The Golden Circle and road to Vík, Iceland

Iceland car rental can be quite expensive, and while visiting the country without a car is do-able—with a nearly endless list of day trips and multi-day excursions taking you to all corners—however that then becomes extremely expensive, so car rental with a group is the best bet. I met up with another solo-traveller, Sergey from Saint Petersburg, Russia, who was keen to divide the cost of a rental and spend a week travelling. He also knew another Aussie from earlier travels who happened to be here for the weekend with a bunch of Kiwi/Aussie ex-pats living in London, as well as a few Brits which totalled 12 people. They had two spare seats in one of their cars, so we were able to tag along and visit the main sites, on the cheap, in the short weekend they were here. The most popular tour in Iceland is The Golden Circle, made up of a trip through a geothermal area with the Strokkur geyser, a visit to Gullfoss (Golden Falls) on the river Hvítá, and a trip through Þingvellir National Park, where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, allowing you to trek across continents, and disappear into a 7 kilometre wide dead-mans-land. We also made a trip to Vík on the southern tip of Iceland, arriving at night the following day, making stops along the way at Seljalandsfoss falls, Skógafoss (Forest Falls) and Kirkjufjara, a volcanic black sand beach. Driving through Þingvellir National Park was fantastic, and it was great leaving the civilisation of Reykjavik. From the alien surrounds of Icelandic countryside, looking at the morning moon, it was too easy to fall into the idea we were in a completely different star system, looking out to any planet or moon—certainly far from Earth.

The Geyser was what I had expected, but still something that had to be seen. The smell however, was not what I was expecting — it was nothing like RotoVegas, and was quite pleasant comparatively. Getting there from the carpark was a small challenge, the continual stream of steam almost immediately freezes in the air, leaving inches of clear, slippery ice in a large area surrounding the hot spots. But first we created a now-patented sandwich assembly line, consisting of 7 specialists, each with an area of expertise. Best sandwiches ever, but enough mustard to kill us all. There were ingredients included which were flown from all corners of the globe, whatever we brought in person. We then made it to the main Geyser, and watching all the different techniques of tourist photographers was quite a laugh, most in an uncomfortable pose, with their shot held perfectly framed for several minutes on end like statues, far to early for the 5-8 minute intervalled show. I was lucky with the tripod and wide angle, and managed to get quite a few neat shots with my remote trigger.

We then continued round the circle to Gullfoss (Golden Falls), which was unbelievably cold and windy. Only the Russian and I made it out of the carpark, with the rest of the gang making a b-line for the Cafe for beers. People were being blown over; hats and scarves lost, and I was worried my camera and tripod were going to take off like a kite. Cleaning the lens was futile, so unfortunately a lot of the photos came out a bit rough.  When we got back to the carpark we saw a massive specially modified 10-wheeler had pulled up, and it looked perfectly at home.

That rounded up the day trip, but we were able to stop off at a fence line along Route 1 and watch a team of horsies from afar. They came trotting over, nuzzled up against us and said hello. I was surprised, but this ended up being the highlight of the day. Somehow there were pieces of apple buried just beneath the fresh snow (explaining their friendliness), so the couple of us that braved the cold were able to give them a bit of a snack. The horses were profound, beautiful creatures, with deep spiritually captivating eyes, leading to a familiarity I haven't quite understood while of sane mind, perfect in the quiet Icelandic terrain. I managed to get a couple pictures of cuddles and horsing around, but they didn't turn out as crisp. We hit the road again, which quickly became quite hairy in parts, with very minimal visibility as a snow storm rolled through. At one point the tires dipped slightly off-road into the snow bank, which quickly triggered hilarious flashbacks of terrifying car-wash's experienced as a child, with chaos enveloping the entire 4WD. We made it back however, around sunset, with about 4 minutes spare to make a dash to the bottle-o, the seven of us making two trips each to lug all the beer back to the car. And at 351 ISK a 500ml can ($3.50NZD), we had to make sure we began drinking as soon as we had the receipt in-hand (bar the drivers) to ease the financial pain.

After probably the 4th or 6th straight night of intense drinking, and very little sleep, we started out quite late the next day, once the drivers in particular could sober up completely, and we could make sure there were enough $0.60 energy drinks (the only cheap thing in Iceland!) to go around. We headed in the opposite direction this time out of Reykjavik, en route to Vík, essentially the most southern part of Iceland. We were light one person on day 2, so the sandwich assembly line was ruined. Luckily there were enough Kiwi's and Aussies on-board to crowd source a bit of No.8 wire thinking in the snack department, and with me there to translate between Bro and Mate as the Kiwi/Aussie translator, it all went smoothly. There was a lot of sleeping in the car in that morning...

We didn't have a game plan at all, and were lucky to hit most of the main stops. The first being Seljalandsfoss, a fantastic waterfall tucked away a tiny distance from Route 1. You're even able to walk behind the waterfall and watch the sunset, but in Winter it's impossible without ice cleats. I'm actually heading back here with gear, so that'll be something to look forward to. We also managed to get a couple great photos of the full group including Car #2, which rounded this off as a great first stop.

