#Petrol Gas Station Iceland

[hertziceland]

Convenient Petrol Gas Stations Across Iceland with Hertz Iceland

Make your Icelandic road trip stress-free with a guide to petrol gas station Iceland. From Reykjavík to remote countryside areas, discover where to fuel up on your journey. With detailed information on station locations and services, you’ll travel confidently knowing where to stop for fuel. Hertz Iceland ensures you’re equipped for a smooth drive, helping you explore Iceland’s scenic routes with ease and peace of mind.

[photosbyrosiep]

Gas Station. Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Iceland.

On the road in Iceland, you can drive for miles and miles without a gas station. The further out of the city you go, the more secluded and rare they become.

[newstfionline]

Monday, September 27, 2021

COVID-19 vaccine boosters could mean billions for drugmakers (AP) Billions more in profits are at stake for some vaccine makers as the U.S. moves toward dispensing COVID-19 booster shots to shore up Americans’ protection against the virus. How much the manufacturers stand to gain depends on how big the rollout proves to be. No one knows yet how many people will get the extra shots. But Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen expects boosters alone to bring in about $26 billion in global sales next year for Pfizer and BioNTech and around $14 billion for Moderna if they are endorsed for nearly all Americans.

So close! Iceland almost gets female-majority parliament (AP) Iceland briefly celebrated electing a female-majority parliament Sunday, before a recount produced a result just short of that landmark for gender parity in the North Atlantic island nation. The initial vote count had female candidates winning 33 seats in Iceland’s 63-seat parliament, the Althing. Hours later, a recount in western Iceland changed the outcome, leaving female candidates with 30 seats. Still, at almost 48% of the total, that is the highest percentage for women lawmakers in Europe. Only a handful of countries, none of them in Europe, have a majority of female lawmakers. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Rwanda leads the world with women making up 61% of its Chamber of Deputies, with Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico narrowly over the 50% mark. Worldwide, the organization says just over a quarter of legislators are women.

Copenhagen’s hippie, psychedelic oasis Christiania turns 50 (AP) After a half-century, the “flower-power” aura of Copenhagen’s semi-autonomous Christiania neighborhood hasn’t yet wilted. “It has become more and more an established part of Copenhagen,” said Ole Lykke, a resident of 42 years at the enclave near downtown Copenhagen. “The philosophy of community and common property still exists. Out here we do things in common.” It all started as a stunt 50 years ago, when a small counterculture newspaper that needed an outrageous story for its front page staged an “invasion” of an abandoned 18-century naval base. Six friends with air rifles and a picnic basket entered the former military facility base, proclaimed it a “free state” on Sept. 26, 1971, took some photos and went home. The paper ran the story, urging young people to take the city bus and squat the barracks. Hippies flocked to what they dubbed Christiania—no one remembers why they picked that name—that evolved into a counterculture, freewheeling oasis with psychedelic-colored buildings, free marijuana, limited government influence, no cars and no police. In 1973, it was recognized as a “social experiment.” After more than four decades of locking horns with authorities, Christiania’s future was secured in 2012 when the state sold the 84-acre (24-hectare) enclave for 85.4 million kroner ($13.5 million) to a foundation owned by its inhabitants. The residents—nearly 700 adults and about 150 children—now rent their homes from the foundation and are financially responsible for all repair and maintenance work to the roughly 240 buildings.

UK gas stations run dry as trucker shortage sparks hoarding (AP) Thousands of British gas stations ran dry Sunday, an industry group said, as motorists scrambled to fill up amid a supply disruption due to a shortage of truck drivers. The Petrol Retailers Association, which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said about two-thirds of its members were reporting that they had sold out their fuel, with the rest “partly dry and running out soon.” Association chairman Brian Madderson said the shortages were the result of “panic buying, pure and simple.” “There is plenty of fuel in this country, but it is in the wrong place for the motorists,” he told the BBC. “It is still in the terminals and the refineries.” Long lines of vehicles formed at many gas stations over the weekend, and tempers frayed as some drivers waited for hours.

