a brit in iceland

7/27/2019 A Brit in Iceland

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1 A Brit in IcelandThe Story of a Summer in IcelandJune to August 2003

Dr Graeme Davis

[email protected]


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Preface

This is a series of impressions of Iceland drawn from a ten week visit to Iceland in thesummer of 2003 (and also a little time in the Faroe Islands, Shetland, and onboard boats onthe North Atlantic). As all travel books, it is written in the conviction that the visitor knows

something more about the places described that those who live there. What follows is Icelandthrough British eyes.

The British Academy are responsible for this book, though they don't know it. It is the BritishAcademy who sent me, a lecturer at Britain's Northumbria University, to the University ofIceland, to write a book - though not this one. The book they wanted written and which waswritten is A Comparative Syntax of Old English and Old Icelandic (published Peter Lang,2004). You don't want to read that one. But you do want to read this book.

Sane folk fly to Iceland. It's not all that far by air, whether from Britain, or from anywhere inEurope, or from North America. Icelandair have a good network, plus connections with SASand some other major operators, and there is now a budget airline, Iceland Express, flyingfrom London and Copenhagen. It is easy to fly to Iceland. So I took my car on the ferry. Andthe car proves to be the star of much of this account, and the car journey Britain to Iceland afascinating experience of the never to be repeated variety.

By plane the trip Britain to Reykjavik takes less than three hours. By car the trip from Britain toReykjavik takes about five days, including three nights on ferries and a mighty long driveacross Iceland. The vehicle that braved 10 weeks of the worst roads in Europe is a 1997Mercedes Benz C180 - a polar white one, which seems appropriate. This car proved to beindestructible.

My thanks to Mercedes for making their cars Iceland-proof. My thanks to my summer visitorsfrom Britain to Iceland, who in various ways have contributed to this account. My thanks tomany Icelanders, who may well be horrified at their contribution herein. This is Iceland as aBrit sees it. Enjoy!


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Chapter One - Iceland Bound

Journey Outline:

NORTHUMBERLAND (my home) TO ABERDEEN, 246 miles, 5 hours driving - a comfortablelittle run.

ABERDEEN TO SHETLAND, 211 miles, 12 hours on the boat. This is an overnight voyage byNorthLink Ferries from Aberdeen to the Shetlands' main town of Lerwick (but pick your day -sometimes it is 13 hours and via Orkney!)

SHETLAND TO SEYDISFJORDUR, 580 miles, 31 hours on the boat. This is two consecutiveovernights on Smyril Line's ship the Norrona. Don't miss the boat - there's just one a week(and that high summer only), and this is the only ferry from anywhere, absolutely anywhere, toIceland. That's right, Iceland is served by one ferry a week, summer only.

SUDERLEID ROUTE SEYDISFJORDUR TO REYKJAVIK, 488 miles.Seydisfjordur is easy to find on a map. Find Reykjavik. Then find the part of Iceland that isfurthest from Reykjavik. You've got it? That's Seydisfjordur, pretty much as far east as Icelandgoes. Which means a monster drive from Seydisfjordur to Reykjavik. There is a choice ofroads - the south road or the north road - both much the same length. I took the south road -suderleid - with an overnight in Hofn:Seydisfjordur to Hofn via East Fjords 322 km, 201 miles, 6 hours.Then Hofn to Reykjavik 459 km, 287 miles, 8 hours.

TOTAL DISTANCE NORTHUMBERLAND TO REYKJAVIK 1525 MILES. Five days. Fournights.

The most exciting story of the outbound trip was the one that I slept through!

On boarding the ferry at Aberdeen I was handed a written severe weather warning. Basicallythis meant that a storm was expected, and in the event of delay, diversion to another port,damage to car or other property, or just about any other eventuality, NorthLink were not liable- passengers were invited to reconsider whether they wanted to travel. I rather gathered that Iwould be paying the funeral expenses. So now should follow a story of a freak typhoon in theNorth Sea, hurricane winds, tidal waves and the like. But in fact I went to my cabin and didn'twake up until Lerwick harbour next morning, and if there was a storm I slept through.

