Reset search
RobCowellRobCowell
SatelliteEdit route
Follow me on my adventures as I visit different places and photograph stunning locations. Read more United Kingdom
  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 12

    Jökulsárlón

    July 1, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    I love this place and spent the rest of the evening here hoping for some nice light for photography. In fact, I spent so long here I ran out of food options and ended up with an evening meal of Cornflakes, a cereal bar and coffee just before bed. Crazy.

    I took loads of photos on the big camera, trying to find interesting compositions amongst the ... wait for it ... icebergs.

    The water here is a lake at the end of a large glacier that calves ice into it then near the coast there is a channel where the bergs drift out to sea when they're small enough not to get stuck in it. Tonight there were icebergs stuck there acting as a dam which perhaps explained why the lagoon water level was a little higher than I'd seen before.

    Eventually the better light arrived so hopefully I got some good photos, then I headed back to the campsite for the night which was a 40 minute drive away. It was therefore about 12.30am when I was eating Cornflakes. 🙄    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 12

    The Walk Back

    July 1, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    Having climbed up from the ice cave Adam needed to sort the ladder before we could start the walk back to the vehicle. The route was the same as the way here, but in the opposite direction of course ... I bet you guessed that.

    Adam explained about the bridge in photo 3 as we looked at the water flowing under it. It was so clear, amazingly so in fact, and had a blue tint to it. If I could describe water as beautiful then this was it ... and the bridge? Apparently it often gets washed away when the water rises and it then has to be rebuilt. If you look closely you can see debris from the last wipe out.

    After arriving back to the 4x4 we then drove back to the Glacier Lagoon car park and the adventure was over. Did I say this was amazing and brilliant? I don't think I did! 😄    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 12

    The Ice Cave

    July 1, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    And then Wow!

    When I was last in Iceland with my friend Tony, we visited an ice cave but this one is awesome and much bigger with a river running through it. There was water tumbling through cracks in the ice above so waterproofs were essential, so you had to dodge the showers of water whilst trying not to fall in the rubble.

    It was describe as the Crystal Blue Ice Cave and indeed it was. My trip here included a portrait of me inside the cave, so you can see Adam with a camera in one of the photos - you can also see the water falling from the roof. Adam was kind enough to photograph me with my phone - the last photo in the footprint and he's made me look as if I know what I'm doing, so it's true the camera can lie. 😉

    I hope these phone photos do the ice cave justice. I do of course have photos on the big camera - it's a good job it is weather sealed because you couldn't help but get soaked in here, no matter how hard you try to keep dry.

    I absolutely enjoyed this visit and my time with Adam and though we were in the cave for quite a while, the time to leave still came too quickly. It was totally amazing.    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 12

    A Walk Through Harsh Terrain

    July 1, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    The track ended so we could drive no further and the scene around us was bleak and desolate. Goodness knows what this would be like in the harsh weather conditions you get in Iceland. To say we were off the beaten track is an understatement ... it was so exciting and I loved it here, though the best is yet to come.

    From here it was about a 30 minute hike to the glacier, which you can see to the left of the main photo. The walking wasn't hard but you needed to tread carefully and though there were small marker posts, I was again glad Adam was with me to show the way. I was so pleased I have the right boots and my walking pole.

    Eventually we reached the glacier and walked up onto it, arriving at a hole - that's right, no fancy entrance, just a hole in the ice. Adam immediately set about securing a ladder (photos 3 and 4) then we decended down it and into the inards of the glacier.

    I could hardly wait to see what awaited us and you know, it was just us. No-one else was around.    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 12

    Journey to a Wilderness

    July 1, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

    I was meeting my guide in the car park at the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. Those who have followed my adventures before will know of this, but if you haven't then I'll take some photos to show you later.

    The first thing was to find my guide by recognising the vehicle from a photo on the website and that's one impressive vehicle isn't it. 🤗🤩 Adam was my guide, who was from England but had worked as guide in Iceland for a while and is working towards gaining his nationality here. He's well on the way.

    I was then both surprised and delighted to discover that I was the only person on the tour and that meant what was coming next would be extra special. But first we had a tricky drive ahead of us.

    The photos don't really show what the road conditions are like but I can assure you that I have never been in a vehicle driving over a track like this one. Those large tyres were essential and it was slow going even so. I was glad Adam knew where he was going because at times it wasn't so obvious where the track edges were. In the fourth photo heading towards that water, for example, you just don't see the angle the car was at. This was brilliant and we hadn't started yet.    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 12

    Svínafellsjökull Glacier Tongue

    July 1, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

    The real adventure is this afternoon but this morning I went exploring a glacier again - I just can't help it. 😁

    This is the glacier I have walked on twice. The first time was on my surprise trip to Iceland for my significant birthday in 2015. My daughter arranged this (her partner now husband came too) and we donned crampons and had a super time walking on the ice at sunset. I did this again with my friend Tony when we came to Iceland for two weeks, so I wanted to see how much this had changed and of course it had. The campsite was only 15 minutes away from here, if that, so why not?