U.K.’s Migrant Boat Dispute Has Eyes Fixed on the Channel (NYT) Using high-powered binoculars and a telescope, three volunteers from a humanitarian monitoring group stood on the Kent coast, peering across the English Channel. The looming clock tower of the French town of Calais was visible on this clear morning, but so was the distinctive outline of a small rubber dinghy. The volunteer group, Channel Rescue, was set up last year to watch for the boats packed with asylum seekers trying to cross this busy waterway, to offer them humanitarian support—like water and foil blankets—when they land on beaches, or to spot those in distress. But they are also monitoring Britain’s border authority for any possible rights violations as the government takes an increasingly hard line on migration. For much of the year, the numbers of migrants crossing the channel in dinghies has risen, brewing a political storm in London and leading Home Secretary Priti Patel to authorize tough tactics to push boats back toward France. The authorization—not yet put into effect—has stirred anew the national debate over immigration and created a further diplomatic spat between Britain and France, whose relations were already strained after Brexit over issues including both fishing rights and global strategic interests.

German elections (AP) Germany is embarking on a potentially lengthy search for its next government after the center-left Social Democrats narrowly beat outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right bloc in an election that failed to set a clear direction for Europe’s biggest economy under a new leader. Leaders of the parties in the newly elected parliament were meeting Monday to digest a result that saw Merkel’s Union bloc slump to its worst-ever result in a national election, and appeared to put the keys to power in the hands of two opposition parties. Both Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, who pulled his party out of a years-long slump, and Armin Laschet, the candidate of Merkel’s party who saw his party’s fortunes decline in a troubled campaign, laid a claim to leading the next government. Scholz is the outgoing vice chancellor and finance minister and Laschet is the governor of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. Whichever of them becomes chancellor will do so with his party having won a smaller share of the vote than any of his predecessors.

Basta! Romans say enough to invasion of wild boars in city (AP) Rome has been invaded by Gauls, Visigoths and vandals over the centuries, but the Eternal City is now grappling with a rampaging force of an entirely different sort: rubbish-seeking wild boars. Entire families of wild boars have become a daily sight in Rome, as groups of 10-30 beasts young and old emerge from the vast parks surrounding the city to trot down traffic-clogged streets in search of food in Rome’s notoriously overflowing rubbish bins. Posting wild boar videos on social media has become something of a sport as exasperated Romans capture the scavengers marching past their stores, strollers or playgrounds. Italy’s main agriculture lobby, Coldiretti, estimates there are over 2 million wild boars in Italy. The region of Lazio surrounding Rome estimates there are 5,000-6,000 of them in city parks, a few hundred of which regularly abandon the trees and green for urban asphalt and trash bins. In Italy’s rural areas, hunting wild boar is a popular sport and most Italians can offer a long list of their favorite wild boar dishes. Those beliefs are not shared by some urban residents.

Taiwan says China is a ‘bully’ after one of the largest PLA warplane incursions yet (CNN) Taiwan on Thursday accused China of “bullying” after Beijing sent a total of 24 warplanes into its air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the third-largest incursion in the past two years of heightened tensions between Beijing and Taipei. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including bombers, fighter jets, anti-submarine planes and airborne early warning and control planes, entered Taiwan’s ADIZ in two groups—one of 19 planes and a second cohort of five jets that came later in the day. The air incursions came a day after Taiwan officially submitted an application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) free-trade pact. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs signaled its strong opposition to Taiwan’s application. “We firmly oppose official exchanges between any country and the Taiwan region, and firmly oppose Taiwan’s accession to any agreement or organization of an official nature,” ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

Taliban hang body in public; signal return to past tactics (AP) The Taliban hanged a dead body from a crane parked in a city square in Afghanistan on Saturday in a gruesome display that signaled the hard-line movement’s return to some of its brutal tactics of the past. Taliban officials initially brought four bodies to the central square in the western city of Herat, then moved three of them to other parts of the city for public display, said Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who runs a pharmacy on the edge of the square. Taliban officials announced that the four were caught taking part in a kidnapping earlier Saturday and were killed by police, Seddiqi said. Since the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will re-create their harsh rule of the late 1990s, which included public stonings and limb amputations of alleged criminals, some of which took place in front of large crowds at a stadium.

