A Land of Ice and Fire

Full disclosure: Iceland is a wonderful place. Seriously. Go visit.

You might think that with a name like ICEland, we'd be ready for the cold. You might also think that we wouldn't plan a 500km drive on unfamiliar roads right after a late night flight that only lasted 4 hours, 3 of which were spent not sleeping. If you thought such things, you'd be wrong.

The idea originally was that Iceland would be a nice place to visit if things worked out, so it went on the list of countries to visit if it's not out of the way. It turns out that the cheapest way to get from Halifax to London is via Iceland, and so we decided to make a week of it, driving around what's called the 'ring road', and catching up with some of the sights.

The first day is a haze, so there aren't any photos. Primarily because I was driving, Anna was sleeping, and we didn't stop anywhere along the way, except for me to snatch an hour or so snooze. Also the weather was atrocious, and neither of us felt like braving the elements for a picture of fog.

Vatnajökull is a ridiculously large glacier that covers more than 8% of the whole Icelandic landmass. There are a bunch of volcanoes underneath it. We decided to see one edge of the glacier as it flows towards the sea, into a lagoon. Behold, Jökulsárlón:

Thank goodness for those jackets.

There were a whole lot of people there, just hanging out, taking photos. Also there were a whole lot of birds:

Arctic Terns (I'm pretty sure). We'll get back to those in a sec.

A Skua contemplating the meaning of life. Probably someone else's life.

Some sort of duck, and her friends.

Another one of the lagoon, just because.

The lagoon is visible from the main road. It flows into the ocean a couple of hundred metres downriver, so icebergs that are small enough float down the river into the ocean, and are promptly washed back on shore.

They're kind of slippery. And kind of large.

Anyway, back to the arctic terns. There were heaps of them, filling the skies as they swooped down to catch little fish in the river, then flew back to their nests, which were just sitting there in a field by the car park. I wondered idly how they protected themselves from predators, if they're all nesting there. Walking back to the car we found out.

Nathan, if you're reading this, you may want to skip the next paragraph.

It turns out that they dive-bomb. Not actually dropping things (that'd be silly) but more like kamikaze pilots. Birds started making angry sounding noises at us, and flying towards us in a threatening manner. Our stroll back to the car park became a run, as innumerable terns attempted to see who could swoop closest to our heads. Despite our waving arms, one managed to get through our defences and took a nip/scratch out of my scalp. I suppose being a taller target, I was the one to get that particular souvenir. No photos of that, you'll be pleased to hear.

The next day we drove to a little town in a fjord called Stöðvarfjörður. What are those fancy letters there that look like a cross between a d and a t? We had the same question. Apparently it sounds like the th in them. The other fancy letter that they use is the þ seen in words like þingvellir. It's also a th sound, although it's a th as in thistle.

This is what much of the coast looks like. Rugged as.

Struggling to eke a living out of the land.

There are countless waterfalls dribbling over the edge of the plateau, most nameless.

The weather was pretty terrible, if we're honest, at least for this part of the trip, so apart from driving, and injuring myself on the head again, we didn't do much, until we got to Akureyri.

We stayed in this room for a couple of nights.

Because of the way we'd scheduled our itinerary, we backtracked a bit. Here are the highlights of the north of Iceland:

Goðafoss. (foss means waterfall. True story)

That lake is actually a powder blue colour. Also, not for swimming in.

F road.

We took one of the F roads to try to get to see one of the larger, more spectacular waterfalls, and it took us an hour or so of this driving through terrain like this. It would have been spectacular if we could see anything.

At the end of the road, we came out next to a place called Ásbyrgi. The guide said it was a horseshoe shaped canyon. Boring we thought. We were wrong. It also had biting insects! And sunlight (finally) which warmed our hearts and bones as we wandered along a path, past vertical rock walls and spindly trees to this spot:

Tiny people for scale.

Bigger person for scale.

The thing about Iceland is that during the summer, the sun never really sets, only goes into an extended twilight, and sort of comes out of it again at 'dawn' at around 2am. We decided that there were enough sunlight hours to see that spectacular waterfall we'd driven along the F road to see.

Because it had been raining for a while, the trail to the viewing area was damp.

I was there, see?