    It's still a great place to visit, if you like this sort of thing, but once again there is a large car park here rather than a simple gravel area. In the last photo you will see a path which I'm sure we walked along to get to the glacier for our walk. Now, however, the glacier is black with debris and huge amounts of ice have gone.

    There are properly made paths now, which take you to another section and the photos in this footprint are mostly of that area. I realise there's quite a few photos here, but it hopefully gives you the feeling of the place.

    I needed to keep an eye on the time though, because I was meeting up with a guide at 3.15pm and I had to drive there. I couldn't be late.    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 11

    Travelling to Skaftafell NP

    June 30, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

    Today is a traveling day to get to the eastern corner of Iceland. I'm stopping in a campsite in Skaftafell National Park, the nearest to where I need to be for tomorrow's adventure.

    This footprint is therefore various views along the way. I stopped to photograph a waterfall at one point, as you do, but generally it's the bleak and barren volcanic landscape that is awesome. Well, I think so.

    You might think photo 8 a bit weird but I took this to show the information boards at a picnic stop, but why? It's the fact that they are there and that picnic stops exist. None of this existed when I last visited. The road has been upgraded too and is now much wider and has been straightened in sections. Many of the single lane bridges have been upgraded to two lane and there are no long single lane bridges now. A few short ones still exist however, but not many.

    Iceland has definitely received a upgrade since I was last here.    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 10

    Reynisfjara Beach

    June 29, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

    About 15 minutes before you reach Vik there is another right turn that takes you to this black sand beach. Here you can walk westward along its huge expanse back towards the viewpoint I just visited, or stay at the eastern end and admire the basalt rock columns and those iconic sea stacks. Or you can get swept away to your death by the waves. 😱

    This beach is renowned for its sneaker waves. All beaches have these, when a huge and unexpected wave suddenly arrives, but here they can be particularly fierce and with the beach dropping away suddenly close to shore it can be fatal if you get swept away. It's no trouble if you keep your wits about you and don't stay too long or too close to the shoreline but there's open ocean for thousands of miles from here so waves can be huge.

    I stayed quite a while. The tide was out so I could walk around the headland to the other side, being careful as I did so because of the incoming waves. Hopefully I got some nice shots of the stacks and waves breaking. The stacks are covered with nesting birds which you can't really see in the photos. Helpful. 🙄

    There are a lot of tourists here making photography tricky so patience is needed. I'm wondering if they should actually be called Ants, those tourist Penguins, because they really do get over everything. 😂

    There's a cafe here too and that was my next stop, not only to get a coffee but also to grab an evening meal before finding the campsite for tonight. (Last photo)

    I enjoyed today, being a Penguin visiting here and the waterfalls etc and seeing how different it all is in summer and how generally things are changing.    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 10

    Dyrhólaey

    June 29, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

    The next morning I was finally heading to Vik, which is a town about halfway along the south coast of Iceland. A little before you arrive there is a right turn which takes you to this viewpoint where you can look towards the iconic sea stacks at Vik.

    My goodness had this place changed. The view down the coast is the same as it always was of course, but there is now a new car park and toilets. The parking used to be a relatively small gravel area, roughly where I stood to take photo 3. It's certainly an improvement but it does remove the feeling of wilderness and I'm not sure I like that. Or maybe I just don't like change. 😱

    You may be wondering about photo 3 and why, if you look closely, there is a group of people there. I wondered that too and discovered why as I walked past them - there were puffins nesting there. I never bothered trying to photograph a puffin using my phone, but I may have a puffin on the proper camera, though it was another case if needing a longer lens really.    Read more

  • TravelerTwo Lands of the Midnight Sun
    Day 9

    Sólheimajökull - a glacier surprise

    June 28, 2023 in Iceland ⋅ 🌬 6 °C

    I'd not been driving all that long when I noticed a sign to Sólheimajökull which you might think is meaningless, but the word Jökull means 'glacier' and somehow I never expected to find one where I was. This belief is a bit daft really, because a lot of Iceland is covered by a huge glacier called Vatnajökull, and there are many tongues spreading from it. This will be one of those. (Bet you can read Icelandic now. 😉)

    At first I drove on and ignored the turning, but then I changed my mind and headed back. I was so glad I did and spent an absolute age here exploring the landscape. There was a path to follow to a viewpoint but you could wander off it and I did. I've photographed the information board for you and also a sign warning hikers about walking further into the wilderness. I didn't have time for that anyway ... I had stayed here far too long so Vik was once again out of the question for tonight. You can see from the last photo in this footprint that I ended up staying at Skogafoss because that is a campsite too. Handy that

    I was so pleased to have found this place and although I wasn't the only person there, there were no more than twenty others at random times. It felt like real wilderness - if you ignore that I had to use the Parka app when I arrived. 🤷😂

    Iceland is changing and becoming much more tourist focused.    Read more

Join us:

FindPenguins for iOSFindPenguins for Android

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English