At the beginning of October 2023 Luke and I booked a very impromptu trip to Iceland. A place that had been on our destination list for a while, and a place I just knew I would instantly love.
It was a super cold Sunday morning on the 5th November and a very early start for Luke and I when our journey began. We left Essex for Luton airport at 01.30am boarded our no fuss easyJet flight at 06.15 am and 3 short hours later I found myself in a very cold, but very beautiful Iceland.
With our hire car collected (which was all sorted before we we travelled) we had an about 5 hours until we could check into our hotel. So after a quick google we decided that we HAD to make the 2 hour 15 minute drive to Seljalandsfoss and then the 45 minute ferry ride to Vestmannaeyjar, off the south coast of Iceland to go and see little grey and little white at the whale sanctuary (don’t get whale sanctuary and Sea World confused, because we all know my views on the latter)
The Sea life trust beluga whale sanctuary is only open at weekends out of peak season and was free, but during peak season it’s about £30 but is open everyday. I was honestly lost for words when I came face to face with my most favourite animals on earth, and yes I did cry, but I’ve never seen anything like it. They are wonderfully amazing and you are so close to them. I spent ages just watching them swim around. I knew all about the beluga whales at the sanctuary because I watched a documentary all about there rescue a few years back (well worth a watch) it was an epic task to rescue them from a Shanghai water park where they had been cruelly kept.
We spent about and hour and a half at the sanctuary, and because it was quiet we pretty much had the place to ourselves with the exception of a few other families. The journey was long to get to the island but honestly so worth it.
Finishing up at the sanctuary we walked around the island with the name I cannot pronounce honestly had problems with the name pronunciations in Iceland, before making the ferry ride and car journey back to reykjavik to check into our hotel.
We were booked into the Hotel Viking, and had the cutest (seriously) cutest little cabin that was like something straight out of a fairytale, it even had little wooden beds. The whole cabin although small and compact was warm and inviting and I instantly just fell in love with it. After checking in a random guy from next door knocked on our cabin door and told us the Northern lights were visible!! So grabbing our camera’s were stepped outside and were then absolutely blessed when we saw the northern lights, it was like OMG there they were! And they were breathtaking!
Anyways a quick meal later and that was us tucked up in our little wooden beds just like Goldilocks or Snow White, the day had been long and we had survived on 2 hours sleep maximum.
But I couldn’t wait to wake up Monday and explore this beautiful place.
Check out the full vlog on YouTube
