Episode 5 (11th August 2007

Episode 5 (11th August 2007
Before I go any further I must just add one more bit about the Lost gardens of Haligan. It’s about the ‘bee boles’. These were in one wall by the walled kitchen garden. In two rows one above the other, each one with a dome roof, they are the forerunner of the modern bee hive. There may be a photo of them that David has loaded.
On our way to Stansted we called in to see my young friend Rebekah, her husband Barry, young son Jack and in-laws. It was good to see her again after almost a year. She is pregnant and looking really well. She and Barry and Jack are going back to Australia in September so this was my only chance to see her before they left. Rebek also cut my hair, it was much needed and much appreciated.
On a lovely sunny day we flew to Iceland from London Stansted. I got the most marvellous view of the countryside as we lifted off them Stansted. The place is almost surrounded by wheat and barely fields that have either been harvested or shall soon be. A few deep green fields of pasture for cows and sheep and some copses of trees with trees or hedges along fence lines. I don’t think I have ever had such a great view, pity I hadn’t had the camera handy. Sadly we soon ran into cloud that got more and more thick as the journey progresses. Over Scotland we still had some broken patches and could see the ground occasionally but once out over the sea it was just solid cloud. As we came into Keflavik we descended through many thousands of metres of cloud before finally getting a view of the ground through rain lashed windows. It was a very dreary welcome indeed.
We found a hostel in Keflavik that had sleeping bag accommodation available, there was nothing to be had in Reykjavik, I expect that the inclement weather had driven a lot of others indoors too. We had been hoping to camp but it was just too wet for our little tent. A short walk around the immediate area to find a shop and something for tea and although we had rain coats our boots and jeans were soaked. Wouldn’t you know it, my boots that have been really good up till this point have now decided to leak, damned if I can work out why!
Still raining the next morning but looking a little brighter none the less, we headed out to go to Reykjavik. Busses only run every 3 hours or so and we’d just missed one so we hitched a lift, the popular alternative. The trip took us over an old lava plain with the sea on one side and in the distance on the other are high hills, in front too, beyond Reykjavik. This city is like most others, the first you encounter are the sprawling suburbs with shopping centres. The elderly couple who had given us a lift let us out at just one such place but only a couple of k’s from the city centre. We walked on and the first place of interest we came too was the very large church, hallgrimskirkja, which dominates the skyline for quite a distance. It’s fairly modern and the ‘wings’ flanking the tower are built to represent the basalt columns that can be seen in many parts of the country. Inside there was some musical rehearsal going on so we sat and listened for a while. Behind the Altar the wall is dominated by the many pipes of the organ otherwise it is quite plain inside. Out front is a statue of Leif Eriksson that famous fellow who was the first European to ever reach North America. Maybe it would be a vastly different place if the Vikings had settled it first.
From the top of the tower we got a great view over the city, and one of my first thoughts was of its similarity to Anchorage Alaska, but I really don’t know why apart from the fact that it is at a similar latitude. I suppose the style of building is quite similar too. Its not a very large city, around 200,000 I believe, but the centre is no more that you would find in a large country town at home except for the number of cafes, restaurants, pubs and hotels. Some boutique shops but no big department stores and no great office blocks. Both these are spread out around the city. A shallow lake had hundreds of ducks and some geese on it, and a couple of white swans that were sleeping on a small island in the middle. I expect that it makes a great skating rink in the winter months. That reminds me of another thing I haven’t seen and that is the posts that you plug your can into to keep the battery warm. Just about every parking space is Alaska has one so that you can start you car during the winter months. Not one to be seen here so presumably it does not get as cold as Alaska.
With rain threatening yet again we found the Volcano Show and went it. We were met by the film maker himself Willi Knudsen. (think I have that right). He is quite a character, he asked where we were from, when we told him Australai he asked if we’d got lost. He also showed a sense of humour in the commentary of the film. When one eruption started and there was a fissure several k’s long a sign was erected warning people to stay well clear of the area, Willi said that it was the best advertisement the place could get, all the tourists knew exactly where to come to get up close to the volcanic activity.
