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I C E L A N D

From hot steam to ice-cold swimming

Story by A Kuld World August 24th, 2015

I’M NOT QUITE SURE WHERE WE ACTUALLY WHERE. SOME CALL IT ICELAND BUT IT MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN THE MOON.

For the second time in my life I landed on the volcanic island called Iceland. This time for a week of exploring and photographing the country. Armed with a big Hummer H3 provided by iRent.is and stuffed with food and gear Bobby, Sebastian and I went straight from the airport to the area called Reykjadalur or in English Steam Valley.

Reykjadalur is in my opinion one of Icelands hidden treasures - whether it is due to a tough 5 km hill-hike to the valley or the easy-to-overlook section of Lonely Planet I don’t know. Nevertheless the valley is truly magnificent and extraordinary - a place I thought only existed in dreams.

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Golden circle and ice cold diving between continets

The second day of the journey we took the must-see Golden Circle whit the beautiful Gullfoss and the fascinating Strokkur geyser and by afternoon ending up in the Thingvellir National Park. Here the hot water from Steam Valley was replaced with the ice-cold crystal clear glacier water in the Silfra fissure.
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SIlfra - a top 50 in the world divesite

Invited by Dive.is we went in our dry suits and jumped into the 3°c cold water for a mind blowing 40 min dive. The thing about Silfra is that you are literally diving between continents with Eurasian tectonic plate on one side and the North American plate on the other. The plates are drifting apart by approximately 2 cm each year creating fissures in the ground combined with a steady flow of ultra-pure water from the Langjökull glacier you have the perfect recipe for an amazing dive site.

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VIdeo

We made a little promotion video of our dive in Silfra.

THE HIGHLANDS // THE LUNA SURFACE // MIDDEL EARTH

Why drive around in a thirsty beast with the letters H U M M E R written on the front grill, if you don’t go off road? The decision was made – we simply had to cross Iceland through The Highlands. A day’s journey through the incredible remote dessert of volcanic soil and ice-cold streams of melt water. After driving with an average speed of 40 km/h and feeling like milkshakes - we named the car “The Black Gravel Bear”.
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At the top of a volcano

In the norther part of Iceland near the lake Mývatn we hiked to the top of a volcano crater and explored the area surrounding it, including a hot water cave located just a few km from the crater.

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The way back

As the days where floating by, we followed the Ring Road heading slowly back to the South. We made tree stops the following days.
• Jökulsárlón Lagoon with beautiful icebergs calve from the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier.
• A United States Navy DC 3 plane wrack on a black beach.
• Skogafoss waterfalls.

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back again

We finished our trip to Iceland where we started it - at the Steam Valley.
This place has become one of my favourite places on earth.

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VIdeo

A short film about our camping life.
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Footnote: Thanks to Helly Hansen, Canon Denmark, Spejder Sport, Nordisk Tent, MyFC power, iRent.is, Dive.is and Visit Iceland for helping with the trip.
Iceland