Iceland Day 1

It sure has been a long day - I was up at 4.30am, I left home at 5.30am and got to Heathrow in good time. Gavin very kindly woke up early to drop me off. There were no problems at check in, in these Covid-travel times that is a factor to be considered. I had time to get a cappuccino and something to eat from Pret and then met the rest of the group at the departure gate. The flight was nearly an hour late due to a change of gate at Heathrow, but it did not matter and we had a great flight by a female pilot. 

The workshop leader Lee had rented an enormous Mercedes minivan that seated nine of us and all our luggage quite comfortably, and on a trip like this there is a lot of luggage. The journey from Reykjavik down south was easy, we had a clear day with no snow falling but the ground was covered in snow - apparently this was not the case when Lee was here two weeks ago, there was little snow. I did not take any photos all day, there was absolutely no chance to do so with the camera bag in the back of the van. However when we stopped for petrol in Vik, I jumped outside and got my camera and shot this image, the one and only image of the day and a pretty poor one at that. It was a grab shot from the garage and it was the best, and only option for today!

The landscape is beautiful, barren, bleak and pure white with some of the volcanic black rocks poking through. There are hardly any trees, it feels like another world. If I was driving we would never have reached the destination as I would have stopped every 100m or so to take photos. 

We have now finally reached the hotel at 7pm. The Fosshotel Gacier Lagoon is a fantastic hotel, only about 3 years old, and as per the name is located near the glacier lagoon where we will be based for the next 3 days. My BBC weather app tells me that I am in Kirkjubaejarklaustur - wherever that is, and I won't even attempt to pronounce it! The last 15 minutes of the drive we had extremely strong gusts of wind, at times I was convinced our high vehicle was going to be blown over by thankfully with very cautious and skilful driving by Lee we got here safely.

I am now about to go meet the others for supper, so must run.