The Lava Tunnel

We had half a day in Reykjavik, and besides visiting a thermal bath, what could we do? Obviously, visit a cave... a lava tube. Or the Lava Tunnel, few kilometres outside the city (coordinates: N 63.9402 W 21.3971).

This is a very nice, organized setting to view an easy-to-walk-through-but-interesting lava tunnel from 5200 years ago. Additional show caves can be found on this list. And there'd be a great inside-a-dormant-volcano tour also in Reykjavik, but unfortunately that cost 400€ so we decided to skip it.

I also wanted to go out and look for wild caves but we didn't have time for that this time. Apparently, there's at least one near Reykjavik that can be visited. And even the lava fields next to the airport seemed like they are full of interesting holes to peek into. Maybe next time.

The most interesting part was the sinkholes viewed from underneath, with snow falling down to the cave. And the colors and dripping lava forms. Like this:

Ice formations:

Wonderful colours of the lava roofs:

As if the great colors of the cave itself were not enough, there's also artificial light colors:

The gate:

This article has also been published at TGR. Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko and Tero Kivinen. All rights reserved. All caving stores can be found from planetcaver.net.

Weather looks great!

I've been working and travelling in Stockholm for decades, oddly enough this week's trip is the first one where I took my skis with me. Weather on the local hill looks great; in the evening when I get off work it will also be dark. Looking forward to this! Anyone else want to join?

This article has also been published at TGR. Photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko and Hammarbybacken. All rights reserved. And all Planetskier stories can of course be found from planetskier.net!

Hot bath in an abandoned fish factory

Abandoned fish factory in the cold winter of Icelandic north shores. But with a hot thermal bath! What's better than lying in the pool and trying to spot whales on the sea? For 4€...

Strangely enough, not many people know about this. Even if you knew about it, you'd be hard pressed to find any information about it on the Internet. We only heard about it from a friend we met at the ski slopes on the previous day... what a wonderful find though. Much better than the famous but quite commercial other Icelandic treats. This is the real thing.

See also the story about the factory itself.

The factory:

The road between Reykjavik and the north:

This article has also been published in TGR. Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko and Tero Kivinen. All rights reserved. And all swimming stories can be found from planetswimmer.com!

Abandoned fish factory

On our search for thermal baths in Iceland lead us to Hjalteyri on the northern shores of Iceland, north of Akureyri. We found an abandoned fish factory with storage tanks for fish oil and herring. It was fun to explore, luckily there was no rotten fish smell left :-)

There's four large containers and a smoke stack to explore, plus also otherwise very interesting surroundings.

Hjalteyri is a small community of 43 people. Today the factory buildings are partially utilised by a dive company, the self-service hot bath, and what looks like painters, repairers and other small businesses. Whale-watching tours also leave from here.

WARNING: Should you explore here, please remember that exploration in abandoned containers can be very dangerous for various reasons. You've been warned; know what you're doing or stay away.

Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko and Tero Kivinen. All rights reserved.

Laugaskard swimming pool

Amazing! The Laugaskard swimming pool is a community-run, swimming pool, gym, and sauna facility. What a wonderful, hot swim outside in the cold weather.

Given the free energy one can easily tap from underground, Iceland has countless nice spots like this, at a very affordable cost.

All sauna and swimming can of course be found from saunablogger.cool and planetswimmer.com web sites! Photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. All pool and sauna photos have been taken with permission, at a time when there are no other people at the facility, or after closing time.

Train to HEL

I took the train route to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport this morning, wanting to both see the deep underground station and to test the route should my 27-year old car some day not work :-)

It was a great ride, although from Kauniainen you have to go the wrong way first and change trains, wait 12 minutes extra at the changing station, and so on. So I left home roughly an hour  and five minutes before arriving at the airport; a long time. By car I'd be there half an hour sooner. Of course, going by train is also 10x cheaper given that one doesn't have to pay for parking or taxis.

Photos and text (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. And all urban exploration and underground stories can of course be found from theurbanexplorer.net and planetcaver.net.

OMG it passed!!!

Incredibly, it passed the check!!

I suspect the key finding that influenced this result was that the checking engineer's brother in law has the same model, but still a nice result :-) And no major problems. Just under the limit in exhaust... one blinker needs a bulb, and a bit rot in one corner but it is safe, runs, and the structure is solid.

Text and photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Scared...

Scared... going into the annual check-up.

Text and photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Last wash... maybe

Car wash before going into the annual check-up. Very scared.

Text and photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

WTF? No sauna???

I was in Kista once again, and this time tried out the new hotel, Comfort Hotel Kista. A new hotel building, and very, very nice. Modern rooms but still with a warm feeling. But WTF, how can one have a new hotel without a sauna???

That being said, if there was a week when I'm denied access to a sauna, this was a good week for that. The doctor had told me to not go to the sauna before stitches have come out from the cut in my hand...

Photos (c) 2019 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. And all my sauna articles can of course be found from saunablogger.cool!