UN and Afghanistan’s Taliban, figuring out how to interact (AP) It’s been little more than a month since Kalashnikov-toting Taliban fighters in their signature heavy beards, hightop sneakers and shalwar kameezes descended on the Afghan capital and cemented their takeover. Now they’re vying for a seat in the club of nations and seeking what no country has given them as they attempt to govern for a second time: international recognition of their rule. The Taliban wrote to the United Nations requesting to address the U.N. General Assembly meeting of leaders that is underway in New York. They argue they have all the requirements needed for recognition of a government. The U.N. has effectively responded to the Taliban’s request by signaling: Not so fast. Afghanistan, which joined the U.N. in 1946 as an early member state, is scheduled to speak last at the General Assembly leaders’ session on Monday. With no meeting yet held by the U.N. committee that decides challenges to credentials, it appears almost certain that Afghanistan’s current ambassador will give the address this year—or that no one will at all. The U.N. can withhold or bestow formal acknowledgement on the Taliban, and use this as crucial leverage to exact assurances on human rights, girls’ access to education and political concessions.

[ecology-atlas]

Peter Forbes - Sunshine in a bottle Mimic the dance between carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and you can tap into clean solar energy and ease climate change

https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-mimic-photosynthesis-to-tap-into-the-sun-s-energy

Look around the countryside on a nice, sunny day and you can see the central chemical principle of life on Earth. The dense mass of greenery and the blue sky represents the twin poles of life: oxidation and reduction, or redox. Air in the sky contains oxygen that liberates energy when it combines with organic compounds; oxidation is the process that creates fire, and also that powers your metabolism. The mass of green, on the other hand, is matter in a chemically reduced state, which is the opposite of what happens in respiration and combustion. In the presence of oxygen, reduced compounds can be thought of as having stored energy. Just as oxygen is the element of oxidation, hydrogen is the element of reduction.

These two elements have been linked in a close dance ever since Earth was formed, but to complicate matters there is a third partner: carbon. Carbon can exist in an oxidised state (that’s carbon dioxide – CO2) or in a reduced state with hydrogen atoms attached, as in biomass and fuel. All living things consist of reduced carbon, great long chains and helixes and complicated clumps of carbon and hydrogen with other key elements attached in strategic places. Redox reactions – the molecular dance between carbon, hydrogen and oxygen – underlie three great mysteries: the origin of life, how to mitigate global warming, and how to tap the Sun’s energy without plants.

The laboratory for Olah’s CO2-reducing process is located in Iceland because of its abundant renewable electricity, generated from that country’s natural thermal springs. Since 2011, the George Olah Renewable Methanol Plant, operated near Reykjavik by Carbon Recycling International, has been using electricity from a thermal power station to split water into water and hydrogen. A nearby cement works provides a source of waste CO2. The hydrogen produced by the plant reduces the CO2 to methanol. The methanol (sold by Carbon Recycling International as Vulcanol) can be used as fuel for vehicles, either straight or mixed with petrol. In July 2015, Carbon Recycling linked with the UK division of the engineering firm Engie Fabricom to develop large, standardised CO2-to-methanol plants. Although Iceland’s energy situation is unique, George Olah notes that many parts of the world have access to other forms of cheap renewable electricity (hydropower or solar-thermal power, for instance) that could drive the plants.

The details of the photosynthesis process are immensely complicated: the water-splitting system in plants, called photosystem II, has two almost identical halves, each of which has 19 protein subunits that use 35 chlorophyll molecules. But at the most basic level, scientists understand quite well how plants use sunlight to generate electricity.

