Iceland

A land of sweeping contrasts, mountains and plains, lakes and (presumably) forests, fire and ice etc. In most aspects its like the New Zealand of the north where as luck would have it they also speak english about as well!

After picking up our car and sitting there for a bit just making sure that we had the whole drive on the right, sit on the left, change gears with your right hand procedure down we set off. Immediate confusion ensued, as we thought we had landed in Reykjavik when in fact the international airport is in Keflavik some 45km south of Reykjavik. Once we had our bearings we started the drive to Fluðir. It becomes apparent that on the beaten track Iceland doesn't have that much to see, endless views of grass-like covered lava fields giving way to impressive mountains in the distance. Small settlements dot the highway off to the left and right, but it is largely uninspiring. We arrived in Fluðir late in the afternoon at around 5pm and it may as well have been midday. The sun was still beating down (well shining - it was a balmy 3 degrees) and continued to do so until around midnight.

Fluðir itself is a nice little town which many people use as a base to set off and explore the "Golden Circle" - large sections of free roaming canned fruit. After the 5 mins scouting around the town yeilded little, we resigned ourselves that we would see little until tomorrow.

As I mentioned, when on the beaten track there is not a lot to see, but once you get off the road a little and follow the little tourist attraction signs Iceland has a lot of spectacular beauty to admire. Having a car was the ultimate in freedom and we could do what we pleased.



We visited most of the popular sites - Geysir, Gullfoss and other various landmarks and all were definitely worth the time. But driving around we managed to see other less well known attractions (that means they weren't mentioned in the Lonely Planet) also.



The highlight would have to be the visit to the Blue Lagoon. If we had realised just what this place had to offer we probably would have come there earlier and lounged around in the geothermal spas for longer. Oh well there is always next time.