Iceland - a diverse travel destination

Sandy will describe his travels which included a wide range of natural landscapes and specific landforms, museums and town walks, coastal bird watching, whale spotting, sailing among icebergs, walking on an icecap, visiting farms, swimming in warm lakes and visiting a range of historic sites.

Late last year Sandy travelled for 17 days on a guided tour around Iceland. This Island is fascinating especially with his interests in geomorphology and how this subarctic island has developed. In his talk he explains the role played by the forces of seafloor spreading and Iceland’s current position over geologic hotspot and what has led for example to the current volcanic activity at Grindavik.

The heat generated by this geologic activity has been utilised to produce electricity, heat houses, grow green-house crops and produce interesting features like geysers, steaming landscapes, hot tubs and a naturally developed range of colourful minerals.

Sandy also illustrates examples of the effects of the 2011 eruption on local agriculture and how the gradual geologic growth of the island has developed country high enough for permanent icecaps, glaciers, black sand beaches and many waterfalls.

While dairy farming and the breeding of their distinctive breeds of horses are relatively intensive, the wide stretches of uplands are used for summer sheep grazing. Economically, fishing has historically been a prime export industry, but tourism has recently become another major earner for Iceland.

Travellers are treated to a wide range of natural landscapes and specific landforms and in addition to the usual museums and town walks, there are many activities such as coastal bird watching, whale spotting, sailing among icebergs, walking on an icecap, visiting farms, swimming in warm lakes and visiting the range of historic sites on offer.

Thank goodness English is widely spoken for the native Icelandic remains distinctive and difficult and best left in my opinion for Icelanders and the linguist.