Photosynthesis ultimately depends on the photoelectric effect, explained by Albert Einstein in 1905, in which photons of light interact with electrons, knocking them free of their atoms. It is the process behind silicon solar panels. Normally, when sunlight knocks an electron out of any substance, the electron jumps straight back in. What the natural photosystems do is to prevent the electrons recombining by smuggling them down a chemical pathway from which the electron cannot return. A combination of minerals – magnesium in chlorophyll, manganese and calcium in the water-splitting photocentre – and a surrounding protein matrix constrain the electrons so they have no choice but to be shuffled away.

but could there be a useful halfway point between natural photosynthesis and a full-blown artificial version? It turn out there is.

There is a group of primitive bacteria – the acetogens – that can reduce oxides of carbon without photosynthesis. These microbes perform the special trick of being able to live off the very gases we are concerned with: oxides of carbon (carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide), along with hydrogen. They can generate alcohols from these raw materials and, even better, can do so using a variety of ratios of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This flexibility makes them well-suited for industrial use, because just such mixtures of gases are produced as the polluting waste products of electricity generation, as well as steel and cement manufacture.

the remarkable discovery that some bacteria can live directly off a diet of electricity. Peidong Yang, a Chinese-born professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, has exploited this appetite for electrons by matching the bacteria with microscopic semiconductors that act as tiny solar cells. The bacteria grab electrons from the semiconductors and use them to reduce CO2. It’s a brilliant synthesis: semiconductors are the most efficient light harvesters, and biological systems are the best scavengers of CO2.

Yang’s team is currently studying three different systems. In one, the researchers built a forest of silicon and titanium dioxide nano-wires as the light harvester, and then cultured the bacterium Sporomusa ovata to grow over the wires and feed on the electricity. In another system, the researchers precipitated light-harvesting cadmium sulphide nanoparticles onto Moorella thermoacetica; the particles enable the previously non-photosynthetic bacteria to turn light, water and CO2 into acetic acid, which can readily be transformed into fuels such as butanol, or synthesised into plastics and pharmaceuticals. It is ‘artificial photosynthesis’ in a truly profound way, bringing the photosynthetic ability to an organism that never had it for billions of years.

The third method is the most conventional, but it also looks like the most likely one to scale up. Combining an electrochemical cell (driven by electricity, sunlight, or a combination of the two) with the bacterium (Methanosarcina barkeri) produces methane with an impressive 10 per cent solar-to-fuel conversion rate. Methane is not a liquid fuel, but it can readily be converted to one. It can also be used directly as natural gas to run power plants. This approach could solve one of renewable energy’s most pressing problems. Electricity cannot be easily stored, and both sun and wind are powerful but intermittent energy sources. Solar-generated methane can be stored to provide electricity generation when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.

The essence of the natural process is to split water to yield hydrogen and to use the hydrogen to remove the oxygen from CO2 to make hydrocarbons.

[nancyxvalentine]

Ice Caves, Diamond Beach & Waterfalls

I knew Iceland was going to be a beautiful place to visit, but today I was BLOWN away by the sights we soaked up!

The group rose from our slumber around 6:00 am to begin preparing for a scheduled Ice Cave tour through Extreme Iceland that required a 2 hour commute from our Hostel in Vik. After a filling meal of bananas, oatmeal & chia seeds, we packed up the vehicle and began our journey around the coast. I am SO thankful that Dan (previously a professional driver) took the wheel this morning with confidence that can only come from a person with experience. The sun doesn't rise until around 9:30 am during this time of year, so we were driving on tiny icy roads in pitch darkness for a couple of hours. Kaitlyn and I dozed in and out of a less-than-restful car nap until Dan and James woke us up with excited exclamations. As the sun began to rise this morning, the horizon was filled with what we thought was simply dense fog or clouds...turns out, the ominous imagery in front of us was non other than: Glaciers!

We twisted and turned on the winding roads and gawked at the unanticipated beauty before our eyes until we realized that there was also DENSE fog at the base of the glaciers. Due to the fact that we were on a tight schedule (Ice Cave tour at 9:40 sharp, people) we didn't have much of a choice but to drive through the eerie condensation at 80 km/hour. There were points during this part of the drive where the visibility was less than 20 feet in front of us and I kept glancing from one side of the vehicle to the other just waiting for the demigorgon to pop out (Stranger Things reference, if you're not a huge Netflixer). After about 30 minutes, we cleared the fog and came out on the other end STUNNED at the denisity of what we just journeyed through.

