Iceland 2016

Things to know when traveling to Iceland:

• Most cars/campers are manual (out company made Kalinda test drive it with them to insure she could shift gears)
• Familiarize yourself with the road signs: yield signs, town signs, no more town signs, falling car signs, gravel coming signs, sheep crossing, no horses to name a few
• The ring road is narrow and there are many single lane bridges and a couple single lane tunnels
• Go in late May to early June to see many many snowmelt waterfalls 
• It is remote. 330,000 ppl in country majority in capitol. 
• Lots of sheep and horses
• Campsite personel are around usually between 830-11pm to accept payment. The bathrooms are very nice for campsite bathrooms (tile). Some you have to pay for a shower; some showers are included. You pay by the person who is camping and number of items (two tents, one tent, one camper on the site which is usually a field)
• Get a cycling map of Iceland. It has the most information on one map of any we came across. 
• We enjoyed driving counterclockwise even though the guide book suggested clockwise. 
• Prices are going up for everything. Everything was more expensive than the guidebook quoted that was published in April 2016.
• Hot dogs at the N1 gas stations are "cheap," but nothing spectacular. There is a hotdog food trunk on the most south western peninsula that has unique hotdogs.  
• "kull" glacier, "foss"waterfall, "fell" mountain, "fjordur" pennisula

Hole in the middle is where the geysir erupts

Gullfoss (Golden waterfall) in the Golden Circle

The camper battery died. They delivered a new one, and we had no other car problems.

Cave worn away on a black sand beach

Lunch above the waterfall

A snow melt waterfall. So pretty

Skogafoss. The middle outlook is the best view. There were 527 stairs to the top of the waterfall

famous basalt colmns

Turf houses were built with driftwood, stones, and turf at there were and are few trees for building material

Glacier tongue in Skaftafell National Park

one of the many tongues of Vatnajokull glacier

Basalt Colmuns form when lava is still flowing but the upper part is cooling. The colums form perpendicular to the lava flow

A theater in the Capitol is modeled after skaftafoss

small iceberg lagoon, Fjallsarlon

Blue ice is old ice apparently. This was one of the icebergs in Jokulsarlon

Reindeer

East Iceland Fjords

One of the small coastal towns. Each town had a church, swimming pool, and most had soccer field

Another small town

Hengifoss and snow melt falls. The snow melt made the river rushing. We had to walk across it carefully at one point. 

The red layers are clay. It is a combination of volcanic eruption then soil repeated over many many years

Hverir. Boiling mud with horrible stench of sulfur. 

The cave that was farther away than we thought

Geothermal pool inside the cave

Not a huge pile of gavel... it's Hverfell

It's the outside of a crater

Hot Spring up north

Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe

Whale watching suit to stay warm. Despite the sun, the windy made it chilly on the boat

Husavik harbor

Puffins. They come to nest on an island here. They mate for life, have to beat their wings 400 times per minute to fly but can dive 60 m deep

This is Orion. Humpback whales have unique patterns on the underside of their tails. 

There were three humpbacks and several minky whales feeding. They would dive showing their tails 

Foreground is a whale breathing and in background is tail

Godafoss

Akureyri (Northern Capitol)

one of three fish tanneries in the world. They sell mostly to Prada and Gucci

Water boiling out of the earth. 

It is harnessed and piped 65km away. It only cools to 80 degrees C. 

A no town sign

Kirkjufell.  Most photographed mountain in Iceland

Best hotdogs in Iceland

Tallest lighthouse in Iceland (maybe Europe I don't remember)

Reykjavik

Brochures and maps we picked up along the way and used. 

Leif Erickson the true first European to discover North America

If you still want more details or photos, just ask :)