Iceland

Greetings once again!

As I write this, I have just spent the best part of 6 days in Iceland, and I’m already itching to return in the summer time and see much more of the country. Iceland is the most volcanically active country on earth (it straddles the American and European continental plates, which are slowly drifting apart) and the Icelanders are keen to experience regular earthquakes and eruptions, since this reduces their severity. The landscape is amazingly varied, ranging from steep, towering mountains topped with vast plateaus, to lava plains full of bizarre formations, to countless geothermal pools (all of Iceland’s hot water and most of their electricity is geothermally sourced), to huge glaciers. It was refreshing to see such interesting and varied features, after the city-centric adventures of the previous month.

The Icelandic language is one of the most complicated languages on earth, having remained virtually unchanged since the Viking days and having a grammar more complicated than German! Fortunately, practically everyone in Iceland speaks excellent English, and the people were amazingly friendly and helpful. Reykjavik is the nation’s capital (and home to about 190,000 of the country’s 310,000 people) and it proved to be a pretty and spacious town, situated across the bay from a large mountain range. I stayed at the Reykjavik City Hostel for my entire stay in Iceland, which was a very nice and full-featured place. It was also home to some fantastic people (you know who you are!) that I was very fortunate to meet — I couldn’t have asked for a better environment to stay in.

After wandering around Reykjavik at random for a day, I decided to see some of the country side over the next three days. Firstly, I went on a guided hike across a glacier in the south of Iceland. The glacier was amazing, and the weather was good enough that I ended up removing my coat, beanie and gloves, finally ending up in just a shirt! The views across to neighbouring mountain ranges were spectacular, but I found the many crevasses and ice formations to be the most impressive part of the hike. As part of the tour, we also visited two large waterfalls, and we learnt a lot about the geology and history of Iceland during the long bus ride.

The next day, I resolved to climb Mt Esja, the large mountain directly across the bay from Reykjavik. Having been dropped at the bottom of the mountain (many thanks, Eric!) I proceeded to follow the steep track, despite the strong winds, the dark and looming clouds, and the intermittent bursts of rain. I was rewarded with a steep scramble up the final 100 metres of the mountain, arriving at the flat and rocky plateau to discover that the mountain top was inside a cloud. The visibility varied between 20 and 100 metres, which thwarted my desire to walk along the ridge to where it joined another mountain range — I had no desire to get lost. It was completely silent on the peak, and with only a small portion of the rocky plain visible through the thick and soupy fog, it wasn’t too hard to imagine that I was back in Viking times. On a slightly-related note, I arrived in Iceland to find out that I was one day too late to see a Viking-metal band play in Reykjavik, which was very disappointing. As I descended back down the mountain, I was rewarded with some glimpses of the country side and Reykjavik through the thick clouds, and I detoured along an old farmers’ track into a hidden valley before returning to the bottom of the mountain.

For my third day of exploring the land, I jumped on a bus to the small fishing village of Grundarfjörður (population about 950). In the absence of any clearly-marked hiking tracks, I explored the foothills behind the town. Apart from discovering that the long grass and thick moss was extremely spongy and damp, as well as home to countless streams, I found a small rise that overlooked the town. Unfortunately, the mountains above the foothills proved to be much further away than was the case at Mt Esja, so I returned to explore the town and to visit the nearby Grundafoss waterfalls. On the foreshore, I came across the remains of an ancient hut — an accompanying sign explained that the town had been a major port for trade between Iceland and Denmark in the 1700s. I also encountered the Icelandic horse and the Icelandic sheep for the first time. The horses proved to be exceptionally curious beasts — as soon as they spotted me approaching, they all trotted over and crowded along the fence. The sheep, although incredibly woolly and looking almost like walking balls of yarn, proved to be as skittish as every other kind of sheep I have encountered.

I was determined to have a relaxing final day in Reykjavik, which began with a lazy stroll into town to find the “Sea Baron” — a highly recommended seafood restaurant whose lobster soup has been labelled “the best in the world” by the New York Times. For lunch, I tried to lobster soup. I can’t pass judgement on whether it is indeed the best lobster soup in the world, but it was fantastic. I also tried a small piece of mink whale — I am against whaling, but my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to pass up on this once-in-a-lifetime chance to try whale meat — which I can best describe as tasting somewhat like lamb or beef, with a slight fishy/salty flavour. It was nice, but I won’t be having it again. Speaking of food, Iceland is home to “Skyr”, which looks and tastes like yoghurt, but is apparently made like a cheese. Either way, it was delicious. The same couldn’t be said of the shark, which I didn’t try — apparently it tastes strongly of ammonia. Iceland is also home to “Brennevin” (nicknamed “Black Death”), a clear spirit whose taste I heard described as reminiscent of cumin or of caraway seeds. It tasted quite decent, but I wasn’t about to carry a bottle with me for another five months in order to bring it back to Australia.

After lunch, I came across Reykjavik’s world-famous hotdog stand, Baejarins Bestu Pyslur, which has served several US presidents and a number of other celebrities. This was followed by a good skate at the nearby international-size ice rink. For those of you who’ve skated or even only seen the Oakleigh rink in Melbourne, you can imagine my delight at skating on a proper rink! The evening was capped off by a visit to the geothermal baths (located right next to the hostel!) which were extremely relaxing, although the 44 degree pool proved uncomfortably hot after mere seconds (even though the air temperature was hovering around 2 degrees).

I had resigned myself to leaving Iceland without seeing the Northern Lights in their full glory — I had only witnessed a dull greenish glow in the sky on one night — but Iceland managed to save its best for last. On my final night we were treated to a spectacularly vivid display that stretched across the entire sky! There is no description I can give that would do it justice, and my camera was essentially unable to capture any of the light, but it was truly amazing to behold. The light was a bright, vivid green that slowly twisted as it waxed and waned, making even the best postcards of the event look drab and ordinary in comparison.

In ten words or less, my advice is: visit Iceland!

All the best!