In Search Of The Northern Lights - Day Three
13 March 2014
I meant to post a blog about my trip to Iceland every other day until it was done but life has got in the way as usual and here we are a week later and it’s still not finished! I’ve been busy with Book Talk and preparing to go to Kings Lynn so time has been precious. Anyway here’s
DAY 3 : WEDNESDAY 26 FEB 2014
A seven-thirty alarm although I’m already awake. We’ve agreed nine o’clock breakfast and I’m still struggling to keep up to date with my journal. I manage to report most of the day’s goings-on but I have to break off before I get to The Lights. I’ll have to play catch-up later.
Today we’re due on a ‘Nature Tour’ but it doesn’t start until 12.30pm so the morning is free. So guess what? I decide on a bird-walk along the promenade – it’s only a hundred yards from our front door and I’m in need of some exercise. I set off at ten. The outlook is as good as it could possibly get – a clear blue sky, a clear blue sea, white-capped hills to the north-east and the harbour to the west. It’s an amazing view.
The bay is thronged with birds. I think the world population of Eider Duck has chosen to winter here. There’s Red-breasted Merganser too (I count at least half a dozen pairs). I can’t get over the quality of the light - it’s so clear and sharp, like a really good summer’s day in the UK but in HD. It affords exceptional views of the birds. Male Eider are so beautiful (see my pic for DAY 1) and the R-b M are great too with their crests and blood-red bills showing well.
Then I get a Wow! moment as what I assume to be another male Eider turns into a Long-tailed Duck. This is a bird I’ve only seen twice before and on both occasions they were in variable plumage. But today this male is in his full breeding outfit and it takes my breath away. And with such good light I get treated to the kind of close-up personal view I may only get once in my life. Fantastic!
I continue along the promenade in the hope of finding some white-winged gulls. They’re nowhere near as spectacular as the Long-tailed Duck but they prove much more difficult to find. Which is surprising, given that I’m on the sea-front near to the harbour. I see something flying some way off. It’s large so I assume it’s probably Glaucous but my view isn’t good enough to confirm the sighting. I walk on, pausing to photograph the sculptures outside the Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum, and find a low cliff with roosting gulls. But they’re too far away for a definitive view and with time running short I’m forced to abandon my search and head back to Fosshotel Baron. No ticks for white-winged gulls today.
At twelve midday we gather in the foyer for our afternoon tour. We’re off to Geysir, Gullfoss and þingvellir and an education in Iceland’s amazing geological history. We spend most of our time on the bus – something I’m not always keen on – but today I’m happy to be driven through the iconic landscape. We see flat plains, snow-capped mountain ranges and at least two (sleeping) volcanoes, Hekla and the now infamous Eyjafjallajökull (I checked the spelling). Here and there, columns of steam escape from the ground. The surface may be covered in snow but we’re travelling over the second hottest spot on earth – only Hawaii tops it. This is truly the land of fire and ice. There’s a furnace down below boiling up the water which it sends spouting up through the frozen crust.
At þingvellir we get evidence of the fact that Iceland lies across the joint of two tectonic plates. They’re moving apart and the gap between them is growing at 2-3cm per annum. What chance that in another 10000 years, Iceland splits in two? Who knows? But for the present I can walk across the bridge that separates the North American plate from Europe and Asia. No wonder Reagan and Gorbachev chose to meet here in 1986. We digest this possibility on the coach on the way home – or at least, we pretend to as we close our eyes for a while. On the way we pass the simple white house of Halldör Laxness, Iceland’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955. I make a mental note to read one of his books.
PS : The Party in Room 102. Tonight we’re all shattered and feel too exhausted to go out to eat. The upshot is a trip to Domino’s Pizza, a walk of all of 100 hundred yards. We blag 5 small boxed pizzas and head back to ours. In the foyer I enter into a bizarre conversation regarding a sighting of Redwing at the end of which I’m donated a half-consumed and redundant bottle of Famous Grouse. I nip back out to the corner shop and buy some ginger ale to go with it. Our evening meal is a mixture of garlic bread, spicy BBQ and cream mexicano accompanied by G&T and whisky mac. What was I saying about doing things in style?
Join me again soon for DAY 4 when we resume our search for The Lights.
