Arctic and Tropics/Solar Eclipse
The first trip, which started with a 10 day drive around Iceland in winter, was a real adventure with spectacular scenery. The second was to North Queensland to see the solar eclipse.
Iceland featured frozen landscapes, black new rock, frozen roads, brilliant blue skies, many waterfalls, some of the smelliest places we have ever visited, lovely auroras and very strong winds.
The featured image above is of a snow covered beach on the east coast with a river running into the sea. The two images below were taken as we drove up the coast and moved inland.
From Myvatn we went on an expedition to the Dettifoss Waterfall which required us to walk through knee deep snow for 45 minutes before we reached the spectacular but precarious snow covered viewing area above a chasm filled with a raging torrent from the main falls.
We then flew to the north of Norway and took a Hurtigruten boat down the coast to Bergen.
From Bergen we took a train to Oslo, and on the high plateau went past many little red cabins. The train had many skiers on board who were heading for cabins similar to the one below.
After a short cruise on the Danube we flew to Helsinki and drove around part of southern Finland and took a cruise to Tallinn in Estonia.
Castle at Olaviliina
Late in the year we undertook the 3 day drive to Far North Queenland to look at the landscape, massive lava tubes at Undara, the Daintree Forest and the total solar eclipse.
We finished the trip with visits to relatives on the Sunshine Coast and a friend in Brisbane.
LBDphotos 