We drove south and east to see some sights we had not yet seen. We weren't sure how long we would be gone, but after one night of camping in the rain we decided to turn back. The highlight of this trip were most certainly seeing Jökulsárlón, the glacial lagoon off of Vatnajökull. But we also enjoyed seeing some birds we had never seen before, too. Here are some highlight photos from our trip.
Vestmannaeyjar
On July 18th, Chris and I spent the day in Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands), a town and archipelago off the southern coast of Iceland. More specifically we spent our time on Heimaey (Home Island), the largest and the only inhabited island of the 15-18 islands (depending on who you ask and how they are classified). Some of the other islands have hunting cabins on them, but no year-round dwellers. We took the earliest ferry there and the last ferry back, giving ourselves plenty of time to explore this relatively new island. The weather was beautiful, the sun was plentiful (which resulted in some humorous and painful sunburns on my unprepared face and neck), and because Heimaey is not very big, we felt we were able to take nearly all of it in. We walked nearly the entire perimeter of the island, hiked up to most of the peaks, spotted puffins, explored coves, and relished in the natural beauty of these islands.
Here are some photographs taken throughout our day of exploring.
sunday's hike
My husband Chris and I, along with our good friend Gunnar, joined a hiking group for a full-day excursion this past Sunday. We hiked over a few mountains to a very active hot spring area in a valley, complete with sudden pools of violently boiling water, clouds of steam that smell like sulfur, and the greenest green moss. Here are some of my favorite photos from the day.
Click on the thumbnails below to see the images full size. Enjoy!
