hiking | Scandal on Ben Nevis

Yuletide & 2017!

We had a great Yuletide season this year. Kicked off by purchasing our biggest tree yet and decorating it beautifully with lights and ornaments at the beginning of December already, and followed by visiting friends and markets in Freiburg, we were ready for the main events. This year I made fewer kinds of cookies, but no less delicious, and complemented by awesome German lebkuchen, we were not left wanting for sweets.

Tree

Solstice/my b-day celebrations started with a lavish breakfast of blueberry pancakes and a huge pile of presents (I wouldn’t want it any other way!). I got some beautiful stuff, including books and a Welsh print for the wall, and to top it all off a trip to Amsterdam in the spring! It’s gonna be awesome and I can’t wait. Since I already took the day off at work, I just lounged for the day, reading my books and enjoying myself. In the evening I went around town a bit to look at the lights and decorations set up everywhere for my benefit and celebration, and finally met Iest for dinner at Busaba Eathai.

The main celebration on the 25th was lovely as well, with lavish pressies (especially for me again), and fancy three-course meal including baked camembert with honey, figs and nuts as a starter, parmesan breaded garlic mushroom pizzas (made from scratch including Iest’s signature dough), and dark chocolate chilli mousse (made by me). I got (among many others) a membership of the UK National Trust for 2017, so that’s our weekend trips sorted – 581 places to choose from! We were extremely full and didn’t want to spoil the rest of the day anyway, so we left the packing for the next day morning and just enjoyed our day lounging and playing with pressies. Also played a full game of dice, in which I ruled like the dice queen I am.

Dinner

On the 26th we packed everything (like, literally – I can’t believe we ever made it to Wales by train), and loaded our trusty Terrell, and drove up to the beautiful Snowdonia. Where we got even more presents, including a boat trip over to the Skerries sometime next year!

Tuesday 27 December
Weather reasonable (there is no snow though this year), so we went up Moel Siabod for a stroll. It’s like a little hillock up from Capel Curig, no biggie. It was quite foggy and windy up top, and the streams were nicely frozen over. We countered it with nice tea from our thermos and a serving of yule cookies. Overall, we defo consumed more energy than we gave up on the walk, but after the week of only eating, the fresh air and some movement did us real good.

Moel Siabod

Wednesday 28 December
Amazing sunny day, no other possibility than lugging our holiday weight up a nice range – we selected the Carneddau for the honour. Starting up from LLyn Ogwen, we took the National Trust route straight up (I allowed Iest on it, even though he’s not a member), and basking in the winter sun we made it to the first peak. From there on it was a nice ridge walk, sprinkled with tea and yule cookies. It was still quite windy up top, and water was frozen solid, but the sun was unwavering until the evening. We went down through an uncharted territory to make sure we’d get to the car before dark, which these days comes way too early. Lovely walk!

Carneddau

Pen yr Ole Wen

Crisp evening

Carneddau

Thursday 29 December
Weather so so, and clouds lying low on the mountains. Perfect day for another National Trust treasure visit – this time the whistling sands beach of Porthor on the LLŷn peninsula. A beautiful place, not so much whistly this time around, but still a pretty piece of coast. Had a cuppa in the small café, and swung also by another great NT place – Porth y Swnt in Aberdaron – on the way. This is a nice exhibition about the culture and environment of the peninsula, and includes a puffin hole!

Pan chwery chwa oddi uchod â’r môr
Mae hen angenfilod
Y dwfn I’w wyneb yn dod
I’w haileni’n wylanod

Evening watch of long-anticipated Charlie Brooker 2016 Wipe – what a year this was! He still covered it in only an hour, and did well as always.

Whistling sands

Friday 30 December
And since we were so into NT places now, we decided to visit the great Plas Newydd and gardens on the Menai straits. This elegant house was redesigned by James Wyatt in the 18th century, and has lots to see both inside and out. Because of the season not all of the interiors were accessible (so we’ll have to visit again), but the ones that were were nicely decorated with trees and presents and fireplaces and board games and seasonal music, so it was all very nice. The gardens likewise, plus beautiful views across the straits. Good choice. To top the day up, we went by Rhosneigr for a little stroll, and finally had a nice dinner with friends at Dylan’s in Criccieth.

Plas Newydd

Saturday 31 December
Last day of the year! Which actually does not mean much to us – we do not partake in forced celebrations and parties on the night. But we thought we could go camping in the wild again, like we have done several times before. Alas, the forecast was for heavy rains to come for the night, so there was really no point (the point is to wake up in raging sunshine in the new year, perhaps even dip into the sea on the occasion). During the day we decided to make one more small walk in the hills, and selected my fave Yr Aran for the occasion. The peak was submerged in cloud, but overall it was a very fine final walk for the year.
We made a nice batch of chickpea curry for the evening, and went to bed way before midnight.

Yr Aran

We did however, drag Gina out of the warmth and down to Dinas Dinlle, where we made our text-book year number (2017!) in lights, together with some heart light-graffiti in the cold, wet rain.

2017 Lights!

Heart Lights!

Sunday 1 January
Packed everything, it does not seem we have less stuff even though we offloaded all the kids’ pressies that were taking up the trunk, weird. Made our way down to our London home via Snowdonia, which had now been blessed with a sprinkling of snow on its highest peaks (just as it was pissing down through the night in the valleys), so we could make an impromptu photoshoot of Iestyn’s beard and slippers in the wild.
At home sweet home we watched new Sherlock (kinda so so, better than the last one, but long lost are the splendours of season 1&2), with some pizza and wine (for Gina) before going to bed.

Monday 2 January
Thank gods for this day off, so we could do all the laundry, clean up, and purge our little flat of any sign of the preceding festivities – took down the tree and all decorations, and that was that. Back to normal and to 2017!

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29
Aug 16

Wales

Looks like we went for a nice weekend trip to Wales at the end of August, but who knows – only very few people update this blog regularly, and now many months later this is just a faint memory. Looks like a nice scramble who knows where, also up Cnicht, some beach, and I was doing so well with my macro lens.

Scramble somewhere

Scramble

Hike too

Beach

from Cnicht

Macro spider

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30
Mar 16

Wales Easter

As usual, we headed up to Wales for Easter. Hurricane Katy was also heading up, so we had to give up kayaking plans, but otherwise we were totes on the top of our game – hiking, sea, sunsets, birds, oen bachs and family time, all check! Plus, awesome time with my macro lens.

We did a nice little hike up the Roman steps to Rhinog Fawr, down by Harlech. Saw a Red Grouse on the way too.

Up Rhinog Fawr

Down Rhinog Fawr

Red Grouse

Sunset before the storm, from Dinas Dinlle.

Sunset

Also a nice hike our fave Yr Aran, the Vatican way this time, with some nice views on the snowy Snowdon ridge.

Gina and Yr Wyddfa

Cwm Llan a Yr Wyddfa

Up Aran

Up on Aran

Down Aran

Spectacularly windy trip around Morfa Nefyn, sort of sunny though. No seals!

Morfa Nefyn

Macro throughout. Getting really good at it, should be selling them for postcards!

Oen bachs everywhere!

Oen bach

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21
Jul 15

Stykkishólmur – Reykjavik

We checked out Stykkishólmur in the morning, probably the first town we see in Iceland with nice ‘scandi-style’ architecture. If Stykkishólmur can, why can’t the others? Nevertheless, not much to do, so we set out on our journey back to Reykjavik.

‘Scandi-style’ architecture

Þingvellir

As we had some time, we decided to take in Þingvellir on the way, the only point of the ‘golden circle’, which we hadn’t seen yet. Þingvellir is a site of immense historical importance to Iceland, as well as geographical, it being the meeting place of the Northamerican and Eurasian tectonic plates. Despite that, it is kinda boring on the face of it, and most of the time I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to be looking at. Nevertheless, check!