Then followed a 20 hour day in Shetland - from 6am to 2am. Spend a few moments thinkingabout this and let the true implication sink in. And add rain. Imagine 20 hours of non-stop,torrential rain in a region of Britain where just about everything is closed before 10am andafter 4pm (and don't forget the extra couple of hours closed for lunch). There you have it - thetrue Shetland-in-the-rain experience for the through-traveller to Iceland - the only people inShetland who don't have some form of accommodation where they can shelter from theelements..

So I went to Sumburgh Head in the pouring rain to see the birds, and had the cliffs to myself.It's funny, most folk won't watch birds in a deluge. This is an excellent bird-watching spot,even when torrential rain reduces visibility, and the puffins and guillemots and kittewakes andlots of others can be seen from a range of just a few feet. Notices in Sumburgh Headannounce that it is a whale-watching spot, but unless the whales practically came ashore Ihad no chance of seeing any. Though it was as wet ashore as in the sea, so perhapsanything was possible. Then Jarlshof archaeological site in the pouring rain, and surprise, Ihad the site all to myself, followed by Shetland Crofthouse Museum in even more rain - therewere a few other drowned souls sheltering here. The afternoon got wetter - an exhibition ofShetland Paintings by Ruth Brownlee in Lerwick was pleasant and dry, and there is somegood material on Shetland matters in Shetlands Library. For example the Lord's Prayer in

Shetland Norn caught my eye:

Fyvor or er i Chimeri. Halaght vara nam dit.


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La Konungdum din cumma. La vill din vera guerdei vrildin sindaeri chimeri.Gav vus dagh u dagloght brau. Forgive sindorwarasin vi forgiva gem ao sinda gainst wus.Lia wus ike o vera tempa, but delivra wus fro adlu idlu.For do i ir Kongungdum, u puri, u glori, Amen

The Shetland experience continued with an exploration of Shetland night life (which tookabout five minutes, because I was taking my time), and a heroic effort to make an Italianrestaurant meal last more than two hours. Then hours of sitting in my car with the enginerunning to power the heater, sometimes with te wipers on and sometimes with them off. Rain,rain, and more rain.

This story could well have ended in Shetland. Lerwick is a frontier for the Uniter Kingdom justtwice a week when the ferry Norrona passes through, heading for the Faroes and Iceland oneway, and Bergen the other. There aren't proper customs buildings here, but security atLerwick was nonetheless thorough - that's once customs opened at 1am, an hour late. I wasstopped at the barrier, which is under a garage-style awning, which means that the rain mightnot actually fall on your head but it blows in from the side, and the ground becomes a river.

They wanted the boot open. And they were greatly puzzled by a new, yellow bucket in theboot (bought for 1.99 with the intention of using it to clean the car on the kerbside inReykjavik). So they searched the boot, which meant getting everything out in the wet. Thenthey searched under the the bonnet. But here they hit a problem, for under the bonnet theycouldn't see a thing - Mercedes do rather pack the engine into the space so there are no gapsleft for anyone to look through. So first they crawled underneath the car, then they decided totake the screen-wash bottle out. Just in case you are wondering, its not designed to comeout, and certainly not with five litres of screenwash in it, but out it came. I gather from theexpletives that it was both heavy and awkward. Taking it out didn't really give them a muchbetter view, but they decided that they had had enough. Then they frisked me, thoroughly.

With my luggage somewhat damp and back in the boot - and what wouldn't fit back in theboot on the back seat - they decided I could go. And then the car wouldn't start. When they

had asked me to get out I'd left the key in the ignition, while the car's security system requiresthat the key is taken out whenever the car is being serviced, or indeed having its windscreenwasher bottle taken out. As a result the car was well and truly immobilised by its own securitysystem. It just wouldn't start. I was getting as far as wondering what the AA call-out responsetime would be like at 2am, and whether they could do anything, and whether this situationcould get any worse, when the car's security alarm went off - and wouldn't stop.

