Iceland is a country still in formation. Sitting on a hotspot over the Mid Atlantic Ridge where the Earth's crust is literally being torn apart by monumental forces, the evidence of that drama is written in the extraordinary geology that presents itself at every turn.
Our plan was to make a circular tour of Iceland to get a real flavour of the landscape, not just the tourist hotspots but some of the less well known places as well. We wanted to travel "out of season" to avoid the crowds and we would hire a camper van to give us flexibility and a loose schedule.
Our flight brought us safely into Keflavik International and we were met by a cheerful representative from "Happy Campers", the company we were hiring the vehicle from. He responded patiently to the barrage of questions I pestered him with as he drove us into Reykjavik to collect our mobile home for the next two weeks and we got our first look at the landscape.
It has to be said that the Main road on the North of the Reykjanes Peninsula does not offer the finest views Iceland has to offer.
The camper van we had booked was the smallest one available and although rather compact it gave us all the essentials we needed for the trip. On future occasions we may consider something a little bigger but it was sufficient and good value.
Now, call me a wuss if you like but I hate getting into a new vehicle on the wrong side. I like it even less when I find the steering wheel is on the wrong side as well.
They drive on the right in Iceland of course and to a Brit that is always unsettling. Add to that our departure from the yard in the middle of the rush hour, trying to read signs with too many consonants and a very hairy drive over the flanks of Skálafell in the thickest fog I have ever seen, on a road with an indeterminate number of lanes. I was far from relaxed on arrival at Geysir, our first overnight stop.
The original "Geysir", from which these features now derive their name worldwide, erupts very infrequently now. Fortunately it has a slightly smaller neighbour that makes up for it by bursting into action every 5-10 minutes or so.
The first tourists of the day stared arriving as we were packing up to leave so we set our course for Gullfoss, just a short distance up the road for our next stop.
At Gullfoss, the Hvítá plunges 32m in two stages into a narrow, steep canyon before flowing away in a completely different direction. It's impressive.
Bruarfoss is not a huge fall and not easy to find either.
I had come across a few pictures and descriptions and it sounded interesting.
Armed with map and compass we set out in the right direction only to be confused by a second stream, not featured on our map, that cut across our path.
Undeterred, we checked our position, crossed the first river and eventually found the falls just where they should be.
The next day we visited Anarstapi. A grey drizzly day.
This part of the coast is well known for it's sea cliffs which are pounded by the waves and populated mainly by kittiwakes.
We settled for the night further up the coast at Londrangar hoping that the weather would clear for some wider shots of the landscape.
I cannot begin to tell you how angry I was to find the first litter here that we have seen since we landed on Iceland. What really made my blood boil was that it had obviously been left by photographers.
Wrappings from a memory card, a flight luggage label complete with the name of it’s owner, who flew in from Frankfurt, a battery, a piece of broken tripod and two tabs from professional 120 film, so certainly not all from general tourists. What sort of scumbags fly to such a beautiful place and then start to foul it up for everyone else?
There really is no excuse for it. I've been a photographer for over thirty years, film and file, and never left anything but my footprints at a location. People like this are an absolute disgrace and drag the reputation of the majority of responsible photographers down and though the mud with them.
Needless to say I cleared it all up of course.
With the whole of Iceland to choose from, a bunch of clowns in another Happy Camper van turned up, parked right next to us, and played loud music late into the night. At 1:20 am they started flashing their hazard lights and waving torches around to attract the attention of two more vehicles. I got out of bed and suggested, in no uncertain terms, that they adjusted their behaviour. I was certainly not a very “Happy Camper” at that point.
By morning there were six of the idiots wandering around like lost sheep.
They had come, like so many before them, to capture the landscape that they had seen and read about in books but regardless of their expensive cameras and rather cheap flimsy tripods, they obviously didn’t have a clue about what they were doing.
One of them even started waving his mobile phone around pretending it was a light meter when he saw that I apparently did have some idea of which end of the camera to point at the subject.
After breakfast we left them to it and moved East to a dramatic lava field we had spotted the day before called Berserkstraun.