Once we arrived at our destination, my mouth was agape in awe of our surroundings. We were parked in a full lot with tens of other vehicles, but a 5 minute walk away was a channel FILLED with small glaciers! [The hues of blues and violets and greys made me tear up, they were so beautiful.] Sticking to our scehdule, we located the tour leader and loaded up into a super tricked-out ride (think 15 passenger van with close-to tractor tires). We strapped in, ready to embrace a swift easy ride to the ice cave and were SHOCKED when our driver turned OFF the road and onto what looked ike a snow and ice desert. At first the ride was a little bumpy, but not anything to get too excited about and then...we were bouncing up and down like popcorn fresh from the air popper! I couldn't contain my mixture of excitement and nervousness so I giggled and snorted the whole ride to our destination. (Someone should give my travelling companions some blue ribbons because they have had some high tolerance for my Nancy-isms on this trip!)

The actual Ice Cave tour was a bit lack-luster in comparison to the ride there. It turns out that today was the first day the Ice Caves were able to even give tours (even though they had been booking out for a few weeks before we even arrived, due to unstable ice conditions). Our guide was knowlegable and the drivers were very friendly, but I think we were anticipating something a bit more exciting than the 25 feet of Ice Cave experience we paid for.

One of the drivers from our Ice Cave tour gave us some pretty awesome recommendations on places to visit and cheap food options (eating out for meals here is VERY expensive). After we got back to the pick-up location, we took his advice and crossed the road to experience "Diamond Beach." Again, my heart was FILLED with excitement and joy upon first glance. Diamond Beach is a black volcanic sand beach where bits of Icelandic glaciers have broken off of larger formations and washed up on shore. It reminded me a lot of one of the winter's I endured in Duluth where the shores of Lake Superior was frozen over, but the waves kept pushing up huge shards of ice up onto the shore. Simply beautiful.

Our next stop on the itinereary was a visit to Svartifoss, a huge waterfall where the rock walls are formed by columnar Basalt. We began our hike up to the falls and quickly realized that the estimated 45 minute hike was going to take more effort than planned. Dan and I quickly lost our breath (Dan forgot his inhaler in the car) hiking through the seemily verticle bendle and curves of the path, while Kaitlyn and James championed their journeys. Along the way we enjoyed a beautiful brook and a smaller waterfall (pictured above). Eventually we did make it to the top, and yes, it was awesome.

On the way back to our Hostel we stopped at the place our driver recommended for a cheap meal (Kaitlyn and I each got a burger and the guys ate lamb). The joint doubled as a petrol station, so we fueled up as well. Gas is E.X.P.E.N.S.I.V.E. in Iceland. We split gas four ways and it came out to about $28 a person just to put in 3/4 of a tank. The group purchased a couple of souvenirs and Dan mistakenly purchased deoderant instead of body wash. We all had a good laugh, then headed back to Vik.

Our last evening in the Vik hostel was one of community. As soon as we arrived 3/4 of us dropped our things off in the room and went right back to the communal space to chat it up for the next few hours with our host, Gu (a Turkish gal from Belgium), Andrew (an engineer from New Brunswick, Canada), a PhD student from MA living/studying in Sweden, and her friend from South Africa.

After much interesting conversation and many laughs, we headed down to our room to settle in for the night. I caught the giggles again and ended up keeping the room awake for a little too long. We finally hit our heads to our pillows around 1:30 am and slept hard. I'd say day 2 has been my favorite day in Iceland so far, but then again, the trip has barely begun...

[kaleoverload-blog]

Iceland for 5 days! (March 2017)

So I’ve been wanting to go to Iceland for years and this year we FINALLY made it happen. Here’s a breakdown of our trip that will hopefully help and/or inspire some other travellers!