“The Sun Voyager”

Glass wall at Harpa

From there we went straight to Reykjavik to return our car, and back to our campsite. We then walked to town to check out the main sights, it was a beautiful sunny day, and the wind finally quieted down. Delish lunch by the Tjörnin, but not quite sure there is much left for us to do in town tomorrow…

Gina’s silhouette at Harpa

Photoshoot at Sæbraut

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19
Jul 15

Heimaey – Reykjavik

We woke up into a super strong wind, shaking up the tent. Despite that the weather was still plenty nice and sunny, if a bit hazy.

Coastal Path

Gina marching ahead

We set out on our puffin-hunting, along the western shore of the island to the south. Even after walking the five or so kms along the coast we still didn’t see any (although we saw a number of other birds), and the wind was really pretty gusty. (We later learned that this is, indeed, the windiest spot in Europe.)

Looking out towards Suðurey

The beach at Vikin

When we reached the southernmost peninsula, we were almost losing hope for puffins. We climbed up the hill to the bird-watching hut – and there they were! In their hundreds along the cliffs and on the sea, some bravely trying to fly in the strong wind, their little orange beaks and feets flapping along. It was really pretty awesome.

Puffin

When we had enough, we went back to the road and decided to try to thumb to town to spare us another hour in the gusts despite the fact that there was very little traffic at this place. We were super lucky though and got a ride immediately with a nice French couple before we even really started hitching.

A sunburned and windswept Iest

Gina and Toti

Back in town we got ourselves a Panini lunch and headed to the last unexplored spot on the island – the aquarium. The place was fairly small but full of wonders – huge amounts of stuffed birds and animals and fishes, and also tanks with live fishes and other water creatures. It also had boxes with little gull chicks, nursing them after they’ve fallen out from nests, until they’re strong enough to survive. On top of all that, there was one guillemot walking casually around; aaand and one local puffin who’s just living there since four years, and I got to hold him! Excellent visit.

Local Puffin – Toti!

A very curious Guillemot!

Afterwards we bought some skyrs and went to pack up before heading out for the boat.
We said a sad goodbye to the island, and zoomed over to the mainland seamlessly connected with a bus to Reykjavik. We arrived at the campsite at about half ten, pitched the tent in the strong wind (still here as well!), and went to make a dinner in the nice warm common kitchen. Decided we wanted to sleep in a little bit tomorrow, so no getting up crazy hours to catch a bus to Borgarnes, we’ll see about renting a car for the trip.

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17
Jul 15

Þórsmörk – Heimaey

Still sunny – unreal. We picked a nice little walk to Valahnúkur viewpoint, from where we had some spectacular views over the whole valley and onto all three surrounding glaciers. Then we had a nice filling lunch while waiting for a bus to take us out of there, as we’ve had enough mountain beauty for now.

Campsite and sauna

View of the valley

Valahnúkur

Spectacular views

We had a pretty sweet time posing for the camera up on the Valahnúkur viewpoint – with Eyjafjallajökull behind us.

Gina posing well

Iest and Eyjafjallajökull

Gina’s spectacular pose

By the time the bus was going, there were some heavy black clouds coming in from the mountains, so just as well that we were going. We took the bus only to Hvolsvöllur, which is not even a village, just a cross-roads type of place (Groeslon if you will), and there we waited for another bus to take us to the ferry in Landeyjahöfn. We bought some sandwiches for the wait so the times were good. The bus came more or less on time and soon we were buying ferry tickets too. Everything worked out pretty seamlessly. The ferry ride was short and sweet with calm seas and setting sun (ish of course, it does not do it here). Heimaey welcomed us with some epic clifs and the screams of thousands birds. We found our way to a nice small campsite in a volcano crater, Iest did some washing and we called it a day.

Heimaey’s Herjólfsdalur

Herjólfsdalur Campsite

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16
Jul 15

Emstrur – Þórsmörk

Sunny again, getting a bit boring. Leisurely start to the day, we were once again in no hurry for the rest of the hike. After a hearty breakfast we picked ourselves up and set out along the glacier towards our destination. The final day was quite lazy, nicely rolling 16 kms with some epic views all around. Soon enough, we saw the massive delta of the Krossá river, by which Þórsmörk was to be hiding. Final descent to the lush valley of alpine-like meadows, and we landed in Húsadalur, our chosen camp.