Finally on the umpteenth cycle through the locking system I got the alarm off and the carstarted. The moral is simple. If anyone is planning to carry out the next great train robbery, Iadvise don't try to leave Britain via Shetland. Try somewhere quiet like Heathrow or Dover.

Boarding was about 3am, an hour late, because of British customs delays. The Smyril Lineship Norrona looked like the Starship Enterprise towering above the quayside - all bright lights

and with a shape that has to owe as much to design as function. My home for the next 31hours.

Passengers were mostly Germans and Danes travelling on the first leg of the north North Searoute back to the continent (change at Torshavn in the Faroes for Hantsholm in Denmark).Going on all the way to Iceland the passengers were mainly Danes, with a few Germans andNorwegians, one French family, one group I decided after much eavesdropping on theirlanguage were Hungarian, and as far as I could make out not a single Brit other than me. Noran Icelander.

Smyril Line's Norrona is a luxury ship, every bit as glamorous as the pictures in the SmyrilLine brochure and on the web-site. And then there are the couchettes. The British Academyfunded my trip, but their support certainly doesn't run to a single person cabin - indeed the

return trip in a single-person cabin would demolish about a third of my ten-week's allowance.For non-wealthy travellers there are couchettes. These are in groups of nine, with three racks


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of three high bunks in each miniature cabin, and if approached with a sense of humour arefine. They are a nice example of what you need to be prepared to accept to make a trip likethis work. If I waited until first class travel was possible for me I'ld be waiting for a long time!So I was in the couchettes, and approached with humour and a willingness to accept over-crowding, sauna-like temperatures, lots of noise and a location below the water-line they werejust fine.

First glimpse of Iceland was the Fjord of Seydisfjordur, spectacular with its cliffs cloud-toppedand a glimpse of snow on the hills when the clouds lifted. Then Icelandic customs. All driversreading this, please now pick up a pen and a scrap of paper. Write down please the unladenweight of your car. That's right, what does it weigh? - and in kilograms please. Thisinformation is required when bringing a car into Iceland. Don't ask me why. It is. It's on theform. (NB the Mercedes C180 weighs 1350 kgs - and it took 20 minutes of frantic searchingthrough the car manual to find this out.)

This quiz question aside Icelandic customs were fine, my windscreen washer bottle remainedfixed under the bonnet, and the process was complete in about two hours. Then the six hourrun to Hofn, one of varied spectacle. I'm not even going to attempt to describe it - this oneyou've got to do!

An unforgettable feature of the first day in Iceland was the worst roads I've ever seen. I'veseen bad roads in Turkey, China and Egypt, but there very much off the beaten track, andanyway not this bad. This is Iceland's road number 1, the ring-road, and it might be expectedto be good. And there are stretches of good road. But also miles and miles of truly dismalrutted track, some really nasty gradients, bends, blind summits and a long list of motoringchallenges. Plus a section of very wet and very muddy road, complete with a deeply mired carthat hadn't made it through, and with a tractor in the proces of pulling them out, so I wentround through even deeper mud, and there's now mud on every part of my car. Mud in everycrease a seam, and my polar white car has turned brown.

Arrival at Hofn needed a sense of humour which I was probably lacking - my excuse is that allthe humour had been expended on the Norrona's couchettes. My hotel had double booked.

What else is there to say? There wasn't a bed for me. They didn't have the bed they hadsold, and they weren't going to boot someone else out. I suggested the manager could sleepon a couch for the night, but he seemed to think this was some strange English joke. Which itwasn't. It took a while for me to hunt round Hofn and find a bed as the town was pretty muchfull, and I ended up right by the harbour in the Hotel Asgard, a tidy hotel in a nice location.Now Asgard is the Norse paradise, so I guess this is the Nordic equivalent of theMediterranean's Hotel Paradiso. After three days on boats and a long drive it certainly felt likeheaven.

