ICELAND DAY 1 (KEF > Vík)

Almost exactly a month ago, we finished shooting the wedding in the Roman Baths and walked back to our hotel after 1am. We uploaded, backed up, posted some

images for the couple and closed our eyes for a few winks. Bright and early we rode a shuttle back to London to catch a flight to Iceland. We arrived a few hours later

in the much chillier air of Reykjavik.  Adam did his homework on Iceland hours a day for MONTHS. He knew the ins and outs of the place as if he’d lived there for a year.

Like literally he’d say, “just around this bend there will be a small mountain then it should drop down to the parking lot of the coordinates.” Thank you Google Earth! Let

me say loud and clear, I did nothing for this trip. He even ordered all my gear! Winning! I had fresh eyes and no clue what to expect this way. 🙂

Here’s the map we followed with his planned stops. Blue line was our driving route and the stars are where our hostel was for the night. Some of those were just

like tiny hotel rooms while others were like college dorms where we had a community bathroom.

Our first day was traveling KEF > Vík. Of course, on maybe 2 hrs sleep and the long day on our feet plus wedding hang over, he planned some really cool stuff.

Good thing was, daylight was 24 hrs so we weren’t chasing the sun to get everything done!

Our first waterfall was super cool. We had no idea, ok, I had no idea we’d see 178 waterfalls a day so I was super excited to get in there and see it. So was Adam.

You’ll see a lot of those water spots. These water falls were massive and the mist was non stop. Not to mention the wind blowing the water to us no

matter how far we were from the actual falls.

You guys. I don’t care for heights BUT something came over me this trip. I don’t even know who I was. You can see how high up we were in this image and I

wasn’t even that nervous. There was, shockingly, a chain here but that was VERY unusual. Typically a 500m drop with a ledge the size of our body. Like,

where’s the warnings for the idiots with no climbing experience like me? HA! No wonder the tourist death rate in Iceland is rising quickly!

I kept stopping to focus on all the cool growth covering the surrounding areas. Adam and Jim kept hollering at me to get moving.

You’ll see more of these pretties. They literally grew everywhere, no matter the surface.

We hiked a mile to a hot spring, got naked in a cold, dark, wet and muddy room. Ran quickly from the 45′ air into the 100′ hotspring. I touched the actual

source of water feeding the enclosed area and I scalded my hand. Oops.

I haven’t mentioned that my world traveling cousins joined us! The really are traveling nurses but in the time between jobs, they take off and explore the world!

Color me jealous!! They spent about 4.5 wks backpacking Europe surrounding the wedding. They last minute decided to join us so it was great to have company!

All the backpackers pitched tents at the big waterfalls. Also, it was 1030pm here. We were laughing and carrying on and I realized oops, people are probably

inside those sleeping!

See the profile on the left? God’s little jokes here and there.

We did this often. I’d stop to take a real pic, then I’d do a panorama or video with my iPhone.

Those switchbacks were forever high especially on my sore sore feet. We watched some ding dong girl in freaking Toms shoes, TRY AND CLIMB the steep cliffs near

the water. We watched her from 75ft below just waaaaiting for her to tumble down and split in two. It was horrifying but we couldn’t look away.

This was our view of Jim and Jess across the way at their hostel in one of the buildings on the left.

We actually didn’t finish all that we were supposed to on the first day because miles after miles of walking and it was nearing midnight, we just needed sleep.

So we doubled back the next day, which I will show you at some point. 🙂 Heart, Melanie.