Here's one from the drive back, just showing how strange the landscape really is. I kept thinking that this is what Mars will look like if it's ever terraformed, with all the stunted plants and rocky scenery:

This will have to do for the first instalment - stay tuned for more Iceland soon! Hopefully.

The Bright Side

I am sorry - I have left you languishing in misery from the last post for longer than intended. Finally, however, it is time to focus on the bright side of our travels in Canada! So bright, in fact, there are 14 good things vs the 11 bad from last time!

Turn that frown upside down!

1. So much sunshine! Many summer days over 20 degrees.

2. Waffles.

3. Scoring some $4 (CAD) jandals from Walmart. Bargain!!

4. Cheaper fuel prices.

5. Kitchens in our places of accommodation = cheaper and healthier food!

6. Hearing Brooke Fraser's "Something in the Water" playing in a grocery store in Victoria.

7. Nice and relaxed driving style on Vancouver Island - nobody seemed to be in a hurry, so it was a good place for both of us to start practising to drive on the right side of the road.

8. Anna's ginger thins! If I were a ginger... No, that thought is too terrible to complete.

9. The cutest honey container.

10. New and exciting cereals to discover! Definitely one of my favourite things!

10a. On that note, though not strictly Canada, since I discovered it in the UK...

SPECIAL K PEACH AND APRICOT!!!! SOOOOO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!  !!!!!

11. 11am check-out times. It's the life! Somehow checking out at 11am is so much easier and more civilized than at 10am. And although one may argue that starting late wastes the day, when the sun is setting at 10pm it doesn't really seem that way!

12. Flowers at Victoria airport. Nice way to brighten up the place!

13. The secret to discerning how many stars a hotel has. In The Dark Side, I mentioned our stay at a 1 star hotel. It had one chair outside, identical to the ones in the photo below, except that it had a crack down the middle. Then, what did we find at our next place, a 2 star hotel?

Two chairs!

I think that my argument is so powerful it's not necessary to talk about it.

14. Our stay at Knotty Pine cottages. So rustic! And cosy! And with a great view!

Rustic!

Cosy!

 Part of the stunning view from our deck.

Now we are all in a better mood, and well prepared for a whole new country...

The Dark Side

So far, you may be forgiven for thinking it's all been sunshine and waffles for us while travelling. Forgive us - that is a dishonest impression. We may have been skimming over the negatives and picking out the highlights... but not in this post! Behold.

The dark side of Canada.

Eleven things (feel free to commiserate in the comments section):

1. First there were the blisters... but then my feet toughened up.

2. Days without milk, especially near the start. This meant milkless coffee, and milkless cereal. What an existence!! Who would have thought that getting UHT milk in Canada would be so difficult?



3. Deadly dangers, like potholes (already referred to in a previous post; pictured here again for your convenience).

4. Days below 20 degrees, in summer months!

5. Biting insects. Swarms of bloodsuckers, mostly attracted to me!

6. Health woes. We both dealt with a sore throat, on and off, from Quebec City until Prince Edward Island. There has been an occasional headache, too. Woe, woe!

7. My jandals broke, and I had to buy some new ones from Walmart. I don't know how my old jandals feel about that, and I wasn't able to ask them, because they're dead.

8. Irregular mealtimes. Breakfast at 11am, lunch between 2 and 4pm, dinner anywhere between 7 and 10pm...

"I can't smile for this photo. It's 3 o'clock and I want some lunch."

9. Some of the roads in Canada. Even some of the highways - it was like driving on Christchurch roads!

10. Fellow accommodation residents. This needs subcategories.

10a) The 2 sleeping roommates. In L.A., we stayed in a 4-bed mixed dorm room, and managed to nearly entirely avoid the two others: when we went to bed, they weren't back yet, and by the time we checked out at 11am they were still asleep in bed. I never thought I'd see the day I was up earlier than someone else, and finding it inconvenient to try and still be quiet and pack in relative darkness!

10b) The loud, laughing, yelling North Americans down the hall from us in Vancouver - it sounded like a bachelor party or something.

10c) The loud, semi-regular noise-making hotel neighbours. It sounded like they were chopping a big pile of carrots.

10d) The smoking neighbours (which I think was prohibited); the acrid stench of the fumes seeped into our room from theirs.

