EuropeIceland

Iceland day 9 – The final day of adventure

By August 28, 2016 No Comments
Iceland - 9 Puffins - Me Hugging
Iceland - 9 Puffins - 1 Of Them

Hello Mr. Puffin!

What do you do on your last day in Iceland whenIceland - 9 Puffins - 7 Of Them you have already driven all the way around the island seeing everything and did the Golden Circle? The answer was very simple for us. Eric and I decided to go to Reykjavik so we could get on a boat (it did not take this captain long to get back on a boat, did it? 😉 ) and take a one hour Puffin Tour. For those of you that do not know, a puffin is a sea bird with an orange beak that mate in the summer in the cold climates. The island they are at is less than a mile out and it killed me to have to take a “day trip boat”, but that is what was available so off we went. The puffins fulfilled the one thing we felt like our trip was missing and we are both glad we did it.

Iceland - 9 Arnarker

Eric descending into the second cave we did called Arnarker

After this we choose to explore some cave south of the capital and east of the airport. We are pretty sure they were lava tube which we really wanted to do and paid for a tour a few days ago to see one on the western peninsula. Turns out one of these caves today was WAY better than the one we paid for and neither of them seem to be really well known. The first one was Raufarholshellir and it was the cooler one of the two because it had several large holes in the ceiling to let light in. The second one was Arnarker which had a ladder we had to go down, but the light went away quick and it was not as neat after seeing the first one.

Iceland - 9 Raufarholshellir - Looking At Me Through Hole

This is me looking down through a hole in the roof of Raufarholshellir cave

After the caves we all went to a church next to the sea and watched seals as the tide came in. Turns out the tide turned our rocky point into an island and I had to take my shoes off and walk in frigid, calf deep water for about 30 feet to get back. I said we were having fun….I never said we were smart lads. haha

For dinner we stopped at a nearby campground and had an adventure of a different type as we seemed to meet the only lady in all of Iceland that did not speak English. Ordering had lots of pointing and gestures and even then we did not get what we thought we ordered. We did get to take showers here and get cleaned up for our flights in the morning (I am sure the person seated next to me will appreciate this).

The last thing we saw in Iceland before we headed to the airport, was watching the sunset (at 10:30pm!) from the Bridge of the Continents. This is a foot bridge build recently over the rift separating the North American and European tectonic plates and this bridge is in a different location than where we saw the rift yesterday. The bridge itself is not a big deal, but the rift was fun because it is filled with the famous black sand. I could not resist running from one continent to the other through this amazing sand. We might have filled a litter bottle with some to take back, but don’t tell anyone please. 🙂

By the time we had dinner, filled the car with gas, packed everything up, turned in the car, and rode the shuttle to the terminal it was past 1am and that is where I am now writing this blog to entertain you. I hope you have enjoyed reading about each and every day of our trip. There are going to be three more blogs this week on Iceland, of which two of them are written by Eric and are quite funny.

Next week I will start writing about my time in Istanbul, so I hope you will continue to check back each day and see what I am up to and hopefully I am inspiring you to dream of your next travel destination.

Iceland - 9 Bridge of the Continents

I had a lot of fun runing from one continent to the other. The black sand was like being at a beach.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: