Iceland - Day 5 November 14, 2019
What do you do when you can't sleep and its 0400am in the morning. Why you quietly get up, get dressed and go out and take pictures... I mean really what photographer doesn't do that!!!??? Well this one does.
So after trying to quietly get dressed and out the door, had to tell my wife that I was going out to try and do a better job at taking pictures than I did the night before. She rolled over and went back to sleep and said have fun.
Camera check, camera check, something to drink check, car key/ hotel key check and most importantly phone, check. Out the door and down to our car I go.
I go back to the spot I found the previous night and get my stuff out and proceed to the exact same spot on the rocks and set my stuff up. OH CRAP!!! somethings not right, what am I missing here? Oh yeah the shutter release and the cable, where the hell did I leave them. It dawned on me that they were still at the hotel sitting on the desk in the room where I'd left the previous night. Damn it, back to the hotel I go.
The plus side now is that after a few days of driving through this town I have a pretty basic idea of where I need to go and how to get there, so getting back to the hotel was quick easy and painless.
I park the car, rush into the hotel, up the elevator to the fifth floor and go into our room and of course I wake my wife. "Back already?" "Nope I say, I forgot the shutter release" I grab it give her a peck on the cheek and head out the door to take my pictures.
I make it back to my spot and take my pictures and feel a lot more satisfied at this point as I think they turned out better, it probably helped by looking up information on line before going back out this morning. I utilized my Sigma 18-250 and my Sigma 10-20mm lens to get the shots I wanted.
After re-taking the city shots I drove around a little bit and found the dock area where the fishing boats come and go, there are a lot of little shops and restaurants down through this area, thought I might come across yet another area for me to take pictures, yeah umm no.
So at this point it is time to head back to the hotel, download the pictures I just took and get warm before going out on our journey for the day. But before I go back to the hotel it's time to stop and get a couple of pictures of this Christmas Cat that was set up in the shopping/ food/ beer district of Reykjavik. My wife had told me we needed to get the picture for our oldest daughter. So I did and then went back to the hotel..
Once back at the hotel I dropped off my gear in the room and proceeded to the hotel bar to download pictures and work on this blog. The downloading of the pictures didn't take very long and finding the picture that really caught my eye didn't take long either. A few quick edits and I posted the picture on my Facebook Page, ViewBug and on Fine Art America, oh yeah uploaded to Instagram too.
Once that was done I finished the Blog from yesterday and started this one. At around 0700 went to wake up my wife and have breakfast, now we are on our way out for the day. Will add more to this Blog later today.
So after a little late start this morning, we finally hit the road, its still slight dark out, but the skies are clear and it is getting lighter.
We begin our little journey by going back up onto Route 1 which takes us out of Reykjavik towards Mosfellabaer. It takes about 20 minutes to get out of this area and we eventually are guided onto Route 36 which will take us towards our first destination of the day Thingvellir National Park. According to the GPS it's about an hour and forty-eight minutes to get up here.
As we drive up the road, the sun begins to rise and peak over the mountains in the east, at one point we see people stopping by a huge lake/ park area, so I decide to stop and take a few pictures. At this point when I got out of the car the temp outside was at -5 degrees so just slightly chilly out.
One thing to keep in mind during your travels through Iceland, there are many tourist here from all over the world. Many of these tourist utilize the tour buses to get to these locations, however there are plenty of tourist (ourselves included) that decide to rent a car and drive. With that being said, keep in mind that most people from other countries drive differently and have different expectations for the rules of the road. If you don't feel comfortable being around these people as you are driving, pull off to a parking area or off to the side of the road somewhere and let them pass. Some of these people are very inconsiderate drivers and don't care, and they act the same way when you get to some of these sites too (as I said before).
After getting the picture I wanted we continued to press on towards "Thingvellir National Park" it took about another 20 minutes to get there and to be perfectly honest with you. I wasn't impressed at all. The place was over crowded with tourist busses and other tourist driving cars and from what I can see from the parking lot, there wasn't much to see. So we pressed on.
Next stop. Geysir Hot Springs.
Geysir is about another hour and forty-six minutes from "Thingvellir National Park" but the drive is worth it, as you pass through some very beautiful scenery. Snow is on most of the mountains along the drive and there is snow on the ground too. You have several opportunities to stop at various areas along this route to check out the scenery.