The stretch of road between Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss (Forest Falls), was completely different again.   Full of interesting volcanic peaks, intense contrast between the rich brown grass and light blue skies.  None of the colour in these photos varies from what we could see in person.  We reached Skógafoss at the most perfect time, with the sun starting to disappear behind some of the mountain peaks we had just passed.  Looking back, after a short hike uphill, I grabbed this photo — another one of my favourites so far:

There was a great, but strenuous jaunt (in our condition) up to the top of the falls. At the top we were able to go off track a bit and within a few metres disappear completely into the landscape. Sergey and I managed a couple neat selfies and then we made the easier walk back down. There were another handful of Icelandic Horses, whom like their friends from the previous day came to meet us at the fence line. The rest of the group retreated to the beer-source, and I set up my tripod. While taking the shot with me in it, the horse out of frame gave my lens cap a toothy nibble, knocking it over, looking rather pleased with itself. Silly horsies.

Now, there is an excellent reason why despite being lost in the most beautiful landscape, I only have a few remaining photos of the day, which I'll get to... We stopped off next on a fluke to Kirkjufjara, a volcanic black sand beach. I stood on the southern point, with a compass in hand, trying to visualise the perfectly straight line that would take you across only ocean to meet the South Pole in Antarctica. Again, it was a crazy and profound moment, which soon led to some perfectly terrible judgement... However it brought me back to one of my favourite songs from Bon Iver: Holocene, which happens to have an awesome music video, which was shot in Iceland... ♫♫ I could see for miles, miles, miles.

I sat for some time watching the waves roll in, seeing the set waves, and the larger waves, and felt safer to move closer to the cliff edge. By this time the group had moved further around the coast, out of earshot, but were still visible. I set up my tripod as night began its journey, and sat peacefully despite the chaotic crashing below. That's when I heard the most thunderous, consuming roar. I recall turning slightly, seeing black, and being picked up by a towering column of water that dwarfed me by at least 2 metres. I was firmly braced, but I just crumbled. I was dragged, dumped and then pinned near the cliff face, twisted in a few well placed rocks. Soaked through completely, bleeding, dangling above death below. I must have switched into survival mode, I remember hearing the guys (who thought they just saw me die) yelling from afar. I walked, shaking back to the car, stripped off, and realised what happened. My camera was done and dusted, salt water just ripped through it. The lens survived (the expensive bit), but the electronics were toast. Only my hands were gashed, with my body getting what looked like gravel rash through the thick layers, and luckily I walked away without adding concussion number 6 ...or 7. That considered, I was really quite pleased with the whole ordeal. We continued on, and for the rest of the night I was sporting some real NZ beach wear... soaked underwear (undies, undies, undies, togs) and an Icelandic wool jumper is what my outfit entailed. The locals were quite puzzled when we soon arrived in Vík, on a more colder night, seeing this strange bearded foreigner wearing close to nothing.

In complete dark out, we left Vík, and headed back to Reykjavik, full with a handful of famous hotdogs, with hopes of spotting the Northern Lights. Which we did. My phone survived, so I was keeping up to date with the Aurora forecast, keeping a keen eye on the sky. I managed to spot them, but it took some convincing for us to stop so I could prove they weren't just clouds. We got a couple shots, which glowed incandescently green thanks to the long exposure of the cameras sensor (from all cameras but mine), before continuing down the road. That's when I spotted the lights directly above, in full bodied green, dancing — you could almost hear them like heavenly windchimes. We all piled out of the 4WD (me wearing just about nothing), no shoes, in what would have been -25°C with windchill. There were 5 or 6 visible columns that stretched out like fingers across from the southern ocean on the horizon, towered above us, and hit the opposite horizon. We were jumping around like giddy idiots at this point, like 2 year olds discovering the magic of bubbles. Soon I realised I began feeling quite warm, which scared the hell out of me, so I jumped back in the car and set the heat to roaring. We watched the lights for probably half an hour, opened the box of beers, and trucked back to Reykjavik. I'll never forgot walking in just underwear through downtown Reykjavik in a snow storm, nor will quite a few locals I'm sure.

I recall seeing 1:40 am as I hopped out of the shower, put on some new clothes and joined the group exploring in Reykjaviks crazy-awesome nightlife. I felt alive. These were definitely the greatest days I've had so far in my life, 16769 kilometres from home, in the most wonderful place in the world.

Reykjavik, Iceland

The flight from Toronto to Reykjavik was great, IcelandAir is an excellent airline. There was subtle, dancing LED lighting from above which give the impression that the entire cabin was being flooded with the Northern Lights—a peaceful addition to the 6 hour journey. I also loved that on each seats head-rest there was a word in Icelandic along with it's meaning in English. Sitting at the back of the plane, I was able to pick up a couple interesting Icelandic phrases as I found my way to my seat, eventually arriving at Eldfjall, from eldur (“fire”) + fjall (“mountain”), Icelandic for Volcano. The highlight of course was the image above—whilst navigating the southern tip of Greenland, I was able to spot the Aurora Borealis across the horizon. Well, not at first. Sitting behind the wing I thought I could see a faint white glow, almost like a cloud backlit from the moon—however it didn't look quite right. I had the bright lights of the screen in front of me removing my night vision so I sat there for a good 15 minutes with one eye shut until the light show began to reveal its true colours. It was truly magnificent. Knowing what I was now seeing I got out my camera and began the journey of capturing it, trying to find all the different camera settings that would work best. Instead of sleeping, I ended up taking photos for an hour, and as the intensity of the lights grew, I managed to find the shot I was after—that is to say, a shot that wasn't completely blurry.

