From here we travelled to the bridge of two continents that spans the Eurasion and North American tectonic plates. Taking a drone along allowed us  further views we couldn’t appreciate from the ground.

From here we went to the site of the Iceland’s oldest lighthouse built in 1878 but also the location for Iceland’s Eurovision video with the keyboards left for posterity.

 

Onto our first hotel where the group all enjoyed the peaceful setting but with the sound of geothermal energy venting in the background that supplied the hotel with never ending hot water.

Day 2 - We had a trip to the Sólheimajökull glacier to see the glacier that is retreating by 100m per year, Walking across the moraine we could see the power of ice changing the landscape. From here we travelled down the coast to see the basalt sea stacks,  black sand at Reynisdranger and the dramatic coastline with waves that come from the Antarctic.

 

From here we travelled to the small town of Vik, the furthest southerly point in Iceland which has dykes built to protect it from ‘jokuhaups’  (cataclysmic floods resulting from the sudden release of water from a glacial lake).

 

In the afternoon we were treated to the magnificent waterfall at Skogafoss a 60m high wall of water that comes from two glaciers. Our final call of the day was to the 60m Seljalandsfoss waterfall that you can walk behind and get thoroughly wet, before you arrive at the next hotel to dry off.

 

  

Day 3 -Our first port of call was to the Secret lagoon natural hot spring with water temperature of 38-40C, yet cold if you stood up, around the pool we were able to observe even more geothermal springs erupting every 5 minutes.

 

From the heat of the pools we then visited the World famous Gullfoss waterfall, which marks the edge of the highland shelf that plunges 33m into a deep mile long gorge.

The noise and spray producing a cacophony of sound and spectacular rainbows.

 

 

 

 

 

After a warm up in the large shopping area and café our next stop was to Geysir, the place that has given the world the name Geyser. 

The final stop of the day was to look at the rift valley formed by the two plates of the Eurasian and North American moving apart at an average rate of 3 cm/year along with being the original site of the Icelandic Parliament established

Back at the hotel it was nice to see the interaction between the different year groups as games came out, and a chess challenge established along with games of Uno and the nice element that mobile phones were a rarity that evening.

 

Day 4 - Into the bowls of extinct volcano at Kerio that had erupted and left a caldera with a lake at the bottom. 

From here we had a walk up the valley behind Hverargeroi to visit hot bubbling mud springs and valleys full of thermal vents as the locals used the warm waters to take advantage of warm streams for a bathe.

We chose to visit the local thermal baths down the village where in temperatures of 4C we were entertained with a wide range of diving techniques and some looking more painful than others!

Finally we had a visit to the city of Reykjavik where two thirds of the whole population of Iceland live and work which is a contrast to the Spartan areas inland. New building built around traditional Icelandic buildings and sculptures.

  

 

 

Before we all finally went to bed we had an Aurora alert for 11.00pm so out into the 40mph wind to see the Northern lights.

On the strike of 11.00, there it was to finish off the final thing to tick off the list

 

 

 

 

 

This was an amazing trip with so many different things to take in and combined with a really fantastic set of students, who all helped each other and interacted well,  made us proud of them and demonstrated how they epitomised the school's CORE values in Iceland. Thank you all staff and students for making this a memorable trip

Mr R Williams