Geog a Blog in Iceland - Day 2


Having woken up in the early hours in the morning, the Geography trip gang was raring to go after a lovely continental breakfast at the Fisherman’s Village accommodation area. We set off on the coach on the way to our first point of interest for the day which was Seljalandsfoss waterfall, in which we were all able to walk behind it, experiencing its powerful vapour. It was here we learnt that it is a relict cliff that was formed by eustatic change of sea levels.



Following on from this we made our way to the Sólheimajökul, a glacier tongue that lies south of the Myrdalsjökull Glacier. Having put on metal crampons, harness, a helmet and a large ice axe, we were all ready to go. The adverse weather conditions were a challenge but thankfully we all had the gear to keep warm and safe. At the top of the glacier we were able to drink the glacial water which was 100 years old, and some of us took part in an old Viking tradition, a Viking Push-up over a running stream and drinking the glacial water upon reaching the bottom. 



Carrying on with our tour we arrived at Reynishverfi, a black sand beach with amazing views of sea stacks and Dryolaey, a peninsula with a great example of an arch. Walking along the beach we were encountered with huge waves crashing in onto the shore line, taking us by surprise. Some waves were above 20 feet high and were a spectacle to behold. 



For our final spot of the day we went to Skogafoss waterfall which is more than 200 feet high. With steps leading up to the top of the waterfall we were amazed at the sheer power and height held by Skogafoss. With an extremely busy and fascinating day behind us, we got back to our accommodation and chilled out for the remainder of the night.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vox Borders Series Review – Akshaya

Image
The Vox Borders series is a fascinating documentary created by Johnny Harris, which tells the stories of borders throughout the world. This series captures the importance of borders in varying forms, from the physical borders that we build, national borders that draw on maps and the social borders we create in our minds. Vox Borders highlights how significant and defining borders can be, and how the implications of their permeability and location and hugely affect the world. As I am impatiently awaiting the release of season two of the series, I will be reviewing the first season. The series was launched with the release of ‘Divided Island: How Haiti and the DR became two worlds’ ; a video about the distinguishing border between these two greatly socio-economically contrasting countries. The video refers to the countries’ dissimilar colonial pasts, and how this impacted them to this day; this is captured by effective animation that keeps the video engaging. The video ...
Read more

How Well Does Population Change in China Fit with the Demographic Transition Model (DTM) - Akshaya

Image
Prior to 1949 China had experienced a century of imperial decline, natural disasters, foreign invasion and civil unrest. This resulted in life expectancy being as low as 36 years; during this period of time China was in stage one of the demographic transition model with high birth and death rates , resulting in a relatively steady population size, fluctuating due to epidemics and baby booms. China then entered the second stage in 1949 when the communists took over, as they began to modernise China. This shift to economic development led to a 10% annual growth rate in the economy between 1949 and 1958. Death rate and infant mortality fell due to a very successful healthcare programme and better nutrition. However, birth rate remains high (34.03 per 1000 in 1957) due to the traditional view of more children being needed to work the land and guarantee the parents security in old age remaining; this is characteristic of countries in stage two of the DTM. This led to rapid natural incr...
Read more

Do Physical or Human Factors Play a Greater Role in Determining Population Change? - Akshaya

Image
Both physical and human factors play key roles in determining population change, as they both affect fertility rates, child/infant mortality rates and death rates. Fertility rate is the number of children born per woman per 1000, and is key when observing change in birth rates. Infant mortality rate is the number of infants (aged 0-1) dying per 1000, and child mortality rate is for children under 5. Many factors influence these rates and thus affect population change, such as soil fertility, anti/pro-natalist policies and healthcare. However, some factors have a greater effect than others. Physical factors such as climate play an important role, because they can determine how much agriculture occurs in an area. Rainfall, temperature, wind velocity and levels of solar insolation all determine food productivity, type of farming system adopted and which species are selected for cultivation. The more agriculture there is in an area, the higher the birth rate usually is, especially w...
Read more