Final Day! Reykjanes:

After stuffing my face with the hearty breakfast at the Natura hotel, I had to pack up my bags and check out. Sad though it sounds on this long weekend to the north, this is the final few hours! A friendly Icelander picked me up in yet another jeep, with a couple from Boston and their young daughter... then off we went. It was another lovely day in Reykjavik.

 The water was so calm...

 Below is the Prime Minister's house, which you can approach this far without attracting any attention - it does look very Danish. One fun fact of Iceland is that the Prime Minister's home telephone is in the phone book. And it's true! It is!

 Lovely views over the smoky bay.

 Fish out drying in the sunshine - the Icelanders eat a lot of fish, dry too if you recall it gets covered with butter. It also gets exported to Africa in the main, it's the most concentrated form of protein that can be shipped long distances and stay good in heat... So what you see below is off to Africa likely!

 Monkfish below, this type of fish is called poor man's lobster - because the tail of the fish is extremely similar in texture and taste.

 Drive through Iceland style.

 Okay enough fish. The lava here is mapped in terms of age, because the lava flows over the millenia have all different levels of growth... it takes over 100 years to get moss like below. But the moss is what really starts the production of soil.

 The lake below is unique because it's thought the Russians used it to monitor activity by others during the cold war. 150 employees worked at the USSR embassy in those days and all kinds of equipment have been dredged up from this like including power cables secretly tapped into the grid. The level of this lake goes up and down with earthquake activity too, every few months it's different.

 Here's the keep on the black sand.

 It's kind of an eerie lake.

 And up here in the hills there's cloud from the ice... but it's very moody!

 Icelanders believe in Trolls and old Norsk myths say that Trolls turn to stone when exposed to sunlight. The rocks around this lake make many, many faces, all of them believed to be Trolls.

 As below, you don't even have to point it out, it's readily apparent.

 More steaming ground..

 This hot spot was very smelly.

 I love the steaming rivers!

 Fire and Ice... I wish the town where I live had so much hot water underneath.

 The mud pot below was VERY noisy, bubbling away...

 This lichen is actually in flower, the pink colour is the lichen in bloom.

 Off to a moonscape, near hear the Apollo astronauts trained in the 60s.

 And the lava comes in many colours.

 Now the rock below they had to build around at this fish processing factory - and I examined the rock but it looks fine to me. It does happen to be possessed by elves however and people have died trying to move it - or so they say. There's a few rocks like this around the country and I just hope it's OK to take a photo!

 The little house here in Grindvald has whale bones in the yard.

 Our driver has this building for his house - it dates from 1776 and it's where stopped for coffee.

 Next stop is a lava tube cave. Lava tubes are formed when the outer lava cools and the hot lava keeps moving through it - I just hope there's no earthquakes while we are down there...

 So i put this pic in for a laugh - it's me in my mining outfit - it certainly is no Calvin Klein design but we have to crawl part of the way in... and lava is sharp!

 In we go...

 It was pitch black in there! Good place to hide treasure but I found none.

 Ah! Light, we can get back out from the damp dark cave!

 Here's is everyone I went in with, the little girl was really excited for her first caving experience, the guy on the left is the guy who took us around.

 Back up on the moonscape side.

 Here is the power plant for the famous Blue Lagoon - which is the single most visited attraction in Iceland. There are several drill holes around here bringing up silica infused water, which they mix with fresh water and heat with the steam as required...It also generates it's own power.

 And here is the Blue Lagoon, which i am not going into, the water's blue colour is because the silica reflects the sky, so on better days it is much bluer. It's a big complex, very new, very posh.

 We sneaked in by the restaurant so I didn't have to pay.

 And here are my aurora pics! They are pics of pics on the spa walls - It's what I should have seen up north. Because we are so far north, you see more of the reds and purples, back home  with the northern lights, it would be rare to see reds.

 Beautiful.

 Over by the far southwest corner of the island this section of land was upturned by earthquake.

 The rock here and the distant spec on the horizon at left are the most south western points of Iceland. If you tilt yourself a little to the left, and look to the horizon, you could sail in a straight line and see no land whatsoever, until you reach Antarctica. Atlantic ocean all the way.

 Below is a statue to the Great Auk - a now extinct bird that lived out here.

 Once again in the moonscape we see a bridge over the tectonic plates.. with a river of moon dust underneath..

 And in the middle of the bridge you get one foot in the Americas and one in Europe.

 After being dropped off at Keflavik airport, I stuffed my face with yet another shrimp open topped sandwich, I kind of felt sorry for the hundreds of shrimp I have eaten these last few days... but after claiming my tax refund of 15% it was all but over. Well almost. Because as we passed over the tip of Greenland you can see the ice falling off the ice sheet into the ocean... It's an amazing sight, Greenland, with it's contrary position next to the much warmer Iceland, is just one enormous block of ice and snow. The story goes that Iceland was supposed to be the name for Greenland and vice-versa, which makes some sense, but due to the games of a few mediaeval explorers, the names got switched, and Greenland which has little green, got the oddest name of all. Because you'll be hard pressed to find trees. That said the Boston finally are worried what chaos they will find at their airport when they get home since we heard about the bombs the day before - up here in Iceland it seems so far away from all of that - they don't even have airport security for the domestic flights.

 Look at these massive glaciers flowing into the see, even from 38,000 feet as clear as day.

 Ice! Further south than Reykjavik!

 More glaciers.

 And more!

 Amazing pictures from the grubby plane window.

And that was it! A trip up to the edges of the Arctic Circle, no Aurora, but good food, amazing countryside and such nice people. They have a good birth rate, no need for immigration, no industry, no McDonalds nor Walmart, the young people aren't vacating the small towns. There's lot to like about Iceland and they are so happy - they must be doing something right. And in a few hours I will be back at work :( Who says life is fair? Hasta la proxima ves!