Fire & Iceland

Photo: Glacier

I had such massive expectations for Iceland without really knowing anything about it... I think I was just excited about being so far away from home in such an alien landscape. It didn't disappoint. I'd love to go back already. Lonely Planet sold it to me in the first sentence: "A land of troll-inhabited mountains and black sand beaches, where calling seabirds are more common than a human voice..."

I stayed in Reykjavik, the capital, in an awesome HI hostel downtown. The temperature was highs of 5-8 degrees C in the daytime and a bit under 0 at night, but with my thermals and a new Icelandic woolly headband I never got cold. I didn't get to see the landscape from above unfortunately because when I flew in and out the clouds were so low and rainy, but I loved driving through it... lumpy black lava fields covered in green moss, valleys where rifts in the earth run with turquoise glacial water, waterfalls, weird rock formations, snowy mountains, tabletop glaciers and grassy fields with stocky wild horses. It was so inspiring; the perfect setting for fantasy novels/ movies. Apparently Tolkien travelled here and I bet it's where he got inspiration for Mordor; volcanoes spewing fire and lava, sliding gravel piles as big as hills, dry rocky lava desert landscape spurting sulphur.

Photo: Strokkur geyser spouting

On my birthday I went on a tour around the Golden Circle region to see the main sights. First was the 'geysir' after which all spouting hotsprings are named. This massive one is blocked up now but the one next to it 'Strokkur' spouts conveniently every seven minutes. Watch the tourists count it down digital cameras at the ready! People get scalded all the time because there's no massive fences or anything around it!

Photo: American continental plate looks like a cliff

We went to Þingvellir national park, which is an area called 'Rift Valley' because it's where the American and European continental plates are being pulled apart 2cm every year. Iceland only exists because of the volcanic activity caused by these plates- the land is made entirely of lava so can't support any metro tunnels or anything. The American continental plate stands high like a cliff (crumbling occasionally) while the European one is sinking down. The whole area is scarred with faults and cracks, filled with melted glacier water. When the plates are pulled far enough apart, volcanoes erupt in a line of fire, filling the crevices up with lava, healing itself until it is pulled too far apart again. So the landscape is constantly changing. This dramatic setting is also the place of the worlds first parliament- the viking AlÞingi first met here in 930.


Photo: Gullfoss

But my favourite stop of the day was at the Gullfoss "golden falls". The flat dry scrubby landscape suddenly cracks open to show a double drop waterfall from a wide river down into a crevasse with rainbows shooting out of it. On my left horizon a flat line of white slices the sky, it's crawling ice. Piles of light lava stones cluster in pyramid mounds. I don't know who put them there or why. Brown, pink and dusty green scrub litter the lava earth. On my right horizon you could film a wild western amongst the weird rocks and horses, and straight ahead the snowy mountain peaks look disarmingly close, but it's just the lack of pollution making visibility amazing. There is no smell; only cold thin moon air, blue sky, biting wind. The only way I could describe it to myself was like being on a farm in the grand canyon on the moon!


That night I took a bus out into the country to hunt for Northern Lights with a guy called Greg from my hostel. Apparently they'd put on a spectacular show the night before (saw other people's photos of them at the hostel!) When planning this trip I'd assumed October was too early to see them but now I was so excited at the possibility as this is one of the things on my list to see before I die! It was an incredibly eerie drive under a full moon and bright Jupiter, with a clear sky, reflected silver lakes, looming lava hills, solitary tiny cottages in the middle of lava fields. We stopped a couple of times when we got away from city street lights and shivered outside watching the sky.. got some cool long exposure shots but no lights showed up. On the way home after midnight we stopped one last time to watch an almost invisible white streak in the sky which shimmered a bit, so soluble it could have been a trick of the eye. The tour leader said this is the lights and to wait and see if they will suddenly 'switch on'.. but they dissolved.

I enjoyed the bus ride though! The landscape played massive tricks on the eyes, no wonder their mythology is full of trolls and elves and witches. The rock shapes, shadows and bright patches and sudden shimmering streams, holes and hills made me think I was seeing things. Loved it.




Went to the Blue Lagoon one day with two English girls. This is a runoff pool from a geothermal water plant.. the water is milky fluorescent blue steaming in the middle of a lava field. Like taking a bath on the moon. The bottom of the lagoon is crumbly lava, gooey clay and slippery rock, and there are boxes of silicon created by the chemicals/ lava which you put on your face! There were steam rooms and the water was around 38 C, hot enough to balance the cold air! We had a really fun afternoon wallowing around, there was even a swim-up bar.

The only traditional Icelandic food I tried was a vegie & lamb soup. Wasn't keen on the idea of whale meat, horse, puffin or rotten shark. Their history is so awful they had to eat anything and everything they could to not starve, as they were neglected by Norway and then Denmark (who ruled them) and didn't allow them to trade. They had infertile lava soil, were ravaged by volcanic eruptions and then epidemics and plagues, and had no way of escaping the island. Life didn't really improve until after WWII.

The kitchen in my hostel was so well equipped, luckily because even though prices in Iceland are 60% lower than they were before they went bankrupt, eating out would still be too expensive! Downtown Reykjavik is a ghost town all nights of the week except Friday & Saturday, when the whole city population does a sort of pub crawl. It doesn't start until about midnight and pumps on to 6am but we all went out too early from the hostel! I met some nice people including Melbourne girls from Mont Albert and others who went to Carey. All travelling independantly. Had to go to Reykjavik to meet them? Everyone has joked to me that there must be no-one in Melbourne at the moment, they are all over the world.



The cemetery was really cool too. I'm kinda creepy and like seeing how people bury their dead. Vietnam was all pastel colours and rectangle tombs, Bosnia had tall skinny posts, France had mini gothic churches with stained glass windows, and Iceland had a mossy, overgrown, autumn leaves dripping and bright red berries on the ground kind of scene. The trees grew straight out of the graves and tangled overhead, and the headstones were damp and mossy.

I went whale-watching one day and it wasn't much fun. My feet got soaked straight away and went numb with the icy wind whipping straight through my shoes, same with my gloves. But luckily the huge oompa loompa suit kept the rest of me warm! It was rough out at sea and impossible to see whales with rain blowing into my eyes. Saw some porpoises though. As we didn't see anything else we got free tickets to repeat the trip later in the week when the weather was better but unfortunately I was leaving the next day! There was so much more to see that I'll have to go back one day for, with a bigger budget or my own car!

PS In Iceland you can have hot showers for as long as you want because it practically comes straight out of the ground. And only smells a little like sulphur :P