Akureyi, Iceland

Today we sailed in to Akureyi. I've been loving approaching land each morning to see Iceland from a distance. The landscape is incredible, with each port similar but different.

Akureyi s a major tourism hub, and today there were two cruise ships berthed side by side. On the wharf, large numbers of tour coaches lined up waiting to take thousands of passengers out for an exciting day.

From our cabin, we had a lovely view and could even see the famous Akureyrarkirkja, a church which is a synbol of the town.

Helen and I did different shore excursions today, so this is my version.

I was booked on a 7 hour tour and we boarded our tour coach about 8am. Our first fun fact for today is that all stop signs in Akureyi are love hearts, these were installed during the COVID pandemic and left there ever since.

We started by heading around the fjord and up the hills. The landscape here is all up on a large plateau, quote a climb from sea level.

Our first stop was about 30 minutes away at Goðafoss (Waterfall of the Gods). This is a famous 12-meter-tall and 30-meter-wide horseshoe-shaped waterfall which it seems everyone visits. The parking is immense, there are countless tour coaches here, and the walk to the waterfall is packed with people. Still, the waterfall and the rapids it feeds into are quite impressive!

Next we drove around a lake called Mývatn, which is actually a crater for an old volcano, similar to our Lake Taupo in New Zealand. It's impressive in size, and has many small islands.

We stopped at another attraction, whose name I cannot recall, where there are walk trails around hilly formations which are where volcanic material has landed in time gone by. We had an hour to walk around, before walking to a nearby hotel for lunch. I initially took the short walk, and sat for a while taking in the view. I then decided to do part of the loop walk, where there were various lookouts along. the way. Before I knew it, I had committed to completing the entire loop, but found the loop does not end where it began.

We had been told our coach was behind the grey coloured hotel. Problem is, there were multiple grey hotels, and loads of coaches. So I had to talk around a bit to find the right hotel. By the time I got there, appetizers were being enjoyed by everyone, so I didn't have to wait to be fed. Bonus!

Our next visit was Dimmuborgir lava field, which is a huge area of lava formations. There are various walks here, the shortest being around 1 hour, others are several hours. We did the short walk. The rocks are very jagged and sharp, best not to touch.

We then boarded our coach and headed to Hverir Geothermal Area where are there natural hot springs and bubbling mud on a large scale. The landscape is like from another planet, with colours and contours different to anything we've seen so far. We had an hour to walk the circuit around here, and it went all too fast.

Eventually it was time go head back to the ship. The view across the fjord as we dropped back down to sea level were beautiful. 

We arrived back at the ship not long before it was time to sail. I sat out on our deck and got a beautiful last view of Iceland as we look forward to another day.