Our first full day in Iceland and the weather presented us with a gift: a sunny warm day with not too much wind. The previous 8 weeks have apparently been mostly torrential rain and howling gales and even the Icelandics are complaining about the weather!

 

We set off to explore the town and surrounding area. The port is heavily industrialised with fishing plant. This group of Islands exports more fish than anywhere else in Iceland and contributes heavily to the economy of the country. However the locals have done their best to beautify the industrial architecture with surprising paintings and sculptures as you can see below;

 

 

The volcano was our real aim and we walked up the side in brilliant sunshine only to find at the top that the heat we thought was from the sun was actually from the rock. In places vents are still steaming and many people take marshmallows up on sticks to prove a point; Cooking a la volcane. The lava flow itself completely reshaped the harbour and added a chunk of land to the side of the island; you can see how the lava moved right next to the original harbour (Red/Black rock) pictured to the right.

 

 

The volcano itself is conical of course!

 

 

Having climbed the new volcano Eldfell, we thought it would be a good contrast to nip up the other cone and see the older hill, Helgafell. This as you can see has been colonised by plants and looks completely different ( About 5000 years worth of colonisation).

Eventually the new one might look like this.

 

 

 

Our walk back to the boat took us round the base of Eldfell and through the lava fields where we could see the beginning of the colonisation; the moss moving in to soften the strange structures created by the rapid cooling of the lava.

 

 

 

The highest point on the island is actually opposite, on the other side of the harbour. Here there are many puffins and some surprisingly hardy sheep. We watched a shepherd rounding these up during the afternoon, 3-D sheep farming anyone?

 

 

We had to go and see for ourselves, but the sheep seem very happy! The way up was almost vertical, the enterprising Icelanders have provided bolted ladders on some of the vertical bits but goodness knows how they get the sheep up there each spring!

 

 

 

The best bit was the puffins and the view from the top. You can see all the way to the mainland to the north, to Surtsey (the new Island in 1963) to the south side and finally a few of the inhabitants are shown in the third shot below.  Tomorrow will bring a small and nasty depression, following which we intend to sail to the mainland or at least a trip out. For now we have to go and find the local wifi cafe for sending this as we’ve been having a few issues connecting to the mail server.

 

View towards the mainland

 

Surtsey to the south west