Regi on the footbridge

View of the river

Another section of the river

Incredible colours

We learned from the woman at check-in that on Saturday the yearly Laugavegur ultra marathon is taking place, during which runners do the same route that just took us three days (~55 kms), in 4-5 hours. Way to make us feel like total losers. We did not let that discourage us though, and pitched our tent by the local hot pot/ sauna, and then took one of the best showers of this trip. We topped that up with a lunch of amazing creamy seafood soup with delish bread, coffee, cake and wifi, and we felt pretty good about ourselves again.

Here we are, just before we arrive at the camp

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15
Jul 15

Álftavatn – Emstrur

SUNNY! We woke up into glorious blazing sun, which was just amazing. We pulled our stuff out of the tent to air out and dry while making a delicious porridge in the sun. we were in no rush as we didn’t intend to do another double day, so there was only some mild 15 kms ahead of us for the day. It was a nice a pleasant walk indeed, with two or three river crossings, which we didn’t mind because – the sun!

Campsite at Álftavatn

Lake Álftavatn and campsite

View of the Álftavatn valley

River Crossing

Innri-Emstura

Another river crossing

Storkonufell

Mountain Pass

There were some beautiful glacier and mountain views but otherwise it was quite uneventful, and we were in Emstrur by 3pm. There were not many camping spots by the hut, so we were lucky to have one of the first picks, and well we picked. By the night the place really filled up.

Emstrur Campsite

Iest and the Markarfljótsgljúfur canyon

After a good meal (our speciality – ramen noodles in cup soups) we did a nice side walk to the nearby Markarfljótsgljúfur canyon, which really turned out to be more spectacular that the small unpretentious sign pointing to it would suggest. Afterwards we did a bit of sketching and had an early night while the sun was still high up.

Markarfljótsgljúfur canyon and Gina for scale

Markarfljótsgljúfur canyon

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08
Jul 15

Mývatn

This day we wanted to explore the Mývatn area and its main sights. Unfortunately, while not far away, they are still a little bit too much spread out to walk around all of them in a day. There’s a bus making the round trip between 12 and 16:30 or so, but we thought it was quite expensive for what it was, and even more importantly, it would not give us the opportunity to walk around the short trails at the places we wanted to see.

Morning view from camp!

So we decided to try our luck hitching rides for the day, especially since without our big packs we thought we should be ok. We waited on the road out of town to the direction of Hverir where we wanted to go first, and initially didn’t have much luck, because we were only second in line after a couple of hippies with big bags nobody wanted to take. Nevertheless, after about half hour (and increasing our distance from the hobos) we were picked up by a very nice French guy and his mum, who were touring Iceland together – they took us all the way to Hverir parking lot, bingo!

Hverir

Mud cauldron at Hverir

At Hverir, we marvelled at the beauty of yet another sulphur-stinking geothermal areas, as our guide puts it “magical, ochre-toned world of Hverir is a lunar-like landscape of mud cauldrons, steaming vents, radiant mineral deposits and piping fumaroles.” Quite so.

A piping fumaroles, Hverir

Gina and the mud cauldron

Radiant mineral deposits

We walked a short circular trail over the nearest ridge, which was a great choice because not only did we discover more steaming fields bur also we got to see the whole area from up top, with amazing views all the way back to lake Mývatn on the other side.

Looking down on Hverir

Gina and the lunar landscape

Us at Hverir

Gina 50mm’d

Iest 50mm’d

After getting down, we went back on the road and walked over to the turnoff to Krafla, where we got lucky already with the second car going up – a young US couple.

Krafla

Gina ‘thumbing’ like a pro

At Krafla, we went first to the Víti explosion crater, which is now filled with turquoise water. From there, we walked over to the Leirhnjúkur lava field, which was created through a series of nine eruptions as recent as the 1970s and 80s – a very impressive trail of blackness and fumes again!