There are far too many pictures to put them all up here, I don't want to clog up all of Tony's bandwidth so if you want to see more and the full unedited report, I'm afraid you'll have to see them on my new site here.
Our plan was to make a circular tour of Iceland to get a real flavour of the landscape, not just the tourist hotspots but some of the less well known places as well. We wanted to travel "out of season" to avoid the crowds and we would hire a camper van to give us flexibility and a loose schedule.
Our flight brought us safely into Keflavik International and we were met by a cheerful representative from "Happy Campers", the company we were hiring the vehicle from. He responded patiently to the barrage of questions I pestered him with as he drove us into Reykjavik to collect our mobile home for the next two weeks and we got our first look at the landscape.
It has to be said that the Main road on the North of the Reykjanes Peninsula does not offer the finest views Iceland has to offer.
The camper van we had booked was the smallest one available and although rather compact it gave us all the essentials we needed for the trip. On future occasions we may consider something a little bigger but it was sufficient and good value.
Now, call me a wuss if you like but I hate getting into a new vehicle on the wrong side. I like it even less when I find the steering wheel is on the wrong side as well.
They drive on the right in Iceland of course and to a Brit that is always unsettling. Add to that our departure from the yard in the middle of the rush hour, trying to read signs with too many consonants and a very hairy drive over the flanks of Skálafell in the thickest fog I have ever seen, on a road with an indeterminate number of lanes. I was far from relaxed on arrival at Geysir, our first overnight stop.
The original "Geysir", from which these features now derive their name worldwide, erupts very infrequently now. Fortunately it has a slightly smaller neighbour that makes up for it by bursting into action every 5-10 minutes or so.
The first tourists of the day stared arriving as we were packing up to leave so we set our course for Gullfoss, just a short distance up the road for our next stop.
At Gullfoss, the Hvítá plunges 32m in two stages into a narrow, steep canyon before flowing away in a completely different direction. It's impressive.
Bruarfoss is not a huge fall and not easy to find either.
I had come across a few pictures and descriptions and it sounded interesting.
Armed with map and compass we set out in the right direction only to be confused by a second stream, not featured on our map, that cut across our path.
Undeterred, we checked our position, crossed the first river and eventually found the falls just where they should be.
The next day we visited Anarstapi. A grey drizzly day.
This part of the coast is well known for it's sea cliffs which are pounded by the waves and populated mainly by kittiwakes.
We settled for the night further up the coast at Londrangar hoping that the weather would clear for some wider shots of the landscape.
I cannot begin to tell you how angry I was to find the first litter here that we have seen since we landed on Iceland. What really made my blood boil was that it had obviously been left by photographers.
Wrappings from a memory card, a flight luggage label complete with the name of it’s owner, who flew in from Frankfurt, a battery, a piece of broken tripod and two tabs from professional 120 film, so certainly not all from general tourists. What sort of scumbags fly to such a beautiful place and then start to foul it up for everyone else?
There really is no excuse for it. I've been a photographer for over thirty years, film and file, and never left anything but my footprints at a location. People like this are an absolute disgrace and drag the reputation of the majority of responsible photographers down and though the mud with them.
Needless to say I cleared it all up of course.
With the whole of Iceland to choose from, a bunch of clowns in another Happy Camper van turned up, parked right next to us, and played loud music late into the night. At 1:20 am they started flashing their hazard lights and waving torches around to attract the attention of two more vehicles. I got out of bed and suggested, in no uncertain terms, that they adjusted their behaviour. I was certainly not a very “Happy Camper” at that point.
By morning there were six of the idiots wandering around like lost sheep.
They had come, like so many before them, to capture the landscape that they had seen and read about in books but regardless of their expensive cameras and rather cheap flimsy tripods, they obviously didn’t have a clue about what they were doing.
One of them even started waving his mobile phone around pretending it was a light meter when he saw that I apparently did have some idea of which end of the camera to point at the subject.
After breakfast we left them to it and moved East to a dramatic lava field we had spotted the day before called Berserkstraun.
There are far too many pictures to put them all up here, I don't want to clog up all of Tony's bandwidth so if you want to see more and the full unedited report, I'm afraid you'll have to see them on my new site here.
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