The weather in west Iceland is lovely – which means it’s time for a snow day.
A dear friend of ours introduced us to the concept of snow days when my wife and I were getting married in Prague. Everyone else had a whole host of activities planned, but she announced that she was going to take a snow day.
(In Canada, these typically occur when sufficient snow has fallen to make it unsafe to run school buses – and as a result, everyone stays home and does very little of anything.)
Our friend’s innovation? It does not need to be snowing to take a snow day.
The concept of a snowless snow day has stuck with me, and today we are going take one.
“But Ryan,” you ask, “Didn’t you just have two back-to-back sea days?”
Not quite. The first of those sea days was spent chasing the eclipse, while the second required us to pack up 14 days worth of cruise ship sprawl. And since then, we had a travel day. We’ve also previously made the mistake of pushing ourselves too hard. All of that is ample justification.
That said, part of the joy of a snow day is that you don’t have to justify it. It just is. And I think that’s beautiful.
We started by waking as late as humanly (parently?) possible. The kids were informed that the adults would be up just before 9 am, and that we would make them breakfast immediately thereafter. Or they could make breakfast themselves. Unsurpringly, they have elected to have breakfast made for them. (It also didn’t hurt that they’re quite content to have a late start.)
Our usual travel breakfast that morning – cereal; yoghurt, granola, and berries; and toast and butter. It’s a nice break from the eggs-and-sausages that have successfully won my attention over the past two weeks.
It’s after 10 am by the time we wrap, so there’s not much of the morning left – but we joyfully spend it reading / writing / relaxing, interspersed with a walk down to the grocery store to pick up some forgotten items.
Here we spot a local food stall called Maestro:
Looks like they serve a mean Icelandic hotdog here. We make plans to return after our hike in Snæfellsjökull park in a few days’ time.
Back to our rental, where a variety of sandwiches start calling our names – including our favourite, grilled ham and cheese with spicy mayo used on the outside in place of butter.
The slothfulness continues into the afternoon, at which point we decide we need a nice long tromp to contrast with all the relaxation – so we decide to head to to nearby Grundarfoss.
Along the way, the kids spot a proper Icelandic playground – including a domed trampoline-like play structure that we’ve only spotted in Iceland before:
Photo Credit: Ærslabelgir
This is called a Ærslabelgir – which, you will be delighted to know, literally translates into “madness bag” or “frenzy balloon.”* The kids make immediate plans to return following our hike.
*Also “rowdy bellows.”
It’s a mere 30 minute walk from our place to the start of the Grundarfoss trail, but I decide to drive instead. Whilst in Hoi An, I made everyone walk through a part of town that was not really meant for walking – so I am somewhat gun shy when it comes to walking along major roadways.
However, I check the route while driving and it seems to have a wide, flat shoulder except for the occasional bridged section. So it is eminently walkable for those seeking to wander down from the cruise port, as opposed to paying whatever ludicrous sum a cruise company might attempt to charge to transport passengers via a coach bus.
The drive takes little more than 5 minutes, and we have no issues with parking. We’re also driving a plug-in hybrid and our rental includes charging, so we don’t even need to burn any extremely expensive Icelandic gas in the process.
We park, and head out toward Grundarfoss.
It’s a lovely walk:
On the way, I spot a very vocal black-tailed Godwit:
Soon the waterfall comes into view:
There is, unfortunately, a group of Russian tourists in athleisurewear attempting to both fly a drone and take endless selfies at the waterfall – but thankfully their antics stay on the ‘minimally irritating’ side of the spectrum.
The view improves even further once the clouds begin to break:
I hadn’t realized how close we can get to the waterfall.
I have of course forgotten my tripod, but as any good computing scientist knows – it’s all about finding the right wrench to pound the right screw. Or the right rock to prop the right camera, in this case:
There’s plenty of birdlife here too, though I have the wrong lens to reach it. (And at least the Russian drone is steering clear.)
Eventually it’s time to head back:
With a brief stop to photograph the sheep.
“Are ewe looking at me?”
Now we can really relax – though the kids do pay a visit to the insanity pillow:
Photo Credit for Playground Shots: Our Eldest
There’s a nice playground here too:
And a terrifying zipline:
Most Icelandic playgrounds seem to be built around some kind of dare
The kids say they really enjoy playing tag here, particularly with so many children around. I ask if they invited the Icelandic children to join them and they said, “No, but it made it more difficult to tag each other with the other children in a way.” So less a game of “tag” than of “human shield”, but I’m glad they’re having fun.
I don’t usually take photos of our homemade meals, but I’ll make an exception here to show that we occasionally eat something green – beef fajitas with guacamole and asparagus:
The produce in Iceland has been surprisingly good thus far, and not terribly expensive despite the eye-watering prices we’ve seen in restaurants.
The kids head to bed, and my wife and I then turn our attention to the maddening task of trying to fly from Toronto to Borneo in June 2027, as well as the return trip from Komodo Island.
After much planning, we eventually determine that our best option is to get the direct Toronto to Hong Kong flight on Cathay Pacific. We had hoped to swing business class, but it would have worked out to CAD$40,000 and we just could not justify that in any way, shape or form. So we book premium economy instead for well under half the cost of business.
We are also wrestling with how much time to leave ourselves between the various connecting flights, and eventually decide to just leave full days on either end. As much as we enjoyed our visit to Hong Kong Disney, it scarcely qualified as a visit to Hong Kong itself and so we will then be in a position to rectify that. Plus it gives us many other flights from which to choose should we get delayed at some point in the journey.
With that finally behind us, we are then able to pour ourselves some wine and watch the sun set on Grundarfjörður:
