There’s not even that much ice here… Greenland next door has more ice and it’s supposed to be bloody grass and trees! Whoever named these places wouldn’t be able to organise a piss up in a brewery. What a stuff up.
The main consensus of Iceland is that it’s backward. Everything is the opposite of what we know. The horses for example. Their manes are lighter than their body colour and without being a horse expert, the manes seem much longer and almost conditioned. They must have Pantene Pro V in the rain here.
Secondly, the first name of the father combined with either ‘daughter’ or ‘son’ accordingly, is the product of a person’s last name. In the English sense, this Pilgrim’s full name would be ‘Nathan Davidson’ which turns out to be a pretty normal surname. In actual fact, there’s probably a couple of those living just in Sydney. It all sounds much cooler (no pun intended even though it’s stupidly cold for summer) in Icelandic.
The first hurdle for the Perky Pilgrims began at the airport. In a Griswold’s like rookie mistake, the three other Pilgrims had driven to Keflavik airport to pick up this Pilgrim after his arrival from the Faroe Islands. From there, the plan was to head straight to the Blue Lagoon. The problem was that three quarters of the Pilgrims were at one airport and the other quarter was at another. Majority rules and so the minority had to get the bus to the Blue Lagoon.
The Blue Lagoon is a big pool of geothermal spring water shooting straight up from under the Earth’s crust. For those who didn’t take geography lessons, the water is naturally hot with a hint of sulfur (can smell like rotten eggs or a dad fart) and some other minerals that supposedly make your skin felling like the tunes on Smooth FM.
A day trip around the Golden Circle where one of the Pilgrims thought it was actually a piece of circular gold. Pelican. Another of the Pilgrim’s thought Thingvellir housed techtonic / tiptronic plates. This part of the world encompassed the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates as opposed to what was believed.
Suzuki-ing up to the geysers, along to the Gulfoss waterfall (the water falls because of gravity which is why it’s called a waterfall) and into a volcano crater, what a cracker of a second day.
Drenched behind Seljandfoss and road tripping the barren country. This joint looks like what I imagine a planet similar to Earth to look like.
Amidst the barrenness are mountains and hidden within one of the crevasses of a mountain was Iceland’s best kept secret; Seljavallalaug pool. A 25-metre outdoor pool that was built off the beaten track in 1923. Much like all sources of hot water in Iceland (including our shower), the water was pumped straight from the ground. There were no more than six of us in the pool at any one stage. The benefits of mapping your own adventure.
To relieve the disappointment of coming to Iceland and not seeing ice, the Pilgrims did a tour. As a general rule, the Pilgrims will do what they can to avoid tours but this one was a little different. They were getting their ice fix, not with the help of the dodgy bloke sitting outside the apartment but from walking underneath a glacier. ‘Into the Glacier’ was constructed in June this year and it gave the Perky Pilgrims the opportunity to walk through a partially tunnelled out glacier. Europe’s second largest glacier; Langjökull. What a bloody experience!
Memory cards have already begun to fill and anticipation commenced to leave a country that predominantly speaks English as a second language to countries that have basic shapes as their alphabet or don’t take too kindly to not knowing their language. We’ll keep you up to date.
Read more of the Perky Pilgrim adventures here…