Author Archives: Andrew

Saturday was when our tour really delivered on its “fire and ice” moniker. We started the day at the Jokulsarlon glacial lagoon, where an edge of the enormous Vatnajokull glacier calves off into the sea. Whereas 100 years ago this was happening quite close to the sea’s edge, the point at which the icebergs fall from the glacial edge has progressively moved back, and they now fall into a lagoon of mixed salt and freshwater where they tend to hang around for a few days before drifting out to sea. Apparently the edge of the glacier is retreating by a massive 200m per year (due more to the effect of the incoming salt water than global warming), making this the fastest-changing glacier in Europe.

This has famously been used as the location for two Bond films, most notably the car chase in Die Another Day. The problem is that due to all the salt water, it doesn’t usually freeze even in mid-Winter. So they temporarily blocked up the lagoon outlet to stop extra salt water coming in, and waited three weeks for the lagoon to freeze. Why they couldn’t just find a suitable frozen lake somewhere is a good question, so far unanswered.

It is a very dramatic location for photography, with all the shapes and colours in the ice, and under constant change as the ice moves, often twisting and tumbling suddenly as the balance of the mass above and below the surface changes.

After lunch we headed up the coast via another, much calmer glacial lagoon to a waterfall surrounded by basalt columns. Unfortunately we got there just the same time as a bus load of grockles who all wanted to sit right in the middle of the stream for about 1/2 hour having their photos taken… Grr 🙁

The last stop before dinner was a quick walk up alongside the glacial tongue right behind our hotel. This was useful to get a sense of the enormous scale of these, and then try and imagine that each is only a tiny corner of Vatnajokull.

After dinner it was back to Jokullsarlon for the “fire” part of the day – a once a year fireworks display over the lagoon. This was brilliant, and I hope I’ve done it justice.

Sadly, it’s the long drive back to Reykjavik tomorrow, with limited photography, and then home. However, it’s been a wonderful trip, with an amazing and unexpected variety.

This is a small iceberg floating in the Jokullsarlon galcial lagoon – see post above for details.

Saturday consisted of various views of the Vatnajokull glacier.  Here’s one taken by shouting “stop” at Finn when we saw a puddle which reflected this glacial tongue in good light. Thankfully his quick reactions didn’t cause an accident.

Here’s another view of the field beneath the Foss a Siva. I loved the light, and the simple colour palette, and just wanted to share this with you.

We continued our move south-east on Friday, moving from the highlands down to the coastal strip, and round Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajokull.

We spent the morning at Landmannalaugar, which is a popular destination for all tours, so there were lots of other people, whereas we’ve been almost entirely on our own at most locations since leaving Gullfoss. I’m not sure I understand why Landmannalaugar is quite so popular. It’s pretty, but not as dramatic as other sites we’ve seen. I suppose the fact that it’s accessible on fairly easy roads and that it serves as a good jumping-off point for several hiking routes explains it. Anyway, we did a nice circular hike which would take a determined hiker about 1 hour, but kept a wander of photographers (is that the right collective noun? :)) entertained for about 3!

After that we drove south over the edge of the highlands, capturing various mountain streams on the way, and down to join the ring road near the south coast. Last stop of the day was the “Foss a Siva”, a delightful waterfall / cliff / meadow combination in near perfect late-afternoon light. That’s the shot for today.

The remainder of the drive was interesting for seeing the enormous Vatnajokull glacier gradually being passed on our left, while we travelled through the rugged Laki lava field. This is the outpouring from the 1783 eruption. It’s about 40km wide and totals  something like 16 cubic kilometres of lava, the largest from any single eruption in recorded history.

Saturday will be glaciers, glaciers and yet more glaciers, ending with a firework display on the glacier at Jokulsarlon.

… and I don’t mean the nice ham and cheese one I had for lunch! 🙂

I asked for a less dramatic day today and got it. We started with a relatively short drive through a completely empty black sand desert. Apparently the sand and the layer of lava below it are so porous that the substantial rain and snow drain very rapidly through to the next non-porous layer. Combined with Iceland’s low temperatures and high winds this creates completely barren areas but where the water gathers they are dotted with large rivers and lakes providing oases of fertility, and welcome splashes of colour.

