Tag Archives: waterfall

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Iceland – Day 3

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The third day was the day I was most excited about; lots of waterfalls! We had to getup pretty early as we had a lot further to drive on this day, and it was still pitch black as we went to our first stop; the lava centre.

Seljalandsfoss

The first waterfall we went to was Seljalandsfoss. The group pretty much ran around it, I don’t think I’ve ever had to take photos so fast before. This is also when I found out that my tripod head was well and truly broken.

Seljalandsfoss

The day before everyone else had gone into the secret lagoon, and I’d opted to stay out and edit photos. It was whilst I was here that I noticed that my tripod head wouldn’t lock into place, so I asked the coach driver of he had a screwdriver or something I could use to try and fix it. He did, and I thought I had, however when it came to trying to lock the head in place at the waterfall I realised that I had, in fact, not fixed it at all.

Seljalandsfoss

We went from this waterfall to the black sand beaches at Vik. The sun was rising at the point and the light was just delicious.

Road
Vik

The tide was pretty far in at the beach and the waves were ferocious.

Black Sand Beach
Vik

Finally, we ended up at Skógafoss at sunset.

Skógafoss at sunset
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Llanberis (The Lone Tree // 22 02 2022)

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The Lone Tree // 22 02 2022

Today we spent the day in Llanberis (North Wales). There were a few things we all wanted to see, including the lone tree, the castle and a big sword.
The weather wasn’t great overnight and into the morning, so it was a late-ish start.

Dolbadarn Castle

We parked up, surprised at how few cars were in the parking lots. We’d circled around enough of the car parks looking for the cheapest – so we’d manage to form a fairly clear picture.

Trees

Once we’d found the lone tree, and stopped off in the Lone Tree cafe for a break (very nice soup and chips!) we set off back up the lake to see the castle, then a waterfall, and then walk up Snowdon a tiny bit – by this time it was pretty late in the day and the sun sets at 5ish, so it was time for home before it got dark.

Ceunant Mawr Waterfall
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Faroe Islands; Day 7 – Vagar

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On the final day, the flight back wasn’t until the afternoon. We left the airBnB early enough to leave time to go and visit the sights on Vagar (The island with the airport on it) before going to the airport.

Witches Finger

The first stop off was the Trollfinger. It is signposted and there is a (very) small car park at the end of a very pot-holey road. Then there was a path to the view point. All very nice and easy to get to.

Nix

The second stop off was at the Nix horse statue. A nix is a water creature that can transform into any shape.

Múlafossur waterfall, Gasadalur

The third and final stop off was at the waterfall from earlier in the week – where there was no mist! Hurray!

And then it was back to Edinburgh and back home!

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Faroe Islands; Day 6 – Kalsoy

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Trollanes

This was the second attempt to get to Kalsoy, the first day we had got up for the 8am ferry the day before but decided when we got there that the weather wasn’t great and we didn’t want to waste a trip.

Kópakonan (Seal Woman)

This time the weather was much better, but we were unsure if the hike would be free or not. Some reports on the internet were saying you had to pay for it, some were saying you didn’t…. so we just turned up and hoped for the best.

View to Eysturoy

The 8am ferry was pretty empty – as you would expect. I think the ferry can fit about 17 cars on it, but that is a close fit! There were about 7 cars on the outbound ferry.

Trollanes

We drove to the top of the island, and saw a message at the start of the hike – it said to be careful and enjoy the hike and if you enjoyed it to leave a donation in the box. Hurray! It was a free hike (with optional tip).

Mikladalur

The hike was easy, although really muddy in places. You hike around the mountain not over it, so it was pretty straight forward as there is a clearly visible route to follow. The sign at the start asks that you stick to the path.

Faroe Islands

When we got to the lighthouse it was super, duper windy – so windy that I couldn’t walk out to the view point to take the photo I wanted! We walked back and visited the other two villages on the island, before heading back to the ferry port queue.

The ferry times are odd and the ferry’s stop going from the island at 1020, and don’t start again until 310, so we had a bit of a wait! We were in the queue for about 12, and by 1 it was clear there were more than 17 cars waiting for the 310 ferry – so a trip to Kalsoy is a trip you have to plan!