The only problem with Hofn is pronouncing its name. It is pretty much the sound of a hiccup.One of the many good things about Hofn is that it is open in the evening. The contrast withLerwick is striking. On a wet Monday evening in Lerwick I really didn't know what to do withmyself. In Hofn there was plenty to do. For starters the restaurant I found (one of the two in

the town) served deep fried fish with strawberries and chips. This is the gastronomic find ofthe century - deep fried fish and fresh strawberries really does work together - and everyBritish chip shop should be selling it. The restaurant was the sort of place where lingering waspossible. The shops in Hofn are open until 9pm, and the museum until 10pm. For that matter Inoticed that sports centre, swimming pool, church and social club were all open. There werepeople about.

The museum is on glaciers, focusing on nearby Vatnajokul and its prize exhibit is the world'sfirst snow-cat, built in 1972. Before snow-cats travel on glaciers was scarcely possible. Thereare tales in the Viking Sagas of people crossing glaciers, and in more recent times there wasa custom of crossing a few hundred yards of a tongue of Vatnajokul to avoid the crossing ofthe Jokul River. But the first recorded crossing of Vatnajokul dates from the early years of thetwentieth century. As the museum tells the story, it was three likely-lads from Hofn who made

the trip. It seems they decided that they wanted to do something that would make themfamous, and with minimal equipment and little fuss set out from Hofn to cross Vatnajokul.


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They made it in four days right across to the dales north of the glacier, getting their place inhistory - a truly remarkable tale of grit and courage. And then, finding themselves withouthorses to ride around the glacier and without enough food for the ten-day over-land trek backhome, they decided to cross the glacier again. So they were not only the first people to crossa glacier in modern times, but the first people to cross a glacier twice. It's like FrancisChichester sailing single handed around the world, then deciding he's got a few iron rations

left on board so he might as well go round again.

The road west from Hofn is a good one - which means a road with a surface all the way - andin parts of excellent quality. But the sites are too good to simply keep driving. For examplethere is Jokulsarlon - Glacier Lake - the lake between a tongue of Vatnajokul and the sea, andit is choc-a-bloc full with icebergs, and chunks of ice of all sizes.The smaller ones washashore showing weird and wonderful shapes. In the morning light the ice was bright blue, andthe water, and the sky all blue - the blues were amazing. Pictures of the arctic and antarcticshow a lot of white, but travellers talk of the blues. Here there was a lot of ice, and from someangles it was white, but the blues made the strongest impresion. I spent an hour or so on thelake-side, picking up some of the smaller lumps of ice, until hypothermia threatened and Idecided it was time to move on. Maybe this chill is why it is called Iceland.

The southern road is a great introduction to the wildlife of Iceland. Bird life is profuse. Thereare Arctic Terns nesting in the fields anywhere close to the sea, and they defend their territorywith energy. Skuas are even more aggressive, even diving at the car. Harlequin Ducks are tobe seen. These striking birds are pretty much unique to Iceland. Lupins grow wild - and Idrove through mile upon mile of countryside covered in blue lupins, certainly dozens of milesof arctic lupin.

This southern route is a very vulnerable road. In early settlement times the warmer climatepushed the glaciers back a mile or two from the coast and there was a route. However fromaround 1200 the deteriorating climate more or less closed the route, with scrambles overglacier being necessary for the few brave or foolhardy people who struggled along the southcoast. The road that has now been pushed through is built in part on the thin strip betweenglacier and sea, in part on miles of shifting sand. The pinch-point at Jokulsarlon is no more

than a mile between the glacier and the sea, and that mile made up only of sand bars, a lakeof ice-bergs and a very fast flowing river. Signs report that the road will be swept away in afew years - there are plans to rebuild, but it will be a major engineering exercise. Anotherstretch of the road has warnings of sand storms, and the road can be closed and often isclosed when the wind blows - there are big gates which are pulled across. In recent yearsvolcanic activity had closed the road for months. This is a very fragile link.

