The flight to Iceland was very pleasant. A nice selection of movies, music and TV shows. I was able to sleep about half the flight and spent the rest of time listening to a series of Icelandic musical artists and watching Icelandic TV. Some cutting edge and racy stuff (Playing with Balls and Stella Blomquist).

Airport – customs was really easy – no forms (unlike the US), no checking bags, etc. Bought cigarettes for our tour operator Stefan’s mother (took cost off price of tour).. Met John, our guide, who had a very nice (and new for him) large white clean van. We don’t think that John drove an automatic transmission much – or wasn’t very good at it. We stopped for pastries and coffee at a very place – and food was great. Really liked the pistachio don’t. Drove past lava fields – most of this part of Iceland and stopped by a lava cave. Ryan and I climbed down stairs and walked as far as could without having to get down on all fours and crawl. We also stopped at the “Blue Lagoon” and power plant. Combination of minerals cause blue color. We crossed Teutonic plates. Geothermal energy with twelve inch pipeline.

We stopped at a memorial in a town attacked by Barbary Pirates (who came all the way from the Caribbean0. We saw the hill that was used by Clint Eastwood for ‘Flags of My Fathers’. Some farmland. Saw lots of sheep and horses. The horses look somewhat unique and haven’t imported horses in 1000 years.

Walked away on real a black sand beach (unlike NZ). Stopped for Skyr yogurt (which is made locally – multiple flavors including pear and chocolate. Saw head cheese (meat aspic) in the store.

Saw the Hekla Volcano. This was originally thought to be entrance to Hell. Source of  the expression “Go to Heck”.

Walked around a huge natural crater – very pretty! Saw ice-capped mountains in the distance – amazing views.

Stopped at combination geothermal hydroponic greenhouses and restaurant. Hundreds of high-yield tomato plants. Basil plants on every table in restaurant with scissors to cut your own. Also checked out the horses and Jaguar.

Ryan figured out how to get the audio system in the van working. This allowed ‘John to give more of a narrated tour as we drove around. Our next stop was at the beautiful Faxa waterfall. There was a salmon ladder adjacent to the waterfall.

“What do you if you are lost in a new forest in Iceland?” “Stand up”.

Saw Geiser spout (from a distance).

Visited the Guisfoss two level waterfall. Amazing

Also saw a glacial field behind the waterfall. Also amazing! Too bad that is shrinking every year

Sunday lunch was at a cafeteria near the original Kaiser for which organizers are named. We had an endless bowl of a fish stew, ham sandwich, vegetarian sandwich, and a wonderful sampler plate with different types of vegetables fish cake fried fish chicken meatball and lamb lamb. Wow! After lunch we walked down and watch the geyser several times. After that, we bought some postcards and a pin and headed out for National Park.

Good resources re Iceland are south.is and north.is

Just down the road from the restaurant as were driving to the national Park, John remembers that there is a homemade ice cream Shoppe so we stopped in for dessert. When the first things we noticed we walk in the shop is the smell of candles because the barn which contains the Cowells whose milk is used for the ice cream is adjacent to the shop and there are huge windows you can watch the channels eat while you eat rice cream. We supply the cone and cement chocolate chip in a cup and it was delicious. They also serve skyr wrapped in wax paper like they did many many years ago.

Along the drive to the national Park we drove through the area where the European and American tectonic plates meet and drove through about a 5 km area between the plates we saw several places where the plates have visibly come apart. This explains why there are regular tremors in Iceland and noticeable earthquakes at least every 10 years or so.

We drove about 45 minutes to the national park where the first assembly took place to a Denna five the laws in Iceland this took place in the 19th century pre-dating the Magna Carta. We walked past the flagpole at indicated where the meeting took place and then walk to see another very pretty waterfall.

There was a solid rock wall along the waterfall – which our guide explained is ‘the wall of America’ and it is solid through the San Andreas Fault. As we drove to Reykjavik, we passed a place where they filmed “Game of Thrones”

Made a quick stop to take a photo of Europe from America (Tectonic plates).