DAY 1:

We landed in to Keflavik airport which is a good ways away from Reykjavik. We stayed in the cheapest hotel we could find near Keflavik airport that night (as we arrived in late). The hotel was still £60 (GBP) or thereabouts but hey, it’s Iceland! We also paid £25 for a 7 minute taxi ride. Wowzers. Welcome to nordic countries! DAY 2:

We got the bus in to Reykjavik. Dear God it was COLD! If you’re going to go to Iceland in March absolutely make sure you bring thermals, ski-pants, hiking boots and a super warm coat, hats gloves, etc. etc. We rented a car through Airbnb (this one) and honestly, this is the only way you want to see Iceland. Rent a car and do it at your own pace. When you’re driving along Route 1 (the ringroad) you’re going to want to stop every 5 minutes so having your own mode of transport gives you the freedom to do that and thus enjoy Iceland to the fullest.

We didn’t spend any time at all in Reykjavik as we had limited days and were just eager to hit the road but before hitting R1 we needed to buy some groceries for the trip so we stopped off at a great supermarket; Bonus (greatest logo ever!!). Groceries in Iceland are crazy expensive and we spent a lot more than we thought we would have to. I think next time we travel Iceland again we’ll actually check a bag full of food. It’s a lot cheaper than buying it there.

We also topped up the jeep with petrol which was again very pricey. Over the course of 4-5 days driving we spent approximately £350 GBP on petrol.

We decided to dedicate our first day to Iceland’s Golden Circle and our first stop was Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park - a historic site and national park in Iceland, east of Reykjavík. Þingvellir is the site of Iceland's parliament from the 10th to 18th centuries (woah!) and on the site are ancient ruins of Þingvellir Church and old stone shelters. The park also sits in a rift valley caused by the separation of 2 tectonic plates, with rocky cliffs and fissures. Definitely worth an hour stop on R1. 

Next up was the Geysir Geothermal Area on Iceland’s Golden Circle which was beautiful but pretty crowded. The locals told us that in the past 2-3 years the amount of tourists visiting Iceland has just risen so high that the locals can't even handle it. So the Golden Circle tours do get quite busy - be aware of that. This is why we wanted to do the Golden Circle on day one and then escape the crowds and venture further south. The Geysir area was amazing and quite warm which was nice! We even stripped a few layers. There’s a coffee shop there which is wildly expensive but again, it’s Iceland.

Our third stop was Gulfoss (pictured below) which was absolutely breathtaking. This was by far our favourite stop off. The wind was incredibly strong though so be careful and try not to fall into the waterfall! Gullfoss is part of the Golden Circle tour still and is fed by Iceland´s second biggest glacier, the Langjökull. The water falls 32 meters into a rugged canyon which walls reach up to 70 meters in height. On a sunny day (which we did not have) rainbows can be seen over the falls.

End of Day 2 and it was time to find somewhere to sleep. We travelled a little further along the ring road and found a nice spot by the sea to pull in and sleep. Again, if you like camping and being adventurous I can’t recommend this mode of travel enough for Iceland. The jeep we rented from Stefan through Airbnb came equipped with a mattress in the back and sleeping bags, cooking utensils and a small stove so we parked up by the sea, cooked some food on our little stove and slept the night away. This sounds very peaceful of course but be aware that it was VERY cold, starting the stove was quite tricky and the wind coming off the sea wasn’t all that pleasant... We probably could have picked a better spot but hey, that’s the whole fun in it!

DAY 3:

We hit the road again early on Day 3 and unknowingly stumbled across  Urridafoss Waterfall. Only in Iceland can you drive along a seemingly normal road and then come across THIS....

... and then THIS was next up!

This is the stunning, breathtaking view of Seljalandsfoss Waterfall which just pops into view from the road while you’re driving and leaves you completely speechless. It didn’t matter at all to us that it was raining because you don’t go to Iceland for the weather! Dress well, keep warm and make sure your clothes are waterproof and you’ll be fine. 

Seljalandsfoss is one of the best known waterfalls in Iceland and does get a lot of visitors. It is 65 meters high and you can walk behind it which is incredibly cool. You will get soaked though so be prepared for that! Gljúfrabúi waterfall is 100metres from Seljalandsfoss so definitely go check it out as well while you’re there. It’s absolutely stunning and not as many people walk down there.

