The clerk asked the most stupidest question ever: "do you want them wrapped in bacon?". A few mins later we had our dogs and was walking to the seating area when Cederics bag slipped off his shoulder making him throw his hotdog up in the air. The sauce when everywhere and he looked very sad before going and buying another.

Back in the car after hot dog goodness we detoured towards our first stop, which meant gravel roads, this made Mark happy but the others less so as he did his best Colin McCrea impression. The stop however was a dairy farm that is also an ice cream factory made from fresh dairy. We rocked up and was immediately greeted by the cat and dog, however, they were the only ones there as the place was closed. If you've ever seen Ferris Buellers Day Off , the part where Cameron finds out about the mileage on the car and screams, well that was Keith when we told him that it was closed.

We moved on and tried to put this travesty behind us, but it was a sullen mood in the car. Thankfully it was a very picturesque route and we stopped often to take in the vistas, reflections of the ice tipped mountains and marshmallow clouds in the perfectly still lakes. You just can't take a bad photo here.

We arrived at our destination called stykkisholmur. No, we don't know how to pronounce it either. Our hotel was also a hospital and a convent which is a slightly odd combo. We noticed that our rooms were doubles rather than the twins that we booked and was told that the hotel was full. Hmm, there are only two cars in the car park though and no one else in sight. The irony of the Roman Catholic hotel making two blokes share a bed...

We went for a walk up by a lighthouse which overlooked the harbour and town, it really is very pretty here, apart from the monstrosity that is the hotel/hospital/convent. Trust the church to fuck the place up.

Dinner called and as per the rest of the holiday, when we turned up, the place was empty, then everyone followed us and it was busy by the time we'd ordered. We should start charging commission for this.

After dinner we chilled out back in our rooms waiting for it to get dark. The hotel receptionist guy broke into Mark and Martins room dragging a mattress for Cederic as he'd been complaining so much about sharing.

We went northern ligh hunting later, but as per usual, the clouds got in the way :(