I arrived at Keflavik Airport in Reykjavik comfortably 6 hours later—losing 5 hours, now GMT+0, 13 hours behind New Zealand. After a comfortable but expensive bus trip to the city centre I spent the morning walking around, to the Hallgrimskirkja church, the weekly Kolaportið Flea Market, and waterfront before stopping for some Icelandic Fish & Chips, at a store named exactly that. There isn't exactly a menu, as it revolves around what's been caught that day. On the day I arrived I had Ling, which is a delicious deep-running cod-like fish. It was fantastic, and a great introduction to the great food, particularly seafood, here in Iceland. In the afternoon I checked into the first hostel of a few planned, which I'd booked for a couple nights, and slept from around 3pm until early the next morning, without a top sheet or duvet—because that was an additional cost apparently, and at this point it feels as if I'm half a step removed from being a hobo, and forking out for proper bedding is a frivolous expense.

I was (perhaps slightly ill-) advised that during the Winter season pre-booking tours wasn't of major importance, and that arranging a week of tours is quickly and simply arranged upon arrival. I spent the next day digging through piles of different guides and brochures on all the tours available, and it was quite a task. There are so many different activities, and a crazy number of different operators. It's rather overwhelming trying to find the best options, particularly when there is a good amount of variance between each operator and the exact activities and combinations they offer. Not to mention trying to retain place names like Þórisjökull and Eiríksjökull (and these are the easy ones...), certainly presents challenges of it's own.

I ended up heading out on the Highlands Northern Lights tour, leaving just before sunset at 6pm, and returning just shy of 2am. It was quite pricey, but instead of packing into a standard bus and trailing around the highways in search of the Aurora, the tour package offered a trip all the way out to Iceland's second largest glacier, Langjökull, with a beastly special modified vehicle which then takes you up on a 3 hour trip on top of the glacier. For months I've been researching the Aurora Borealis, and I'm plugged into several different weather and solar-wind tracking resources, and the forecast looked perfect when I booked a few days leading up to the excursion. Of course, once arrived the entire sky was blanketed in complete cloud clover, with ridiculously intense wind — us, only sheltered by the truck for miles and miles. The lights were likely dancing above in their full glory (according to NASA they were), but there was no way we were seeing them. The trip was definitely not a write-off however. I met a couple of crazy American ladies who kidnapped me for the duration of the tour, after a shared bond of giggles surrounding double-entendre's passing Iceland's famous Phallological museum. A bottle of wine and more beer than I had pockets for (and in this climate, one tends to have a lot of pockets) mysteriously found it's way onto the bus, so we were having a great time while we effectively made our way to the dark side of the moon. No Aurora, but more wind than Iceland knew what to do with. The force was incredible, the ice chunks unforgiving, and I'll never forgot walking off 50 or so metres into complete nothing-ness with the mission of securing a patch of yellow-snow.

Anyhow, I didn't manage to capture much of the trip, including much of the gorgeous sunset (#wishtheycleanedthewindows), but I'll always have a couple great new friends, a few snaps and the rather fitting video I managed to capture with my phone below:

With a lot of tours cancelled the following day due to a decent storm rolling in on the southern coast, I spent my time shopping and looking around Reykjavik a little bit further, not bringing my camera out too often. On my bucket list was to leave Iceland with a souvenir of a traditional handmade Icelandic lopapeysa wool sweater. It definitely lightened my piggybank a great deal, something which I was prepared for, but I think this will be a great piece of Iceland I can bring back home, made nearby by an Icelandic grandmother.

Later in the evening I ended up with my two new compadres at a bar called The Big Lebowski, with decor well and truly earning the name. The price of booze in Iceland can be rather exorbitant, so I try to limit myself to happy-hours and my duty-free stash in my hipflask—I even saw a standard 330ml bottle of beer for 1.400ISK ($14NZD!). It's possible however to remain in happy hour for most of the night, if you know which Bars to hop to, and don't mind walking in the cold. 500-600ISK ($5-6NZD) is much easier to swallow. Fantastically enough though, there doesn't seem to be any sort of liquor ban, so a purchase of a coke, and a quick trip outside, produces a magical rum&coke. You can also buy drinks at closing, and they'll give you plastic cups so you can drink on the cold walk home, or to the next bar. So at 6am the streets are full with these cups, but it's all cleaned by sunrise. Must be due to all the elves in Iceland.

There are so many photo spots I haven't visited just within Reykjavik. I've managed to enjoy the nightlife here every night for an entire week, and have powered through, completely sleep deprived. So, battling the harsh weather this week and walking to all these places has taken a back seat. I've got lots more photos to sort and upload from my day trips outside of the city, so I'll try get to that soon...