The weather was glorious, sunny, calm, even relatively warm (about 9C), and the visibility was amazing, with distant peaks and glaciers clearly visible.

During the middle of the day we moved into an area known as Vatnaoldur consisting of a large number of these lakes separated by slight ridges providing panoramic views from colourful foreground right to the mountains and glaciers in the background. Lunch was taken in a charming little spot by one of these lakes.

However, our guides, and Iceland, were just lulling us into a false sense of security. To get back we had to traverse another enormous desert area. This was an impressive demonstration of our drivers’ skills, as it occasionally meant navigating the jeeps over large areas of bare rock, and it provided a couple of interesting photo opportunities at interesting rock formations.

The wind was starting to get up, and by the time we made the last stop of the day (a waterfall, surprise, surprise) it was almost too strong to stand in holding a camera steady. However, the forecast is good and we’d had an excellent day, a real “desert sandwich”.

One of Thursday’s shots, showing the sparse vegetation a near a river contrasted with the black sand desert behind.

Wednesday was a fascinating and rather eventful day. We started off gently enough with a group of locations around Landmannalaugar which were a combination of black hills streaked with almost fluorescent green moss, and colourful tarns surrounded by black, brown, green and red rocks.

After that, we headed for Hrafntinnursker (=”Obsidian Skerry”). At last we were off roads which could be handled by any reasonably capable car and into an environment really suited to the super jeeps. The first highlight was a small hilltop half-way up the mountain which has a commanding panoramic view of much of southern Iceland, including ten of the country’s thirteen or so glaciers.

A mile down the road was a deep river and Haukur decided it would produce good promotional material to have our jeep going through it while he took pictures. This started well enough, but we suddenly hit a deep patch, the jeep canted over to 45 degrees and the engine cut out. The other jeep was back down the hill remarkably quickly and towed us out, but not before my corner of the car had started to fill with water (the level of the river was only a couple of inches below my window). We had a few wet feet, but the cameras were dry! The guys decided to leave the car and have it checked by a mechanic before attempting to restart the engine (turning a flooded diesel can cause a lot of damage) and we continued in a single jeep.

We eventually got to Hrafntinnursker, which turned out to be an absolute photographer’s heaven, and the fact that we had to spend some extra time there while the jeeps were sorted out was a benefit rather than a hardship. In one small area you have the edge of a melting glacier, a load of very active geothermal vents, a mixture of rocks including large quantities of obsidian, and both hot and cold running water! This is genuine “fire and ice” as per the tour’s title.

The second event of the day was of my own making. I tried to cross a small stream and as I placed my foot on the far bank it crumbled and I went tumbling. I was unharmed, and I managed to protect the camera so that although it got scuffed on one corner no worse harm was done. What’s a well-used camera without a couple of battle scars anyway? However, my clothing did not come off so well, and my brand new North Face waterproof trousers suffered what is described in engineering terms as “catastrophic structural failure” (ripping from the waist band to halfway down the thigh). Fortunately the Levis underneath were unaffected,so modesty was preserved, but there was a sudden and distinct shortcoming in the insulation department!

So great photography, but I’ll be pleased if tomorrow is as photogenic but somewhat less eventful.

This is a panorama from just one side of a small hillock near Hrafntinnursker which has a remarkable view. Bewteen this and a similar view the other way you can see no fewer than ten of Iceland’s glaciers. The one on the left in this view is Eyarfjallajokull which caused all the trouble last year. Just out of shot to the left is Hekla, its much larger cousin which geologists say may be starting to rumble towards its first eruption of the jet age.

This is a rather nice pollur (=”tarn”) near Landmannalaugar. I particularly like the red, green and blue palette. I’m beginning to get the hang of Icelandic pronunciation. It seems to mainly involve putting at lot of “t” sounds where they wouldn’t occur in English. For example, “pollur” is pronounced “pot-lert”.