A hearty Icelandic Breakfast And Several Earthquake Simulations …….

This truly is going to be a whistle stop, no time to catch your breath type trip for us in Iceland. We didn’t even have time to unpack our suitcase last night, because we are already moving on to another hotel in Vik at the foot of the Katla volcano ………So I told Nigel to avail himself of as much breakfast as he could possibly muster, and I have to say he did himself proud, all thoughts of roast puffin and whale kebabs now left far behind! He started off with a mahoooosive bowl of skyr yoghurt, an Icelandic delicacy I understand, with a liberal helping of cherry compote and an even more liberal sprinkling of brown sugar, helped down with home baked bread with a cheese topping …..

…… followed by several mahooosive helpings of continental cheese, meat and hard boiled egg, I did try to encourage him to try take some cucumber and tomato with it, but Nigel insisted they were lunch and dinner foods and not the stuff of breakfast!

Then it was back to Johann and his vunderbus, as Nigel had christened it, the heading for the Hellisheidi Power Station to see how the geothermal energies of Iceland were harnessed.

I think it all the science was a bit complicated for Nigel …..

….. but never the less he listened very intently and couldn’t believe that all the hot water for showers and baths and washing up etc. was heated by Iceland’s hot springs, which is just too romantic for words ….. and that there is under floor heating beneath the roads and pavements, which is why they never freeze over ……. which made Nigel determined to walk down the road barefoot to see if he could feel the warmth and perhaps cook an egg!

From the Power Station we moved onto a small village called Hveragerði which was hit by an earthquake in 2008, where there is now a fissure running through the middle of the post office!!  Well, Nigel was beside himself.  Fortunately, the said fissure, subtly illuminated by atmospheric orangey/red lighting was covered by a very thick layer of glass that you could walk over, thus protecting Nigel from his natural curiosity to delve deeper.There was also an exact recreation of the devastation suffered in the one of the houses kitchen during the quake.

But the exhibit that finally drew Nigel away from the fissure was an actual earthquake stimulator simulator in the shape of a house used to demonstrate what a 6.6 on the Richter Scale earthquake actually feels like …..

OMG,  there was no doing with Nigel then ……. he paid the lady six times (for each 1.1 Richter) and would have gone in for a seventh time had our guide Stuart not yanked him by his bobble hat to say that the boiling pools and spuming geysers were awaiting ……