The film showed some spectacular explosions along that fissure, around 6k’s long it was. All its length it was spewing forth great fountains of molten lava and to get the photos the ground was so hot to walk on that one could not stand still. I’m not sure if that was from molten lava below or from the stuff freshen fallen from the fissure. Either way its a wonder no-one was injured as this stuff has a temperature of over 1000 degrees C. Wouldn’t want a bit of that ‘hot stuff’ going down the back of your neck:
A second film was on the formation of the Island Surtsey off the southern coast. It happened in 1963 and started out as a great fountain of boiling water spewing upward out of the sea 18k’s off the coast of another Island, Heimaey. It is now an island covering 4sq k’s (I think that is what he said) and is very closely studied by a team of scientist who are watching to see how life begins on such an island. No one is allowed to settle there but even while it was still forming there were scientists making excursions there to check it’s progress. It was a crescent shape to begin with, the sea filling the creator from one side, but now it is almost round.
The last film was about the eruption on Heimaey where there was and still is a fishing village. Here the ash filled the streets burying some houses and the lava flowed down and nearly ruined the harbour, while great lumps that were thrown from the long fissure set many houses alight. Most of the families were evacuated and a great many of their belongings too. This was all done while the volcanic ash was falling like black snow and lumps of molten lava dropping like great fiery hailstones. The backdrop being the great red fiery fountains from the fissure brilliantly lighting the dark winter skies: After months of erupting it finally stopped and the people began to clear away the enormous amount of ash filling the street. They had stopped the molten lava from ruining their harbour by pumping cold sea water onto it. Millions of cubic metres of sea water in total were used, pumped by massive pumps brought in from where ever they could be had, but the whole process had begun as an experiment with just small pumps from the fishing boats maned by the fishermen trying to save their harbour and their lively hoods. It had been successful. The eruption had begun early in the year 1973, but before the summer was over the grass had come up through 15cm of volcanic ash and the flowers were blooming again.
In the late afternoon we caught the bus back to Keflavik, the 50k journey cost $22 each, I was glad we’d got the lift in the morning, saved ourselves $44. This place sure isn’t cheap.
Next day we collected our hire car around 1pm and set off on our journey around the Island. The sun was shinning, a chilly wind was blowing but altogether it was really a beautiful day. The first place we visited was the site of the original parliament the AlÞing of this land. That was in the year 930AD and was really a meeting of tribal chieftains who made all the important decisions from marriages to enacting laws affecting all. It was here that Christianity was accepted as the national religion around 1000AD. It continued this roll until infighting got so bad that the King of Norway stepped in and took charge in 1262. It continued in a strictly judicial way until 1798 when the AlÞing was shifted to Reykjavik and soon stripped of its powers entirely. It was not re-instated until 1843, then it chose to stay in Reykjavik. Iceland gained independence from Denmark in 1944.
Not only is this site of historical importance but also geological as sits in the rift formed by the two tectonic plates, the North American plate and the European plate. These plates have drifted apart (continental drift) approximately 4 metres in 1000 year. On the western side is a sheer cliff of about 20 to 25m high then a floor that makes a good walking path, up to 20m wide, then a much lower cliff rises about 8m then a more gradual slope leads down to a stream, but there are still more deep rifts here and there in that slope, a metre to 3m wide. It really is quite spectacular. The stream at the bottom gently cascades down to the lake that is one of the largest in Iceland. It’s a stunningly pretty setting. Beyond the stream on a high bank is a small church but in is not all that old, in the grave yard are buried some of Iceland’s most important poets.
There are many Sagas about Icelandic families and some of them started from meetings at the AlÞing. That letter in the middle sounds a bit like th.
It was even a sunnier day that we passed near Snaefelljokull Ice field. We could see the glaringly white ice cap on the mountain in top the bright sunshine, with a low layer of cloud creeping over the higher parts. In places on the cinder slopes great pinnacles of lava stick up like giant sentinels stranded in time on the gravelly slopes. This Icefield and the volcano it covers is said to be the setting that inspired Jules Verne to write “Journey to the centre of the earth”.
On the western side and near the little town of Hellissandur there is a small church that is famous for housing some of very old painted wooden altar pieces and some heraldic tombs. Sadly the church was locked and like other tourists there at the time the best we could do was to peer in the windows. Could not see anything historic but the ceiling was painted blue with many gold stars. It was the first concrete church built in Iceland.
