May 27 - Hverageroi, Iceland

Hverageroi! This is the name of a town in the southern part of Iceland. We never did learn quite how to pronounce the word! The Icelanders we met couldn’t understand our English pronunciation and we weren’t able to imitate the Icelandic way of saying the name.

Icelanders have their own language and it did seem unusual to our ears. The words seemed soft and almost blurred together. It was unlike other tongues we have heard in our travels. However, for the most part communication was easy. Both English and Danish are subjects taught in school and most Icelanders seemed to be fairly fluent with spoken English.

In Hverageroi, we especially enjoyed the town swimming pool. It was an outdoor Olympic sized pool with two smaller hot tubs. All of the towns we visited had their own swimming pool and often a large sports arena as well. With the advantage of thermal heating, the pools are able to stay open year round. There didn’t seem to be any shortage of hot water. This was especially true in the area around Hverageroi.

The natural underground heat source has also benefited commerce in town. While growing greenhouse tomatoes and lettuce might seem a bit of a contradiction in a location so close to the Arctic Circle, in Hverageroi it is indeed a reality. I believe that the greenhouse operators have even experimented with growing bananas!

We walked lots while we were here. We circled the many greenhouses and walked around the fenced off thermal area in the centre of town, watching the steam rise from the various hot spots in the ground. Then we walked along a trail down by the river. In the past this area was known as a wool trading post and we passed by the remains of the old wool shed on the bank. Power and heat were generated from the hot springs.

It rained while we were in Hverageroi so we didn’t take pictures. However, this was the one spot during the week where we found Internet access. There was a small shopping mall consisting of a grocery store, coffee shop, two souvenir stores and a post office. When we sat on the floor outside the post office we were able to connect to an Internet server. If we walked the dozen or so steps to the coffee shop we lost the connection.

Because this was one of the few places we found with Internet access and the bonus of public washrooms, we did spend an hour or so in the mall. During that time several tour buses pulled in for passengers to use the facilities. I mention this because of the general scarcity of public WC’s for travellers.  This mall would have been the first stop for tour buses out of Reykjavik on the way to the famous geyser. I will write more about the geyser in the next post!

May 25 - Iceland (Part 2)

For our first week in Iceland we rented a small motor home. I am always aware of how fortunate I am to have Lyle as a partner making it possible for us to travel this way. Lyle likes to drive and is very capable in looking after an RV on the road. In our motor home we were able to go to many spots off the beaten track away from the routes of the tour buses

We spent our first night in Grindavik, a small coastal community on the southwest toe of the Iceland peninsula. Grindavik has a long history of ships and fishing. Some of this history was starkly visible on our hike out to the local lighthouse. A gravel path wound its way through lava rocks and it was not easy walking. Between the path and the seawall we came across several skeletons of previous shipwrecks. Huge storms and tremendous waves had thrown these ships up and over the seawall landing them at great distances inland. We found it difficult to imagine the force of nature that had made this possible.  From where we stood on the path, we couldn’t even see the ocean, yet here were the remains of ships swept up and over onto the reefs of rock.

The harbour in Grindavik is also quite amazing. When we were there, the weather was mild and so we walked for quite a way around the inlet and to one of the piers on the other side. The amazing part was that originally, the harbour construction was begun by hand. Crews of men, working with shovels and wheelbarrows, began removing the rocks to hollow out the harbour basin. Of course this work could only be done at low tide. I wouldn’t have believed it possible except that we saw a photo of the work in progress. One man stood in knee-deep water shovelling the rock. Another wheeled the barrow up a ramp and yet another unloaded the heavy cargo. Eventually the government provided funding and more serious digging was undertaken with heavy machinery. The harbour is still a very active fishing port.

There are four pictures with this post. Lyle took the first picture looking out from our motor home. It shows some of the little boats moored in the harbour. While we were there, we saw one man who had caught a fairly large fish – about one meter in length. We were too late to get a photo of this although the fisherman and his mate were busy with their own phone cameras.  Possibly the fish was a cod. Most fish caught along this part of the shore are either cod or herring.

Boats in Grindavik Harbour

We took the second picture as we walked along the trail to the Grindavik lighthouse. It shows one of the shipwrecks beside the trail. The third picture is a close up of another wreck. There were descriptive plaques beside each wreck. It was apparent that storms were more prevalent between November and February.  

 

Shipwreck near Gindavik lighthouse

Another shipwreck near the lighthouse

Lyle took the final picture when he climbed over the rocks towards the seawall. In the photo you can get some idea of the height of the wall and the water in the distance. 

Seawall

May 23 - Iceland (Part 1)

Iceland has been on our travel wish list for some time now but 2015 was the year to make the travel plans a reality. This small country situated in the North Atlantic has only recently promoted tourism as a boon to its economy. Direct flights with Icelandair have certainly helped in making the country a more viable option for tourists. However, we found in our travels that accessibility for the average tourist still has a way to go. The country is not yet set up with the conveniences that the North American traveller has come to expect and take for granted.

We flew to Iceland with Icelandair and didn’t enjoy the flight experience. The service of the cabin crew was poor. I was ready to make a judgment of the whole airline based on this experience, but then on our return flight the crew couldn’t have been more helpful. They were totally aware of the significance of my white cane and were also supportive and considerate of the several young families who were on board.

We arrived in Keflavik on a beautiful sunny day and Lyle drove the short distance from the airport to the Blue Lagoon. The Lagoon is one of the country’s major tourist attractions. It is a huge pool of thermally heated water and we knew from our guidebook that in order to keep the water as clean as possible there were strict regulations about showering before entering the pool. I was quite concerned about finding my way in an unfamiliar change and locker room. In the end we were shown to a family/handicapped room which we had to ourselves. I was so concerned about the process of all this that I didn’t realize until later that we had received a disability discount on the entry fee. The normal admission prices for the Blue Lagoon are quite high.

We enjoyed the water and the sulphur smell wasn’t too overwhelming.  I stayed close to Lyle because the rising steam made it difficult to see. There were a couple of spots in the pool where the water was intensely hot enough to burn the skin. I enjoyed it all but Lyle found that the water was very drying for his skin.

Once we were back in our warm clothes, we followed some of the gravel paths around the area. I found this even more interesting than the pool. The ground was covered with black lava rocks. It was a strange landscape – the barren area of rock with the modern pool complex and also a thermal power station close by.

There are two pictures accompanying this post. The first shows me standing in front of some very large lava rocks. These rocks line both sides of a pathway leading from the parking lot to the Lagoon.

Sue in front of some lava rocks

It was impractical to take our camera into the pool itself but the second picture shows me standing on a little bridge between some of the nearby minor pools. The thermal power plant is in the background and there is a huge cloud of steam rising upwards. 

Sue in front of thermal pools