Iceland in January 1: Plan and Departure

Stunning scenery

Iceland in January? Are you crazy?

Well, actually, no. After seeing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Caty called me and said, “we must go to Iceland.” 

Photo: Twentieth Century Fox

So, the planning began. She did some research and discovered that Iceland boasts orcas in the winter. Her bosses decided to take sabbaticals in January. And, she wanted to take another stab at aurora borealis (northern lights). So, we decided to take a trip to Iceland in January. It also helped that Icelandair flies non-stop from Denver. Just seven hours! 

Photo: Icelandair

Plus, our research revealed that the weather isn’t as bad as the country’s name would imply. Winter temperatures hover around freezing (not the -20s one would expect), making it quite balmy for its latitude. Of course, we knew we would have to deal with just 5-6 hours of daylight every day.

We decided against a tour, opting rather to rent a car and create our own itinerary. Before we put the plan together, I actually spent five days in Iceland enroute to and from to Norway in late summer (there posts - here, here and here), so I had a better idea of what we needed to do.

• We created a plan and booked our flight, our hotels and a nice four-wheel drive car (expensive, but the words “icy roads” made it necessary). Our original plan was:
• Fly to Keflavik and immediately go to the Blue Lagoon thermal spa (I had been on my first trip and, although it’s not really all that cool, it is a must do), then go to Reykjavik for the night (the logic was that I hadn’t seen much of it the last time)
• Drive the Golden Circle and spend the night in Hella at the Ranga Hotel, famed for northern lights
• Drive to Grundarfjörður in the Snæfellsnes Peninsula to whale watch
• Take the ferry to the West Fjords and stay in two different towns
• Take the ferry back and head south to see the waterfalls and the glacial lagoons

The route

Good plan. It’s not exactly what we did. So, here’s the chronicle of how we reshaped a fabulous trip based on the realities of the country – made a few mistakes, failed at one goal, achieved another, had a few white-knuckle moments and had a great time. And, before I go on, I have to praise Booking.com for its liberal cancellation policy. 

We ended up with only one penalty in a series of changes and reroutes.

We even made one change before we left. As the trip got closer and I started checking weather forecasts, I found a website with Iceland road conditions and discovered one of our hotels in West Fjords was not reachable (roads marked “impassable”), so we changed to two nights at the first hotel. I used this site during the entire trip!

Roads

It was a 35-mile drive from the ferry terminal where we would arrive after dark and now I was reading that the roads in West Fjords are “worst in Iceland”. I was starting to get nervous.

So, here we go … two adventurers tackle the land of fire and ice … and, I should add wind!

We booked on Icelandair to depart on Caty’s birthday. Since we lost seven hours that day, it was her shortest birthday ever.

We booked two window seats in the back of the plane (my theory is that middle seats in back fill up last). When we boarded, the theory proved itself UNTIL the girl traveling with the guy in my aisle seat decided to move over. She spent most of the flight curled up with her foot pressed into my thigh and her head in his lap. Not too bad, but not what I was hoping for. Caty did have an empty seat next to her.

Our flight was late in departing because a passenger (who turned out also to be traveling with our seatmates – the two in my row and Caty’s aisle mate) decided to have a smoke in the lavatory when she boarded. She was escorted off the plane and we had to wait while her baggage was retrieved. Oddly, her traveling companions didn’t seem too upset. I got the sense they may have met in a bar and decided on a whim to go to Iceland. They had lodgings, but no other plans.

Our flight departed at 4:15 and traveled east, so the bulk of the flight was dark. As we took off, we noticed Icelandair's very cool over-bin aurora borealis lighting.

Plane aurora

About three hours in, I saw some light green clouds that looked a bit like aurora borealis to me. Sure enough, they were. We had about three hours. It’s tough to see (and tougher to photograph) out an airplane window, but it was pretty cool. It lasted from northern Canada to Greenland, but died out before Iceland.

Real Aurora

It was 60 degrees when we left Denver. We landed at 6:30 a.m. at Keflavik. First challenge: where is Thrifty Rental Car? Not at the terminal. They are supposed to pick you up, but no one was there. So, we called them and had to wait. Then, we headed out to their van in dark, cold weather. It started to snow as we headed to the office. When we got there, they already had the car warmed up and we did the inspection in driving snow and wind. We loaded up and headed for the Blue Lagoon. It was dark. It was windy. It was cold. The roads were snowy. Hmmmmmm ...