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Faroe Islands; Day 3 – Streymoy (& Eysturoy & Vagar)

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Saksun

On day 3 it was sunny sunny sun sun sun. We decided to drive around some of the towns on Eysturoy, following the buttercup routes that we didn’t do on day 1. We then drove to Streymoy an visited some of the towns on there, including Saksun (above).

Saksun has 8 people living there, and one of them is clearly annoyed by the number of tourists visiting – around the church there were signs saying that if you trespassed he would phone the police.

Sørvágsvatn

After visiting the two main islands, given the nice weather, we decided to do the walk to Sørvágsvatn. Which is another walk you have to pay to do. The temperature on this day was 20 degrees, and kB got a little bit sun burnt – even though he had suntan creme on.

Sørvágsvatn

Driving around the Faroe Islands is really lovely, there isn’t much traffic at all and the roads are in really good repair. The only problem (and I use that term loosly) is that everything is so spaced out!

As much as a lot more people are vising the Faroe Islands, it still isn’t busy by any stretch of the imagination.

Saksun

Buttercup routes are the more scenic routes on the Faroe Islands. They are labelled with a little buttercup so you know where they are when you are driving along.

Fossa

Due to a lack of water, the waterfall wasn’t at it’s peak!

Sunset

But it was also the only day where we got to see the sun actually set, so that was nice!

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Faroe Islands; Day 2 – Drangarnir

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On the second day we had paid to go on a hike to Drangarnir. This hike has been closed to the public by the landowner, and the only way to do it is to pay for an approved guide to take you on either Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday.

Drangarnir

As we left the house in the morning it was very misty, but as we had paid we went to the meeting point. There were quite a few people there already and we parked up and waited for the guide to turn up. Rather un-optimistically the guide said that we would set off and “see what we could see”. He was optimistic that we would be able to see the sea stacks up close, but wasn’t so sure that we would be able to see the sea stacks from afar.

Drangarnir

The hike across (You walk around the edge of the cliff rather than over the top) wasn’t too great in terms of views. This could have had something to do with the mist, or maybe not. However when we hiked up the first cliff and got to the top… We could see the sea stacks – hurray!
We had a mini break to take some photos and have a snack before carrying on the sea stacks.

Drangarnir
Drangarnir

The closer we got to the sea stacks, the more the mist cleared. Eventually a bit of blue sky broke through.

Drangarnir

We got to spend enough un-rushed time around the main view point that we could grab photos and have a bit of a rest.

Drangarnir

For the way back we got to go on a boat!

Drangarnir

By the time the boat had returned to the harbour the sky was totally blue! We decided to go to try and see Múlafossur Waterfall, which was on the same island and only about a 10 minute drive away.
When we went through the tunnel and came out of the other side…. It was soooo misty! The rest of the Faroe Islands was bathed in sunlight!

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Lake District; Day 2 – Old Man of Coniston

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Despite the rather miserable weather forecast we decided to head out anyway. If we didn’t go out we would only end up sat in a house watching TV and that seems a bit pointless to pay to do so. With raincoats on, off we went into the drizzle.

Walking Old Man of Coniston

Walking Old Man of Coniston

By the time we had gotten to the start of the walk, the weather had cleared up and in places there was even some blue sky. At one point we could actually see Coniston lake, something we hadn’t seen all morning.

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Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston

When we made it to the top it was so cloudy that we couldn’t see anything. Then we made a mistake, which was to try and get down using another route. In hindsight we should have just gone down the way we came, but we didn’t know that the cloud was hanging a lot lower on the other side.

Old Man of Coniston

It took an age to find the start of the side path down, and we were getting a bit grumpy by this point. I could hear rushing water and I suspect had the cloud not been so thick we would have seen some nice waterfall action. As it was we just had to be careful on the slipper stones as we made our way down.

Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston
Old Man of Coniston

After what felt like an age we made it onto a path and we could have kissed the ground we were so happy. What should have been a nice afternoon 3 hour hike had turned into a 6 hour mission, but at least the end was near – and we limped back to the apartment.

We made it out for pizza for tea. Had an early night then went home the next day because it was raining again!