Phrases most often heard between us in Iceland:
1. WOW!
2. Look where we are!
3. Look at those colours!
4. It is geology in action!
5. Will we break the camera if we use it too much?
6. I don’t think that photo remotely captured that scene.
I think Iceland is especially intriguing for a West Australian for all the ways in which the two places are so utterly opposite. There are mountains, obviously. Topography everywhere, constantly. Insanely beautiful views almost impossible to capture in a single photo. Especially because I find myself looking in a 280deg arc most of the time.
Then of course there is all the water, perfectly clear clean water spilling out of mountainsides and rushing down rivers and forming stunning waterfalls.
Or even more excitingly for a West Australian – forming ice and snow and immense glaciers.
There is so much water, hot and cold, and most places we’ve stayed have had separate plumbing so that the hot water reeks of sulphur. There is a geothermally heated swimming pool in almost every village and to keep the water clean and untreated you MUST repeat MUST wash thoroughly without swimsuit soaping all your bits before entering a pool. The signage inside pools is so firm and written in at least six languages that there have obviously been many misdemeanors by tourists unfamiliar with the custom. We’ve had some amazing pool and water experiences.
But maybe the most stunning difference is geological and I never thought I would find myself writing that. From the oldest continent in the world (where I’ve always found geology a bit hard to connect with, with everything happening a gazillion years ago and all the features since ground down close to sea level) to here in the newest where you can see geology happen all around, almost in real time.
We visited the Lake Myvatn area (which is on the northern edge of the same fault we snorkelled in) and some interpretation told us the Lake was all about the interaction of lava and water. And that seemed to hold true for the whole island of Iceland. It is the Land of Ice and Fire after all.