Víti explosion crater

Gina at the Víti explosion crater

Leirhnjúkur lava field

Gina at the Leirhnjúkur lava fields

Mighty awesome atmosphere

Leirhnjúkur lava field

It was beginning to be a bit chilly and we also hadn’t eaten the whole day, so we were ready to have a late lunch and warm ourselves up in the local nature baths – just to get there. But we were lucky again, taken down to the main road by an English guy, and from there in a bit by a nice French family all the way to the baths. We had a light lunch in the café, and then we were ready to jump in. The baths are not huge but two good sized connected pools, the cooler of which with amazing views over the lava fields all the way to Mývatn in the distance.

Mývatn Nature Baths

Needless to say, we stayed mostly in the hotter one, and enjoyed it immensely. The milky steaming waters were supremely relaxing, and the floating heads of other people had an otherworldly beauty to them – the steam worked like a soft focus lens. We stayed soaking for about an hour until we were all wrinkly and then reluctantly left. Despite being all relaxed and soft, we decided to walk back to the lake on a trail, which was nice, and we saw some new lava formations too. Once we hit the main road by the lake we found Daddi’s pizza and treated ourselves in this small but popular spot to a couple of pizzas, which were surely too big but delicious. I went for the house special – with smoked trout and pine nuts – delish! Iest had his fave Icelandic beer too.

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07
Jul 15

Vesturdalur – Mývatn

We woke up to a light drizzle but by the time we got up it was over. We made a nice breakfast and packed up and were ready to go, when Iest noticed that the clip from his chest strap is missing. (For the record, Osprey backpacks are the worst designed backpacks I have ever seen in every possible aspect. Iest was struggling with the piece of sh*t for the whole trip.) Fortunately we managed to find the clip in the grass, which was just pure luck, really, and were ready to go.

Jökulsárgljúfur canyon

Gina & Jökulsárgljúfur canyon

Iest & Jökulsárgljúfur canyon

The way along the canyon was maybe even more spectacular than the day before, because we had plenty of side waterfalls to enjoy, and and also one river crossing – icy cold, straight from the glacier no less. We fancied that.

River Crossing

Waterfall

Jökulsárgljúfur canyon

We arrived at the Dettifoss waterfall after 4pm, via the campsite which unlike what we thought was not actually by the waterfall but a nice grassy spot within a lava field a little way off. There were no facilities save for a wooden table and a tank of water in the campsite.

Dettifoss

Dettifoss itself was quite impressive indeed, with apparently the largest volume of water roaring through of any European waterfall. After we had enough of looking at it, and were also quite wet from its mighty spray, we headed back to the campsite to pitch our home for the night. Our bus was supposed to go at 1pm the next day. There were a lot of cars in the parking lot, and also a tour bus – that’s where I thought may be it would be going to Mývatn as well, and could give us a lift to save us half a day, and may be we could even have a shower already today.

Gina and Detifoss

Gina and Dettifoss

The bus driver indeed confirmed that he was going to Mývatn afterwards but we had to wait for the tour guide to decide whether we could take a ride with them. Fortunately she was kind, and there were two spots left on the bus, so soon enough we found ourselves in the nice company of a Spanish group on our way to Mývatn – we were quite happy!

In Reykjahlíð we saw a nice camp right on the shores of the lake, so we went in to check-in; but alas, the woman said their card machine was not working. It would not be such a big problem, we could pitch a tent, and go to the ATM nearby – but we were quite unhappy with how unpleasant and sour-faced the woman was altogether; that’s no way to treat customers, and we are not used to that here in Iceland – everyone so far has been extremely nice. She was not Icelandic either, and I would be willing to bet she was Czech. Anyway, thinking we had no other option we went to ‘town’ to get the money. While there, we met our German friends we saw at a couple of places before, and they told us there was another campsite further down the road – so we decided to make the move. This meant we had to pack our tent and bags again, then we told the sour-faced b*tch where to stick it, and walked over to the other place. The young woman in the reception was over-the-top nice as if wanting to compensate, and we had our mojo back.

We pitched the tent with a beautiful view of the lake and mountains on the horizon, and we were super happy with our long hot shower. Made a delish dinner of pasta and sauce, and were mighty tired already.

Campsite at

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