Hi all,

Since I promissed to post more pictures from my trip to Iceland, yet another blog (in less than a week!):

on our way to the Ósar Youth Hostel: there was this strange cloud (the white fluffy stripe in the middle of the picture) covering a part of the mountains

near the Ósar Youth Hostel

Icelandic horses in the mist

Leirhnjúkur in the Krafla area: Krafla is a caldera of about 10 km in diameter with a 90 km long fissure zone, in the north of Iceland in the Mývatn (=Mosquito Lake) region...in the picture you can see another example of geothermal activity...

Mývatn:The lake was created by a large basaltic lava eruption 2300 years ago, and the surrounding landscape is dominated by volcanic landforms, including lava pillars and pseudocraters...

Jökulsárlón with some arctic terns (again)

Djúpivogur: this is a small fishing village in the east fjords of Iceland...one day I want to live in such a house

Stöðvarfjörður: another small village in the east fjords...in this picture you can see the little church; while I was in Iceland the wild lupins seemed to bloom everywhere...

view on Stöðvarfjörður...this time with buttercups.

Herdubreið (= large shoulders): this is Iceland's most famous table mountain

Núpsstaður: the little turf church dates back to the 17th century

the canyon near Dettifoss

Dettifoss (foss = waterfall): this is the most powerfull waterfall of Europe

Landmannalaugar (people's pool) as seen from the top of the Bláhnúkur (= Blue Mountain)

The Strokkur geysir just before he's about to erupt...

The Strokkur geysir after the eruption

Cotton grass

Boats on Laugarvatn

Sólfar aka The Sun Voyager (Reykjavík)

I still have to upload a considerable amount of pictures (on flickr there's a monthly upload limit) but I'll try to regularly post some shots...

until then, take care!

elke xxx

góðan daginn!!!

As I might have mentioned in one of my previous blogs, I went back on a trip to Iceland...I fell in love (again); the majestic landscapes, the colourfull mountains, the geysirs, the glaciers, the slow-moving icebergs, solfatars and fumerols and the sheer wilderness. I'm seriously thinking about sending an application to the travel company in order to start guiding tours in Iceland next year. I want to go back there so badly .

I thought I'd share a couple of pictures:

this is a view on the Snaefellsness glacier.

..it's the view we had when sitting in a hot tub at our first sleeping accomodation . the picture is taken around 11pm: while I was in Iceland the sun set for about half an hour or so: it never really went dark at night.

The guesthouse-kids were playing in the fields near Snaefellsness...

While walking we always had to watch out for these guys:

because the arctic terns were nesting, they tried to protect their chicks by dive-bombing to passenger's heads...this pictures was taken just before the attack.

more arctic terns (or kría as they are called in Icelandic)...this time at the glacial lake Jökulsárlón: the lake is filled with icebergs, which are calving off one of the many glaciers: the icebergs vary in colour from blue to white to black and are constantly moving in a very slow pace; it's quite spectacular to watch...

Jökulsárlón

Bubbling pools of mud at the geothermal field Námaskarð (near Mývatn aka the mosquito lake)

in the next picture you can see the Goðafoss (or the waterfall of the Gods). In the year 1000 Christianity was made the official religion of Iceland. After the conversion it is said that statues of the Norse gods were thrown into the waterfall...hence the name.

next one up is the rock Hvitserkur (aka white shirt; because of the bird droppings it looks like the rock is wearing a white shirt)...according to legend Hvitserkur was a troll who was caught by sunrise while he was throwing stones to a nearby monastery: as trolls are allergic to sunlight, Hvitserkur turned into stone...

Whale watching near Húsavík:

this is the Blánúhkur (or the Blue Mountain) in Landmannalaugar (which means the people's pools)

and this is the view you get after climbing the Bláhnúkur:

after our climb, we were taking a rest when all of a sudden these guys seemed to come out of nowhere:

these were the huts at Skaftafell National Park we slept in for two nights (well, the rest of the group did sleep there anyway: i was in need for some space and decided to spend the night in a tent).

Puffins at Ingólfshöfði

I do realise that it's becoming quite a long blog with all these pictures...I think it's better to post another one in a couple of days, as there's many more pics I wanted to share with you guys...

I hope that's ok .

Until then: take care and have a nice day!

elke xxx

Hello there,

It's been quite a while (again) but the urge to write a quick blog became stronger and stronger the last couple of days...so here we are!

Since the last blog I've been on a trip to Ireland with a befriended couple: we flew on Dublin, took the bus to Killarney and started a hiking trip (the Kerry Way) there. After finishing the first stage of the trip we took a bus to Dingle for some more hiking. As we've had rain almost every day (except one day in Dingle; but that day we all got a pretty bad sunburn), and everything was soaked, and we encountered some other practical issues we had to deal with, we decided to return early to Dublin. We planned spending there two nights instead of one and thought about discovering night life...we arrived on friday there...Good Friday to be more precise...and were very dissapointed to find out that every single pub in Dublin was closed on that day! But it was a nice trip anyway; we surely plan to go back...

As I just wanted to write a quick blog, I'll come back on the Ireland trip (as well as some other stuff) next time...as for now, I'll post a couple of pics from the trip...

Kerry Way (on our way to Black Valley)

still on our way to Black Valley

Dingle Way

still walking the Dingle Way

Finally some sunshine in Ireland...

One of the Blasket Islands

my little tent: had a pretty nice view up there...but had a terrible night: it was very windy (almost stormy: thought the wind would tear my tent to pieces and I'd die a terrible death by drowning)

sandra and ruben

more to follow later...

have a nice day/week/weekend and take care!

elke x