Summer is ending, and the temperatures are cooling. And there’s enough darkness to have a chance to see the Northern Lights! (Those are some lovely Northern Lights pictures from this week!) Here’s are some things happening in Iceland:

Our Brand New Driving in Iceland Course

We just released a new course to teach you all about driving in Iceland! And we’re only charging $5 US (€4.50) so we can have lots of safe drivers in Iceland.

There are 10 animated video lessons, plus a quiz and a printable information sheet. The course covers road signs, speed limits, F roads, roundabouts, winter driving, and much much more. The course should take you about an hour to complete, and you’ll be a more confident driver when you head to Iceland!

Check out the course, and tell me what you think!

The pufflings are here!

Every spring, the puffins return from the ocean to raise a baby puffin, called a puffling. (Did you know that puffins usually stay together in couples, and that they return to the same place year after year to raise a new puffling?

Once those pufflings are big enough, the puffin mom and dad leave the burrow for the year. This forces the baby bird to leave on its own to go find food. But on the Westman Islands, some of the pufflings get lost and end up in town instead of in the ocean.

Every year, local children find those puffins and rescue them. This is a serious undertaking– so far they’ve found over 2,000 pufflings, and that number is climbing quickly! Just look at this picture!

See our post for more details about rescuing pufflings on the Westman Islands. Or you can see tons more pictures at the Sea Life Trust museum Facebook page.

Part of Reynisfjara Beach closed

Reynisfjara is a dangerous and beautiful beach on the South Coast of Iceland. People have died there from “sneaker waves” which are massively bigger than any recent wave that came before.

Now Reynisfjara is working on a different way of hurting people, apparently. Toward the end of August, there was a rockslide from the mountains on the beach, and 3 people were injured. Here’s the area pre rockslide:

In general, you shouldn’t be in that area anyway. I mean, now you shouldn’t because it’s closed and you could be fined a lot of money. But even before, if you’re between the ocean and the rock mountain, there’s nowhere to run if a sneaker wave emerges.

Visit Reynisfjara. A quote in this article is right: “The most interesting part [of the beach] is to remain open – under and around the basalt columns.” But don’t get close to the water just because other people are. And always leave yourself space to run away from the ocean.

FlyOver Iceland opens

A new attraction opened in Iceland at the very end of August. It’s called FlyOver Iceland. You sit in a seat that moves you up and around while a movie screen makes it look like you’re flying over Iceland! (It looks just like Soarin’ at Disney World to me??)

Prices are 4000 ISK for adults, and 2000 ISK for kids 12 and under. (Kids must be at least 102cm (40″) tall.) The ride itself is 8 1/2 minutes long, though the whole experience takes 35 minutes.

FlyOver is in Reykjavik, on Grandi Harbor. The experience sounds a little expensive, but it also sounds really cool!

WAB Air to Emerge from WOW Air’s Ashes?

WOW Air was the discount Icelandic air carrier that went out of business in March of 2019. There have been persistent rumors since then that a new airline would be formed by the founder of WOW Air.

Now those rumors are more than just rumors. There are no flights yet, but WAB Air sounds like it is moving forward. WAB? “We Are Back.”

According to this article, the CEO of WAB “and his coworkers moved into a 300-m2 (3,200-sq ft) office space in Hafnarfjörður, just south of Reykjavík” in early August. The company claims that the first flights could start this fall(!) which seems crazy. Could we really have a new discount Icelandic carrier in 2 or 3 months? I’ll believe it when I see it, but I could imagine flights starting next summer.

Simple Flying made this completely made up and most likely inaccurate WAB logo just to keep things interesting. Think they’ll stick with the purple from WOW?

Route 1 is now completely paved!

Route 1, also called Ring Road, makes a loop around Iceland. It misses some great parts of the country, mostly in North Iceland and the Westfjords.

But, now at least it’s paved all the way around! Parts of Route 1 in East Iceland were still gravel. But now, 45 years after the road was built, it’s all paved. They even had a little ceremony– in the middle of the road!

(Photo from the Icelandic Road Administration.)

That’s all for this month. Let me know if you have any questions, or comment below!