Once you arrive in Geysir you will see a car park/ shops/ restaurants off on the righthand side of the road, you need to go ahead and stop here and park and then walk about the 100 meters or so to get to the Geysers and Hot Springs.
The walk to the geysers is interesting to see and smell. The smell is the Sulphur coming from the ground it's not too bad, you can handle it for a few. So the big geyser you want to see is called "Strokkur" it erupts about every four to ten minutes (4-10) and is something that you don't want to miss. I'd recommend staying there for a few minutes and checking it out for a couple of eruptions.
Once you have had your fill of the geysers you can head back to the car park or you can go check out the Geysir Giftshop. They have a variety of stuff there just like every place you see in Iceland, some of it is even geared towards Geysir. SO shop away.
Done with the geyser's? Now we move on to Gullfoss Falls.
Gullfoss falls is about fifteen or twenty minutes further up the road from Geysir so the drive is pretty quick. But well worth the stop.
When you get up by the falls you will see signage about parking availability in two different spots. I'd recommend taking the first car park if possible as it will put you right at the falls.
As soon as you are out of your car you walk up a pathway and there it is the Gullfoss Falls. My god it's impressive. Take it all in. The falls have (from what I saw) several different drops before it falls over the edge into a huge canyon and river that flows out to the ocean. Even though it was cold there, I did manage to stay outside for several minutes to get the pictures that I wanted to get (and pray they came out). Again this is a must see place.
By the time we finished at the falls it was around lunch time. Now. My wife had been told about this restaurant in the town of Reykholt called Fridheimar Tomato Farm (https://fridheimar.is/en). All of the food they sell in this place you can imagine is all Tomato based, even the drinks are Tomato based too (some of them). The drive from the falls to Reykholt is about 25 minutes and is really not that far out of the way, like I thought. The Restaurant recommends that you make a reservation ahead of time so you can get a table. You can do this by calling them or sending an email, I suggest the email as its easy and the responded back with in about 30 minuets or less.
Upon arrival at Fridheimar, the parking situation is a little confusing, but we drove up the pathway and found a place to park, they also have parking just at the beginning of the driveway so you'll need to pay attention to this. As I said this is a Tomato Farm, they have green houses all over the place here and they also raise Icelandic Horses so you get a little bit of everything here.
When you go into the restaurant you are actually going into one of the greenhouses which is actively used to grow tomato's. They'll give you a seat and the young waitress will give you a quick brief about the farm and how they are able to grow the tomato's here in Iceland. The staff are very helpful at the recommendations of what to eat, my wife and I both have the soup with some bread and I get a chicken cabob, I have a beer and my wife opts for a Tomato based drink. Honestly the chow here wasn't too bad and I'd recommend that you try to make it out here if possible, don't think you'd be disappointed.
Done with eating we begin our journey back to the CenterHotel Midgardur and our room. The drive back was uneventful, as I stopped at several different places along the way to get some different pictures that I wanted and my wife snoozed.
Back at the hotel, my wife decided to chill out and I ended up at the local record store..
"Lucky's Records" (https://luckyrecords.is/) is located right across the street from our hotel which is ideal for yours truly. I walked into the store and it was freaking awesome. The guys that run the shop are super helpful and nice too. They have everything you can imagine you wanted when it comes to Vinyl Records. They also have a huge collection of movies, cd's and cassette tapes (yes, I said Cassette Tapes). I started looking through the records they had to offer, they have a lot of the brand-new 180 gram vinyl records as well as the old school stuff too, just take your pick. What impressed me the most was the variety of music they had. Everything from Rock, Classical, Electronic, Rap and of course Icelandic (Bjork anyone!). A friend of mine asked me if I remembered to check for Bjork records and I said no, I didn't even think about it honestly (wasn't much for listening to her anyway).
Done at the record store I proceeded back to the hotel to have a pint with my wife and eventually dinner. If your curious we went back to "DeVito's" for pizza and took it back to our room.
Tomorrow will be our last road trip for us as Saturday we are due to fly out and head back to Oxnard to be with our family and of course back to the dreaded "W" word (work).