10e) The obnoxious fellow patron at breakfast at one hotel. John and I were perfectly content with the two types of bread for toast, along with appropriate spreads; chilled pancakes which could be heated, along with maple syrup; three types of cereal; eggs; bagels; coffee and tea for drinks. This man, however, complained (at times jovially, as if that excused him) about the lack of muffins, omelettes and fruit. "There is no food!" he said to the staff lady in charge of overseeing breakfast. She was so good-natured, laughing along and apologising. "You are my witness!" he said to her. "Where is the fruit? No omelettes?! I paid for a breakfast - what if I ask for my money back, eh?" Yes, we were indeed witnesses - to his rudeness and ingratitude.

11. A certain motel. It was a one star place, and a spider greeting me as it descended from the doorframe of our room was an omen of things to come. The floor was so uneven it reminded me of Christchurch (again), and the taps were as squeaky as the opening of an ironing board. The shower temperature was volatile, although we only discovered this on the second day, when we were showering at normal people's time. The wifi was dodgy.

John and his computer search for inspiration, along with internet signal.

Most importantly, there wasn't much toilet paper supplied, and this is something, I have always felt, out of which one must never run.
On the other hand, we got two free water bottles, containing water, one of which we still have (with the water replaced)! That alone just about overrode the negatives - but we also actually had quite a comfortable stay here.

Do you need cheering up now? Stay tuned for next time!

Nova Scotia

Travelling from P.E.I to Nova Scotia was, for the most part, nothing to write home about, so I won't include that in this post. Suffice it to say that it was persisting down.

It was rather miserable.

Given that we were to be visiting a National Park the next day, and planned to be going on several walking trails, we were rather nervous about the weather.

The next day, however, was more like this:

Miserably hot perhaps, but we can cope with that.

We decided to drive around what's called the 'Cabot Trail'. Being the newly minted francophones that we are, we assumed that the trail was pronounced like Caboe and not like Cabott. A nice lady at one of the tiny supermarkets disabused us of that notion. It's Cabot. It rhymes with "carrot". You pronounce the T, otherwise why would it be there?

There's a famous walk that people do while driving around this Cabot Trail, called the Skyline. It's about 9km in the blistering heat. (The writer exaggerates - it was warm! Very nice and warm!)

You do get a view like this though:

The trail runs around a National Park (which we seem to be habitually frequenting for some reason) which contains everything from bogs to beaches.

Bog.

Beach. (OK, it's a bit rocky.)

They also had some frogs.

It's a bit of a holiday spot, but since you'd only go there during the summer, everything closes down during the winter, and things get a little run down.

Here's the view from a cabin that we stayed in for a couple of nights:

After doing the Cabot trail, we drove back towards Halifax. Our stay happened to coincide with Canada Day.

Apparently, in Halifax at least, one of the traditions of Canada day is free cake. Also free pancakes for breakfast, if you happen to be up in time. I think this tradition would go down well in New Zealand, perhaps for Waitangi day.

We went downtown to see if we could get some of that sweet free cake action. Halifax has an old historical fort in the middle of it, and this is one of the locations that was giving out the cake. We lined up in one of the lines that looked like it had cake at the end.

I can only assume that these people are tourists from Scotland who are also lining up for cake.

Unfortunately, the free cake was nearly all gone by the time we got to the end of the line, and they were giving out the last pieces to any children in the line. We were obviously too tall, so just missed out! Perhaps next time. We tried for another location that was meant to have cake.

They had some dog trials, but no cake.

Not quite unperturbed, but perturbed enough, we carried on in an attempt to find the other free thing that you do in Halifax on Canada day. Yes, that's right, we went on the ferry.

Halifax is just across the harbour from Dartmouth, and there's a toll bridge that you can take, or if you're a pedestrian, the ferry will suffice. While across in Dartmouth, we encountered a delightful musical duo!

After visiting the downtown area, we went back to our AirBnB accommodation (nice place, with nice hosts).

Peggy's Cove is possibly the most interesting little village that we visited in Nova Scotia. We didn't really see anyone there, other than the people working at the tourist places, and the tourists themselves. Apparently the early settlers in the area were all expecting to be farmers, and then when they arrived, it was all rocky, with boulders everywhere, so they had to be fishermen instead. There's a lighthouse though:

That wraps it up for Canada!