There was a new biscuit at breakfast, so obviosuly I had to try it. Someone once told me that every flock of geese has one that is better at taking risks than the others. The children have nominated me risky-goose as far as new food testing is concerned. It was a bit like a custard cream if you even care any more!!
We attempted to stop along the shoreline of Lake Myvatn for some bird spotting, but it was so hard to find a safe place to stop and then all I could see were eider ducks and whooper swans (very last week…). Keith enjoyed using the “passenger talk” facility in the Santa Fe to attempt communication with the teenagers in the back. Mixed results!!
So we were on our way north to the whales!! On the way we saw some geese on the road and a fancy house with solar panels. We are still referring to the words of Thor as if a biblical reference – the mark of a convincing (if not accurate) guide!!
Godafoss is another two sided waterfall and required a tripod to fully capture its magnificence. We saw a policeman, two tax officials eating blueberries, 3 drones and their operators (prohibited) and lots of people on the wrong side of the barrier at the top of the cliff. Sigh. There were some great rainbows and I would agree that it is a really pretty waterfall. It would be improved by fewer people.
Mila took a photo for a couple in front of the waterfall and I horrified the children by asking the lady when her baby was due. Her unphased response was three months. I thought it was a sure thing- her jeans had elastic over her tummy and she had pulled them up three times since I had been watching her! The kids were much more worried that I had just accused a random French lady of being fat!! Where is the faith??
We avoided the tolled tunnel in preference for the views and arrived in Akureyi (the srcond biggest town in Iceland). It took forever to work out the ridiculous parking as, although it was cheap, you can’t set up the app without receiving a text from the bank. We are in Iceland with only Keith’s phone roaming and our only credit card in my name. Il ne marche pas!!!!. Danny was very jealous of all the kids on electric scooters. Mila was disturbed by the enormous troll thing that they had left out for tourist to take their photo with. We found a city farm, a city waterfall and a pretty church. Then it was time for food again and I volunteered as wasp removal consultant in a yummy bakery while they put together our order. The poor girl working there was terrified of them. Next we found a fairly reasonable clothes shop with an amazing suede jacket that we didn’t buy. We were too excited sbout our afternoon activity to relax for long so we headed off to Hauganes. On our way out of town, Keith had to navigate his first Icelandic traffic lights. The best thing about them was that the red light was in the shape of a heart!! ❤
So, now we were ready for our whale watching trip. We donned our amazing flotation suits (although I prefer the autocorrect of flirtation suit!!) to keep us warm even though it was 17°C but I for one wanted hats, gloves and spare coats packed just in case. I have been cold too many times already here.
Our boat left at 2.30pm and was full of thirty-ish tourists. Most of them were part of a coach tour and seemed to think that gave them special privileges – like getting on the boat first after pushing in front of the children. I firmly dissuaded them of that misapprehension and got all of us onboard sharpish. We took our places st the right of the bow and settled down. We were expecting at least 20 minutes to get out onto the fjord and to somewhere we might see things. Mila was very nervous of feeling sick and took a while to realise she was going to be absolutely fine. Our last whale watching experience was a disaster – we didn’t see any whales and were all sick as dogs!
The weather couldn’t have been better- almost flat calm and a fresh breeze to cool the strong sunshine. We went all the way out to where other boats were reporting orcas and humpback whales . It took about an hour and by that point, I had hat and gloves on already. The fresh breeze became quite a headwind when we were moving. Almost immediately we came up to the other boats, we saw two humpback whales blowing. They breathe five times and then dive for about ten minutes. Then you hsve to guess where they are going to surfsce next – sometimes 300m away and sometimes six foot from the boat. I wasn’t keen on the way the boat moved when everyone ran to one side and then the other but I did discover that the tilt meant I could stand on the step on the far side and see over everyone else’s heads!
We saw the whales go through their cycle about five times. The driver did set off after Orcas he had seen in the distance and the spotter pointed from the crows nest to where he could see them but I didn’t see them. Danny and I were convinced we had seen black shapes in the distance but they disappeared quickly and no-one else seemed to see them. It was very surreal to see them so close to the boat – they clearly weren’t bothered by our wooden hull or the rib that was also watching them. They came up and went back down again so quickly that you didn’t really get time to focus on them before they had gone again. Such amazing creatures and such efficient boat crews to get us exactly where we needed to be more often than not.
On the way back, we were served hot chocolate and homemade cinnamon biscuits. I was grateful for the heat as I was getting quite chilly. I was sitting on the side, binoculars in hand spotting and trying to identify birds and avoiding the enormous patch of glare on the water from the sun. I saw a bigger than bird splash and pointed to it. When they came up again, Danny saw them too. They came up once more and another handful of people saw them. The spotter saw the last time and said they were harbour porpoises and they don’t like the boats so they are very hard to spot when they come back up as they swim as far away as they can. He claimed to see them come up again (he had a significant height advantage!) but I didn’t.
Company supplied wildlife checklists and I tucked mine inside my suit where it travelled slowly downwards throughout the trip until it was balanced on my boot by the end. We saw many guillemots with one or two juveniles, a huge number of fulmar- some of which flew within a foot of my face, many guls, an arctic skua (still didn’t catch anything!!) and of course some eider ducks!
Through three tunnels of varying length: 5km, 7.5km and 2.5km with only a tiny – drive across the botttom of the valley between the last two to get to Siglofjordur – or most northerly stop. Hotel Siglo is our fanciest hotel on this trip, so it is a shame that we didn’t arrive until 6.30pm and have to leave pretty early tomorrow to drive 2/3 of the way back to Reykjavik. We managed to squeeze in a visit to the hot tub on the edge of the fjord and dodged the “high end” restaurant (definition given by waitress in bow tie) in favour of the less terrifying Bistro.
Having been told by the hotel that we didn’t need to book a table, they were pretty busy when we arrived and the waitress had to do some juggling to fit us in. We were suitably grateful and in our gushing, got in the way of a man who had dressed according to the “Icelandic fisherman” template, complete with long strawberry blond hair, bushy gingery beard, local patterned wool jumper and a lovely fisher dog. He sat at a table outside to smoke his cigarette and talk to his dog. When he went to get on his boat, he tried to pull the boat between his and the quay close to the wall so the dog could get on. He was really nervous and paced up and down without jumping the gap. In the end his Daddy grabbed him and lifted him onto the boat. Then he had to lift him again to get him onto his boat. Then his tail wagged like crazy: obviously just the gaps he isn’t keen on!!
Dinner was lovely. We felt unadventurous for not trying herring since we got here- especially as we watched the whales scoffing them today, so we ordered that as our starter and even Danny enjoyed it. By this point, Mila was complaining of a sore throat and all of us were very tired, so we headed back to our rooms via the bar. The lovely barman made Mila a hot honey and lemon and didn’t even charge us. Fingers crossed she feels better tomorrow when she wakes up.