The town itself has an interesting maritime museum. Part of the display is a turf roofed hut that is a replica of an old original fisherman’s hut. It had a brick fire place and once that was going I expect that it was lovely and warm inside as the turf roof and thick walls with turf some way up the sides would have made very good insulation. Don’t know what was used to burn in the fire as there are no trees in Iceland, only what has been planted in quite recent years. Probably coal was imported. Sadly all the original huts were pulled down in the 1950’s and replaced with modern housing with central heating and inside toilets and bathrooms. Ah! The price we pay for modern conveniences:
Also on display is an old fishing boat that required 8 oarsmen to man, and a more modern fishing boat with an old inboard engine. I looked at both these boats, neither of which is very large and then considered the weather that these people went fishing in and have a great respect for them as even on a good day in summer the water is bitterly cold, despite the warming effect of the Gulf Stream. It’s not that dam warm by the time it reaches here: These are a hardly people indeed!
We have travelled mainly along the narrow coastal plain with the deep blue sea on one side and the high volcanic mountains of the other. All along the way there are numerous waterfalls, mostly small but they have cut deep chasms through the soft volcanic ash. On the higher mountain slopes there are patches of snow and this is the height of summer. There was a nice frost this morning.
There are plenty of farms with pasture fields. Silage has been made and wrapped mostly in white plastic then collected and stacked in great piles near barns or left scattered in the fields looking like very white giant sheep grazing. Plenty of the real sheep too, and they come in all colours, with black and brown being quite common. Saw a few of said sheep grazing seaweed on the shore in one place. Seen some cows, dairy ones, and plenty of the small Icelandic ponies: These latter are the descendants of those brought many centuries ago: Horses have not been allowed to be imported for hundreds of years with the result that the ones here have unique qualities that are now found nowhere else. One of those qualities is their 5 gaits. One called the ‘tolt’ is very smooth apparently; I have not ridden one myself.
Near the tiny village of Rif there were thousands of a type of small sea gull. They were in crowds on different parts of a small lake but also they liked to sit on the road, I expect that the tarmac was warm and they liked that, anyway they would not move until we got right up close then at the last possible moment they would fly off even with car horns blaring at them. It is no wonder that many of them had been killed by passing traffic. Where many were gathered on a small rocky knoll we pulled off and watched them, they are beautiful. Much smaller than the gulls and terns we are familiar with they are white with black heads and red beaks and almost a swallow shaped wings. They look so incredibly graceful in flight. We tried to get some video and photos of them.
In Stykkisholmur we took a 2.25hr boat trip to see the bird life on some of the many small islands nearby. We were quite lucky with the weather as it can be even more unpredictable here than in Reykjavik. It was sunny with some cloud and out on the water it was quite windy too so everyone was well rugged up even the locals and a group of Canadians, not just us.
We saw plenty of Puffins which I had been longing to see, I just love the look of these birds. They have lovely faces and large red webbed feet. Twenty million of them come to Iceland each summer and nest here. They take two years to build a burrow; it’s about 2 metres deep and has two chambers one for the nest and one for the toilet; Even birds can be civilized. Presumably they come back to the same burrow each year after going to all that trouble but I can’t be sure. Another bird we saw was the fulmar; these are the smallest of the Albatross family I think our guide said. These birds have the charming habit of vomiting on anyone or anything that gets too close to them. Others we saw were kittihawks, eider ducks (the ones they used to use to make eiderdown quilts), cormorants and shags, the last two may have been the same bird. We did see a shag feeding its chick, the chick put its head right down the parents neck. I tried to get David’s attention so that he could photograph it but I sadly failed there. A few grey geese and plenty more puffins in another place.
There are a huge number of small islands and islets here but only those with grass on them have been named. There used to be farms on some but they have all been abandoned long ago, now there are only a few summer houses, no-one stays all year round any more. Here, they have 5 to 6 metre tides and on one side of these tiny islands the water can be 2 metres higher than on the other and the tidal surge causes whirlpools and eddies and some very rough water in places, no place to get caught in a small boat.
Our boat dropped a small weighted net overboard and scrapped the bottom for s short distance then pulled it up to show us what can be found on the sea floor here. Plenty of empty scallops shells for the most part; along with some full ones which we got to eat after the crew opened them for us, some sea urchins, I didn’t get to try them, a few star fish both large and small. One of the star fish was bright blue, and the smallest one was bright red. The few small crabs all seemed to be male. Some little hermit crabs too, a few muscles, and a whelk or two. Apart from the starfish that appeared to be injured from the haul and the urchins and scallops we ate all else was returned to the sea alive. Probably be pulled up again in a few days time for another load of tourists.
It had been a really enjoyable trip even if it was really expensive for the amount of time. Our boats captain was a young woman, she was also the guide and had two young men as crew, and a girl to serve in the snack bar.
©Lynette Regan 13th August 2007