durham_rambler (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} durham_rambler) wrote,@ 2009-07-07 20:37:00 |
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The role of coffee in the electrification of Iceland
Four days in Iceland, all different, all amazing:
Arrived so late on Friday it was already Saturday in England. The nice man from the hotel was waiting with a people carrier to take us to our beds.
Saturday collected the hire car and set off along the south coast. First experience of salt fish and of gravel roads and of boiling bubbling hot springs, smelling of sulphur. The mud ones were the best. Iceland is on two tectonic plates, one heaing for Europe, the other for America. Walked across a bridge linking the two, with a gap widening by 2cm/year.
Sunday: The Golden circle tour. Kerið volcanic crater lake (see photo), the real and original geyseir, and its younger, more energetic cousin, Gullfoss water fall and finally Þingvellir, whiche Iceland had the world's first democratic parliament and which is also on that gap between the two continents, quite amazing geological formations.
Monday: Walked behind a waterfall (shewhomust has the photo to prove it) and thence to Skogar (another impressive waterfall) and the folk museum. Reconstructed buildings outside, inside an exhibit on Iceland's rapid modernisation after the second world war. It seems that in order to obtain the high voltage electricity cables from Finland, they had to barter: salt fish to South America, who sent coffee to Finland, who sent wires to Iceland.
Today, some impressive coastal scenes with puffins, sole purpose of visit according to some. Then a drive across flat lava deserts with glaciers to our left, then the hotel where I type this and look out the window to see just over the terminal moraine a glacier heading this way, or maybe, regrettably retreating.
Tomorrow: more glaciers and maybe a further report.
Four days in Iceland, all different, all amazing:
Arrived so late on Friday it was already Saturday in England. The nice man from the hotel was waiting with a people carrier to take us to our beds.
Saturday collected the hire car and set off along the south coast. First experience of salt fish and of gravel roads and of boiling bubbling hot springs, smelling of sulphur. The mud ones were the best. Iceland is on two tectonic plates, one heaing for Europe, the other for America. Walked across a bridge linking the two, with a gap widening by 2cm/year.
Sunday: The Golden circle tour. Kerið volcanic crater lake (see photo), the real and original geyseir, and its younger, more energetic cousin, Gullfoss water fall and finally Þingvellir, whiche Iceland had the world's first democratic parliament and which is also on that gap between the two continents, quite amazing geological formations.Monday: Walked behind a waterfall (
shewhomust has the photo to prove it) and thence to Skogar (another impressive waterfall) and the folk museum. Reconstructed buildings outside, inside an exhibit on Iceland's rapid modernisation after the second world war. It seems that in order to obtain the high voltage electricity cables from Finland, they had to barter: salt fish to South America, who sent coffee to Finland, who sent wires to Iceland.Today, some impressive coastal scenes with puffins, sole purpose of visit according to some. Then a drive across flat lava deserts with glaciers to our left, then the hotel where I type this and look out the window to see just over the terminal moraine a glacier heading this way, or maybe, regrettably retreating.
Tomorrow: more glaciers and maybe a further report.