The GPS is was bit confused about the Blue Lagoon. It took us to the Power Plant next to the Lagoon. We were hungry and too early for the Blue Lagoon, so we drove to nearby Grindavík. By now, it was 8 a.m., but you would have thought aliens had raided the town and abducted everyone. Nothing was open. We drove back to the Blue Lagoon over some roads that were a little snowier than I like. Hmmmmmm …

We arrived at the Blue Lagoon parking lot and parked. It was almost empty, but we were getting close to its 10 a.m. opening time. I reached to take the key out of the ignition and there was none! The car had been started when I picked it up, so that was a surprise. Caty quickly realized that it was a keyless ignition, but we had a few minutes of panic as we searched for the keyfob (finally found it) and the start/stop button (in the middle of the dashboard). Then, we got out to grab our suits. It was still dark and now the wind had picked up to gale force. The snow had turned to ice missiles. The parking lot was icy. We were wondering it we had lost our minds.

We had a quick breakfast at the Blue Lagoon café, paid our admission, rented towels and bathrobes and went to the locker room. If you go to the Blue Lagoon, you should know that they require you to shower (not in your suit) before you can go in. Would have been nice to know before we suited up. We thought we could sneak by, but we were sent back to the showers.

Finally ready, we found out that there is a way to get in the water inside (I was really dreading the 20-30 ft. walk to the water that I used to get in last summer). Still, it was chilly and the water just wasn’t all that warm.

Photo: Caty Stevens

Since I had been before, I knew we needed to head across the lagoon to where the really hot water is. We were being pelted by ice, our faces were freezing and our glasses were totally steamed up as we crab-walked to the good stuff. The hot water was lovely, but our faces were pretty cold the entire time. We talked to a couple from North Carolina and some Brits and had a nice relaxing soak.

Before I move on, let me give a little background on the Blue Lagoon (Bláa lónið) because, even though it is one of Iceland's biggest tourist attractions, it's not a natural wonder. It is located in a lava field on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland just about 12 miles from Keflavík International Airport and 24 miles from Reykjavík. The water is 98-102°F and rich in minerals including silica (hence the milkiness of the water) and sulfur (hence the smell). 

Photo: Caty Stevens

The surprise is that it is a man-made lagoon fed by the output of the nearby geothermal power plant. Superheated water (I have heard 458-464°F) is vented from the ground to run turbines that generate electricity. After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal water heating system. Then the water is fed into the lagoon. Because of its mineral concentration, water cannot be recycled and must be disposed of in the nearby landscape, a permeable lava field 50 cm to 1 meter thick. After the minerals have formed a deposit, the water reinfiltrates the ground, but the deposit renders it impermeable over time, hence the necessity for the plant to continuously dig new ponds in the nearby lava field. They were noisily doing that while we were there. It’s been around since the early 80’s and became a public facility in 1992. It has a spa and a hotel (where we thought of staying – and should have).

After that adventure, we had a quick lunch in the café (we thought about the highly touted LAVA restaurant there, but the menu wasn’t that appealing) and headed toward Reykjavik. It had been my idea to go to Reykjavik because I didn’t see much of it last time.

On the way, we saw an interesting thing: a church lit up with Christmas lights, including lights on all the crosses in the graveyard. Weird. I didn't get a shot, but I found this one of a different church online.

Photo from pearlnet@blogspot.com

But, by the time we arrived, it was getting late and we were tired. We checked into the Best Western and I went to a nearby grocery store for picnic supplies while Caty rested. I knew that facilities are few and far between, so we figured we would need some food and drinks with us at all times.

We ventured out for dinner. It was dark and cold, but we found a cozy pub named 73 where I had some excellent arctic char and Caty had a yummy bleu cheese burger. The street wasn’t that interesting and it was a bit icy. 

Photo: Caty Stevens

We walked to the Hallgrímskirkja church, which I had photographed in lovely sunset light last summer, but it was a bit dark for great photos, so we walked back to the hotel. 

I decided that we just aren’t city folk and driving to Reykjavik for the night was a waste. 

We should have stayed at the Blue Lagoon or gone on to Hella.

Of course, as tired as we were, I couldn’t sleep. 

I was fretting about driving to the West Fjords (or anywhere for that matter) and trying to check for aurora (but it was pretty light out our window). 

We didn’t set an alarm because we figured we’d be up early for our drive to the Golden Circle (we wanted to leave at about 9 a.m. so we could see a pretty sunrise). Imagine my surprise when, after finally falling asleep, I heard Caty say, “Mom, get up, it’s 9:04!” So, a hurried wake-up and breakfast (very crowded because a tour was leaving), we hit the road about an hour late.

Trip date: January 16-27, 2015