Mike & I had booked a cheap weekend deal to Iceland a few weeks ago. It has always been a dream of mine to visit Iceland since I was thirteen years old. I happened to watch an old movie called 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' by Jules Verne (have read the book since too, and enjoyed that!). This story is about an underground journey to the centre of the earth and one of the originals of the sci fi genre. The thing that excited me most was the entrance to this underground world was located in a volcano crater on a mountain called Snaefellnes in a country I had never heard of - Iceland. A mysterious land, full of volcanoes and tall silent blond men (I think one of the characters was Hans; an Icelandic eider duck farmer).
As a consequence, for quite a few years I read as much on Iceland as I could. I exhausted the local library's references quite quickly, but discovered National Geographic's multitude of articles that kept me going. I tracked down quite a few old issues in second hand bookshops.
I was very excited to be finally travelling to Iceland. Although I was wary that after all this time it might not be as good as I had always imagined. My fears were completely unfounded.
Mike and I arrived at Heathrow separately after work. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:50pm, and get in at 11:55pm. We had bought a package weekend deal for £199 each, which included transfers, hotel, and breakfast. We found a disorganised queue at 7pm and discovered our plane hadn't left Reykjavik at that stage (due to 'technical difficulties' but we were never enlightened about that). Fortunately, we found ourselves talking to a 24 year old Icelander called Jakob Oskar Olafsson, and we practised Icelandic with him, and quizzed him generally about his country. He had been in Hull for nearly a month at a missionary place for a Pentecostal church. He was returning to work for a month or so in a fish factory, or possibly spend three weeks on a fishing boat (as long as he wasn't too seasick), to save money to go back abroad. He failed to get into the cutoff for the medicine course he wants to do at University, and will try again this year. (By the way, Jakob's mother said the technical difficulties made the news on Icelandic TV. Whether that's a reflection on the lack of newsworthy material in Iceland or whether the engines had all seized on takeoff - I don't know). We finally checked our luggage and made our way through to the departure lounge. It must have been 9:30 by this stage.
There was a 1pm flight that day that had been cancelled and they were all joining our flight. So, it was packed to the gunwales and Mike & I didn't sit together. We boarded at about 11pm, and left about 11:20. We were a bit tired by the time we arrived (2:40am or so). We got the transfer bus to Reykjavik (all international flights to Iceland land at Keflavik - about 50kms away from Reykjavik). We caught up again with Jakob and chatted away till he got off. Then we discovered he had left all his duty free goods on the bus. Our stop was next, and as we sorted out with the driver what to do with the presents we had been left accidentally, Jakob turned up with his parents driving after the bus.
By this time it was 4:30, and I asked for a 7:30 wake up call, as we had booked a tour starting at 9am that day. The hotel was great (Grand Hotel Reykjavik), and the staff friendly. Breakfast was a buffet, and they make excellent scrambled eggs there.
A girl called Inge in her new Land Rover ran the tour. There were snowboards and inner tube on top, and four others inside. The other people were two Australians (Fiona and Mark), and two English (Laurel and Peter). The Land Rover had a problem with its heating, so Inge was fiddling with the engine and fuses for a bit in the hotel car park. Then, we were off (where Inge discovered the heating had magically fixed itself). As we drove, the condensation on the windows slowly froze. There was a scraper tool for the purpose of removing it from the inside of the windows.
The sky had been lightening since about 8:30, but the sun didn't pop over the horizon until about 10:30. We had a quick photo stop as the sun started to hit some of the higher peaks around us. It was a glorious morning. No wind, blue skies, and snow everywhere. The temperature was cold - about -8 or -9. But we are proponents of the layering system, and we were toasty pie warm.
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| Sunrise in Iceland |
Mike made it look far too easy, but we all found out the hard way just how difficult it is to turn those things. There wasn't much of a learning curve with the tube gliding, and people were racing each other down this slope at a great rate of knots. There was a line of jagged looking lava near the bottom, which wouldn't be favourable to an inner tube or snowboard, but miraculously enough everyone managed to avoid shredding equipment and bodies. My body is very sore now, and I think it has something to do with a spectacular wipeout on the board on my last try. I dug the front in, and cartwheeled over to dig the back in. Mike said it looked good. I have a few bruises to show for it too.As we were playing there, the sun peeped over the hills.
I hope my photos come out OK. We have video footage too. We all packed back into the Land Rover and wandered over to a dairy farm. A calf had just been born at 5am that morning, and lay there struggling to its feet from time to time. An experience not to be missed here was the sampling of true Viking food. I wish I had the video camera for this part, as Mike's face was so funny. The Icelanders had no method of refrigeration in the past, and relied on pickling methods of preservation. One method was to preserve meat in whey. One of the particular cuts of meat Icelander's relish happens to be ram's testicles. These are pickled in whey, then pressed into slabs. Mike took an entire slab with gusto, and then tried to keep a poker face as he chewed his way through it. And chewed and chewed. Took quite a while to consume a slice of meat. I tried the pickled lamb, and a little piece of ram's testicle. They had an awful milk drink with whisky and other foul spirits. I think that's what got Mike through the meat. Funny thing, Mike wouldn't buy any at the airport as we were leaving.
After the farm, we went to the coast, and had wonderful lobster soup at a restaurant there. Mike had the lamb - but was careful to ask what part of the lamb would be served. Very nice food, and at a time when Mike was probably dreading eating for the rest of the weekend.
We walked along a sandy beach next. The sand in Iceland is black from the lava rocks, and with snow on top it made a striking contrast. It was weird enough to have snow at sea level but with the beautiful stripes of black sand and white snow along the sand ripples, it was extraordinary. We saw a dead puffin, frozen, which is as close to these cute wee birds as we got. They don't come in till May according to Inge, and this one had frozen from the cold. There was ice lapping at the shoreline of the beach.
After that, we all got back into the Land Rover and headed into Reykjavik. It was about 4pm by this stage, and although it hadn't been a strenuous day by any means, I found it difficult to keep my eyes open. But, as I looked around at my companions, they all nodded off in turn. I caught Inge's eyes as she looked around the sleeping clients and had a wee laugh. I wonder if that's how she measures the success of her trips.
We were dropped off first at a museum on the outskirts of Reykjavik that has built examples of housing in Iceland through the ages. I thought it sounded quite good, but it was shut when we got there. The English couple got out for a look around, but I needed to go to the toilet, and didn't look forward to the hour walk back to the hotel from there in that condition. So we were dropped off at the hotel, where I promptly fell asleep in a light doze.
Mike woke me at sunset, and we decided to go into Reykjavik to find dinner. After our usual circuitous route, which involved doing the three sides of a rectangle as opposed to the straightforward route, we found ourselves in Reykjavik itself. Mike had scoffed at the northern weather, with his usual statement about being a southern man, and didn't have any gloves and only wore jeans - without thermals. I had my hat and gloves, and was very warm.
We reached the point after trying to find a restaurant where Mike's stomach took precedence over deciding what type of food we wanted (we were also lost trying to find a certain restaurant mentioned in the LP guidebook - needless to say, we never found it.), and we ended up at a mainly takeaway Thai restaurant. It was superb. It tasted just like the Thai food we used to eat at lunchtime in the BNZ centre in Wellington. There was a steady stream of Icelanders getting their Saturday night takeaways.
Mike & I couldn't believe the skimpily dressed Icelandic girls on their way to nightclubs. Mike especially, as he was freezing with as many layers as he had on. They would have short skirts and a top, and that would be about it. No thermals in sight - and I'm sure we could have seen them if they were there. And the men only wore shirts as well. True northern men and women to rival anything the 'Southern Man' marketeers can dream up.
The winter months are the time to see the Aurora borealis in the north. We read up about it, and found that still, clear nights offer the best conditions for the Northern Lights. We also asked people on our tour about it. Seems that the best option was to travel out of Reykjavik, away from the bright city lights. There were tours available, but they ran to about £100 each. Including dinner! Bit steep. So, I guess the Scots in me won out, and we figured we would get onto the roof of our hotel for a while when we returned, and try our luck there.
So, Mike and I wandered back to our hotel, via the easiest and straightest route (unlike our walk into town). It was tricky negotiating the streets, as there was a fair bit of ice around. I clung on to Mike's arm quite a lot. Mind you, he seemed to always be the one to lose his footing. But, he would catch himself easily, and praise his cat-like reflexes (??).
As we came up to the intersection above our hotel, Mike looked up and saw the aurora above our hotel. It hadn't been there one moment, then just appeared like magic. It was about 8:30pm by this time, and we watched for a few minutes, as the green light moved across more of the sky. It waxed and waned and after about 10 minutes, we thought we'd move into the hotel, and find our way to the roof for a better view. The roof exit was through a conference centre room, and all was quiet as we sneaked in and unlocked the roof door. It was icy underfoot, but the night was still. We watched from a corner of the roof for another twenty minutes before the aurora disappeared. It moved around quite a bit, but remained in one area in the sky. It was like a band, a swathe across the sky. It sort of formed a u shape towards the end, with the next part of the u getting stronger as the original u side faded. Then, the new part just faded away and it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
After it disappeared, we went to bed. The next morning we woke to see snow falling and very heavy skies. We decided that today was to be a 'Discover Reykjavik' day, and we had a good portion of the day to do just that as our flight wasn't until 4pm. We checked out of our room, and left our luggage in storage in the hotel. Then we wandered down to the harbour and walked around to the centre of town. There was a fascinating sculpture of a Viking boat on the harbour. It was made of stainless steel and had flowing lines that conveyed the sense of sailing motion. The city centre was very quiet, as not much was open. The bookshop was open and we spent about 30 minutes checking out Icelandic literature. Iceland is renown for its love of reading, and there was a huge selection of English language books available. It being the only shop open also spoke volumes in itself (pun!).
Up on the hill was a huge church. It was very windswept there, and we couldn't stay long unsheltered. With the dark clouds, swirling snow and grey harbour for a backdrop, the huge church looked imposing and formidable.
After this, we found ourselves heading back towards the hotel, and as there was a hard Rock Café up the road about 20 minutes away, we decided to go get ourselves a souvenir. The HRC was located in a shopping centre but nothing else was open. By this stage it was too late for us to have anything to eat there, so we wandered back to the hotel.
Fortunately, the man serving us coffee also found us some biscuits and chocolates. So we munched them up as we waited for the bus to take us back to the airport. I got our luggage out of storage towards the time the bus was due, but didn't notice that it had turned up. I had to call out to Mike, who was writing postcards frantically, and carry our luggage out to the bus. We got on, and the bus did the rounds of hotels before heading out to the airport.
At the duty free shops in the departure lounge we bumped into the people on our tour yesterday. I bought an Icelandic jersey and a T-shirt. Mike passed on the packaged ram's testicles. Funny that.