PPS : There are pics to go with this on my website www.nedavid.com
I meant to post a blog about my trip to Iceland every other day until it was done but life has got in the way as usual and here we are a week later and it’s still not finished! I’ve been busy with Book Talk and preparing to go to Kings Lynn so time has been precious. Anyway here’s
DAY 3 : WEDNESDAY 26 FEB 2014
A seven-thirty alarm although I’m already awake. We’ve agreed nine o’clock breakfast and I’m still struggling to keep up to date with my journal. I manage to report most of the day’s goings-on but I have to break off before I get to The Lights. I’ll have to play catch-up later.
Today we’re due on a ‘Nature Tour’ but it doesn’t start until 12.30pm so the morning is free. So guess what? I decide on a bird-walk along the promenade – it’s only a hundred yards from our front door and I’m in need of some exercise. I set off at ten. The outlook is as good as it could possibly get – a clear blue sky, a clear blue sea, white-capped hills to the north-east and the harbour to the west. It’s an amazing view.
The bay is thronged with birds. I think the world population of Eider Duck has chosen to winter here. There’s Red-breasted Merganser too (I count at least half a dozen pairs). I can’t get over the quality of the light - it’s so clear and sharp, like a really good summer’s day in the UK but in HD. It affords exceptional views of the birds. Male Eider are so beautiful (see my pic for DAY 1) and the R-b M are great too with their crests and blood-red bills showing well.
Then I get a Wow! moment as what I assume to be another male Eider turns into a Long-tailed Duck. This is a bird I’ve only seen twice before and on both occasions they were in variable plumage. But today this male is in his full breeding outfit and it takes my breath away. And with such good light I get treated to the kind of close-up personal view I may only get once in my life. Fantastic!
I continue along the promenade in the hope of finding some white-winged gulls. They’re nowhere near as spectacular as the Long-tailed Duck but they prove much more difficult to find. Which is surprising, given that I’m on the sea-front near to the harbour. I see something flying some way off. It’s large so I assume it’s probably Glaucous but my view isn’t good enough to confirm the sighting. I walk on, pausing to photograph the sculptures outside the Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum, and find a low cliff with roosting gulls. But they’re too far away for a definitive view and with time running short I’m forced to abandon my search and head back to Fosshotel Baron. No ticks for white-winged gulls today.
At twelve midday we gather in the foyer for our afternoon tour. We’re off to Geysir, Gullfoss and þingvellir and an education in Iceland’s amazing geological history. We spend most of our time on the bus – something I’m not always keen on – but today I’m happy to be driven through the iconic landscape. We see flat plains, snow-capped mountain ranges and at least two (sleeping) volcanoes, Hekla and the now infamous Eyjafjallajökull (I checked the spelling). Here and there, columns of steam escape from the ground. The surface may be covered in snow but we’re travelling over the second hottest spot on earth – only Hawaii tops it. This is truly the land of fire and ice. There’s a furnace down below boiling up the water which it sends spouting up through the frozen crust.
At þingvellir we get evidence of the fact that Iceland lies across the joint of two tectonic plates. They’re moving apart and the gap between them is growing at 2-3cm per annum. What chance that in another 10000 years, Iceland splits in two? Who knows? But for the present I can walk across the bridge that separates the North American plate from Europe and Asia. No wonder Reagan and Gorbachev chose to meet here in 1986. We digest this possibility on the coach on the way home – or at least, we pretend to as we close our eyes for a while. On the way we pass the simple white house of Halldör Laxness, Iceland’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955. I make a mental note to read one of his books.
PS : The Party in Room 102. Tonight we’re all shattered and feel too exhausted to go out to eat. The upshot is a trip to Domino’s Pizza, a walk of all of 100 hundred yards. We blag 5 small boxed pizzas and head back to ours. In the foyer I enter into a bizarre conversation regarding a sighting of Redwing at the end of which I’m donated a half-consumed and redundant bottle of Famous Grouse. I nip back out to the corner shop and buy some ginger ale to go with it. Our evening meal is a mixture of garlic bread, spicy BBQ and cream mexicano accompanied by G&T and whisky mac. What was I saying about doing things in style?
Join me again soon for DAY 4 when we resume our search for The Lights.
PPS : There are pics to go with this on my website www.nedavid.com
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