Next unplanned stop was Eyjafjallajökull Volcano which is one of the smaller ice caps of Iceland, north of Skógar. Remember that volcanic eruption that caused all those flights to be delayed in 2010? Well that was this one! Amazing site to see and only a few minutes needed to park up and gaze at it from the roadside! 

Then came my favourite stop of all where we spent a few hours; Skogafoss. This was just simply indescribable. The waterfall itself is immense but the hike on top of the waterfall is even better. I’ll let the pictures below tell you all about it because words could not do it justice. My advice would be to take your time here. Walk around the top of the mountain for an hour or two and soak in the views. This place is like another planet altogether!

Our last stop before choosing our campsite was Dyrholaey overlooking Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach near the village of Vik. Reynisfjara is widely known as the most impressive black-sand beach in Iceland and oh my, it is epic. The views from Dyrholaey were amazing and although it was super cold and windy, it was more than worth it!

Finally it was time to find somewhere to eat some food, drink some whiskey (Monkey Shoulder got us through those cold nights!!) and rest our eyes. Lucky for us we parked up in the most incredible camping spot.Skaftafell National Park (also known as hiker’s paradise) is randomly where we decided to camp on night #3 and of course, like all things in Iceland, it was out of this world beautiful! We were literally camping right underneath a glacier... clear sky, food cooking, glacier behind us. whiskey in hand and an incredible starry sky.

DAY 4:

Day 4 started with Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon which is located in Southeast Iceland and it's truly a unique place. Jökulsárlón is a glacial lagoon, bordering Vatnajökull National Park in southeastern Iceland. The waters are dotted with icebergs from the surrounding Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier, part of larger Vatnajökull Glacier and the lagoon flows through a short waterway into the Atlantic Ocean with massive chunks of ice left behind on a black sand beach. In winter, the lagoon hosts hundreds of seals as well! We saw two or three seals swimming amongst the icebergs which was just AMAZING!We spent about two hours here walking along the beach, gazing at the beautiful lagoon, watching the seals swimming and taking photos. It was a grey, rainy day which actually made the lagoon look eerie and otherworldly. 

We then left Jökulsárlón to start our journey back to Reykjavik (as our flight was the following morning) and on our route back we stumbled across the most insane thing... Yet another stop-off that was only partly visible from the road and yet, when you turned the corner and parked up the views just left us speechless. The place I am referring to is called Svínafellsjökull Glacier Tongue and little did we know we had actually camped pretty much underneath this glacier the night before. WOW!

Again, I’m not sure words can do this place justice so I’ll just pop this picture in here... It is definitely a must-see!

On making our way back to Reykjavik we then had a very unfortunate break-down and were stranded for three hours which was a total bummer. But looking on the bright side at least the sun was shining (for the first time our whole trip) and the views were beautiful all around. We waited three hours in a gas station and then our Airbnb host came to pick us up (all the way from Reykjavik). We had a lovely three hour drive back to the capital chatting all the way with a lovely local Icelandic man during which period we learned a lot about the country. It’s all part of the adventure hey!

So there you go, that was our trip. We flew out the following morning and were VERY sad to be leaving. We will 100% be going back very soon and this time at least we know the lay of the land, expenses, camping grounds and some more places we want to go! To finish - a few practicals:

What was the budget for 4 days, 5 nights in Iceland?

Flights (£180 each), jeep rental (which also was our accommodation for 3 nights = £250), petrol (£320), grocery shopping (£150), other bits of coffees, snacks, etc (£30) and hotel on night #1 (£65) + monkey shoulder whiskey at airport (£40) = £1215

* This was a real budget trip though so be aware of that! No hotel costs, no eating/drinking out, camping, etc. That’s how we love to travel but I’m aware it’s not for everyone!

Is it possible to travel in Iceland on a plant-based diet?

Yes! We had no issues with this BUT we were camping so be aware that we bought everything we needed in grocery stores and didn’t eat/drink out at all.