Iceland

5 weeks in Iceland, that's going to be expensive people said to me. It depends.

I woke up and looked behind the curtain, clear blue sky. Yesterday had been cold and grey all day, I find blue sky exciting. I looked at my clock - 0807, time to get up. The waterfall I'd seen up the road yesterday would look even better in the sun so by 0820 I was ready to leave (ready to leave = dressed. Everything else is optional) I got to the waterfall and although there were people there it wasn't too busy so I was able to have a good walk around and take some photos.
I needed breakfast so I left the tourist car park and stopped a couple of miles up the road to cook myself an omelette - my standard breakfast so far this trip.

As it was sunny I wanted to go out walking by the sea or a fjord so I had a look on a map and picked somewhere. I'd not heard of the village or read about it in any leaflets but it was off the tourist trail and not too far and it looked like the minor road turned into a track up the side of the fjord. Perfect.

I found a grassy/gravelly pull in and got out to have a look, it was stunning, somewhere to spend the night too. A fairly narrow fjord, snow capped mountains around it and then I heard something. A whale's blow. They were a long way away but I could just make out that they were whales, and after my visit to the Húsavìk whale museum the other day, I could tell that they were humpback whales. With binoculars I sat and watched them, a group of 3 and one on its own. Until this trip I'd never seen a whale, I was mesmerised and watched them until my omelette had worn off.

After lunch I walked a few miles up the fjord, it was a slow walk as I kept stopping to watch the whales - I counted 8 at one point. There was only 1 house up the track so the whales outnumbered cars and people by 8 to 1.

Back to Bertha and I read some guidebooks to see where I might head for tomorrow and enjoyed the warmth of the sun behind glass - Iceland really does have changeable weather.

I cooked and cleared up dinner, put a podcast on and started making a wooly hat from some wool I had stashed in my van. The sky was still clear, this excited me as much as it did this morning. Clear sky and being in the middle of nowhere - that's northern lights territory.

It got to 10pm, I was tired and cold but the sky was still light. I got into bed with my curtains open and waited. 2320 and having got dark the sky then seemed to be getting lighter again. I jumped out of bed and opened the door. For the next hour and a half I watched what I think is the most magical thing in the world. I'm lucky that I've seen them before but not on this trip and not from land. There was a bit of green but it was mostly white light. It's so difficult to describe, almost like soft searchlights pulsating in the sky. With the door wide open I got into bed and watched them until they seemed to fade away. The only background noise all night was from the whales still blowing in the fjord.

Total spend today: Ikr 0

(to be balanced out tomorrow when I go to a supermarket and spend a zillion Kroner on some basic food)