Iceland & Greenland
May 29-Jun 7, 2015
FI1600 YYZ-KEF, Jun 5 NY231 RKV-KUS, Jun 6 NY246 KUS-RKV, Jun 7 FI603 KEF-YYZ
For my parents' 50th anniversary, we decided to celebrate with a family trip together. As the rest of my family lives on the east coast, Icelandair, with regular service out of Halifax, made a natural choice. They each took advantage of the opportunity to do their own vacations in Europe prior to meeting back on their free stopover in Iceland. As Tom and I had done Iceland before and knew all that it had to offer, we were anxious to go back and share much of what we'd already seen.
After the end of the Iceland portion of the trip, and bidding farewell to the rest of the family, we took advantage of the opportunity to check out Greenland. Being relatively early in the season, unfortunately we hadn't been able to get into the high mountain roads of Iceland. We did, however, get an amazing experience of snow and ice covered Greenland with relatively warm temperatures and effectively 24 hours of day light.
May 30
After regrouping from our various flights and getting our rental van, we spend the rest of the day touring the capital, Reykjavik.
May 31
After staying overnight in the capital and having breakfast, we start out early for our tour around the island. As the weather is looking pretty good and because we have a long day of sunlight, we start by heading north. We take a scenic trip around the Hvalfjardarvegur fjord and end the day in the small town of Hekla.
Jun 1
Another full day of traveling we work our way east through more waterfalls and scenery and end the day in Vik. We're starting to get our regular schedule of breakfast at the hotel, relatively early start, self catered lunch along the way as we tour and day hike and evening arrival at our hotel before heading out for dinner and gathering for a card game when we have time.
Jun 2
On our last day heading east, we start out early again and try to search for puffins before we continue our journey along the southern coast. Our primary destination is the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon, but have opportunities to hike and stop along the way at the Vatnajökull National Park. We end the day at our turn around point of Smyrlabjörg.
Jun 3
On our way back west, we stop once more by the glacier pool and get close to the glacial ice that washes back on shore. We have a few hikes along the way and end the day staying in the shadows or Hekla volcano. It was only a little disconcerting to have to register our contact details to be prepared for any unplanned eruption.
Jun 4
For our last day together, we check out some of the back country before heading on the southwest coast and grabbing some lunch together. Finally, before heading out to the airport, we check out the Blue Lagoon and the divide between Europe and North America. After dropping off my parents and Kim and Cathy for their flight, Tom and I check in to our hotel and drop the car off in downtown Reykjavik. We really enjoyed the time together, but is also good to be done being tour guide for a while and get ready for our own adventure to Greenland.
Jun 5
Our trip to Greenland starts with a small plane ride from Reykjavik's city airport. The small airport is used mainly for domestic flights as well as a few flights to Greenland. As the season was still early, we didn't have many options that fit our schedule, but had a great trip to the small fishing village of Kulusuk on a small island off the southeast shore. Being early June, the sun didn't really set the entire time we were there, and although there was lots of ice, it was comfortably just above freezing. Our adventure of the day was a trip into the melting ice on a small fishing boat. Unfortunately, the ice closed in after we left the town. Because of the language barrier, we had no idea how we would get back, but eventually were dropped off at the other side of town and had to hike through the snow to our original departure point.
Jun 6
After the night in our comfortable, but rustic, hotel, we have a morning dogsled ride to Apusiajik Glacier. Like the boat tour, the dogsled was very much a local operation. A local hunter with limited English took us out on the open water to the glacier. Given that the winter ice was melting, the dog sled ride was a bit of an adventure. Although the ice was thick, there were pools of water that made for some splash back, and it was hard to know for sure that we weren't in danger of finding thin ice. In the afternoon we flew back to Iceland and had a final evening in the city.
Jun 7
For our final day on the island, we rented a car and explored some thermal areas just outside the city on our way to the airport. We had a good flight back to Toronto and will definitely plan to be back to Iceland again.