Finally to Reykjavik. The rain stopped, the car was washed, I was washed, my clothes werewashed. And so all was well.


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Chapter Two - Bearings in Reykjavik

The most important thing to know about Reykjavik is that the hot water comes straight fromthe friendly local volcano, and smells of rotten eggs. As everyone washes in it and washestheir clothes in it the inhabitants of Reykjavik also smell faintly of rotten eggs. That's right,rotten eggs is the ever-present background smell. After just a couple of days here you won't

notice it. That's because you too smell of rotten eggs.

Reykjavik in Figures

Average winter temperature -1 degree (not cold)Average summer temperature +10 degrees (not warm)Highest temperature last year (2001) +17 degrees (still not warm)Highest temperature ever +24 degrees (warm but not hot)

Population in 2001 in Reykjavik city 112,276 (plus another 60,000 or so in the communitiesaround). Population of Iceland is 286,275. Reykjavik dominates Iceland.

Cars: 65,671 in Reykjavik city alone - one for every two people.

Buses: 77 - one for every 1,445 people. No wonder everyone drives!Planes: 837,668 passengers passed through Keflavik and Reykjavik airports in 2000 - that'sthree times the population of Iceland!Ships: 48 cruise ships pa call in at Reykjavik (2000)

Life expectancy: men 78 years, women 81 years. Probably the world's highest - anywherethat claims higher is likely to have faulty figures. There is only one hospital in Reykjavik - a bigone! All your eggs in one basket comes to mind. GPs are just one for every 2000 people.They're even rarer than the busses! It is curious that a country with a world-leading lifeexpectancy has so few hospitals and doctors. Perhaps it suggests that affluence and lifestylehas the biggest effect on life expectancy, not medical resources.

Employment: there is virtual full-employment - the unemployment rate is 1.3%.

86% work in service industries. 14% work in agriculture, fishing or manufacturing.

Reykjavik CityIncome 2002 26,960,000,000 ISKExpenditure 2002 23,046,375,000 ISK- leaving a very healthy surplus.The cost of city services per person is in the region of 2,000 pa.

Museums

Reykjavik is not short of museums, and over the weeks I spent in Reykjavik I checked outmost of them, maybe all of them. So here's a distillation of what's worth seeing:

The National Gallery. It's good!

The Einar Jonsson Sculpture Museum is within the former home and garden of the sculptor,dating from the 1920s. His art presents a rather tortured mix of Christianity and Nordic myth -the sort of thing that in Germany in the 1930s was taken over as a Nazi art style - not that anyofficial information in Reykjavik suggests this. Also on the sculpture theme is the AsmundurSveinsson museum, with modern, abstract work in concrete, much of it huge. Rodin he is not!In their way these are both remarkable museums. Yet I have the impression that Einar andAsmundur have their own museums primarily because they are Icelanders, not because ofthe intrinsic quality of their work.

The Culture House at the moment houses the Arni Magnusson manuscript collection whilethe Arni Magnusson institute is being refurbished - plus a very informative exhibit on thesettlement of Iceland and Greenland. The museum presented me with a moral dilemma. On

my first visit the entrance fee was waived because it was closing within the hour. On mysecond visit I was recognised and waived through because I had been there before. And on


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my third visit I was recognised and given the red-carpet treatment as a connoisseur of thingsIcelandic, who couldn't possibly be asked to pay. So three visits, and all free. You will gatherthat the Culture House is well worth visiting, at least three times, and I should have gonemore. The outstanding exhibit is the manuscripts - after all, this is why people go to Iceland.The 1,666 mediaeval manuscripts of the Arni Magnusson collection are unique in theirquantity, of superb quality, and contain the mediaeval literature and history of northern

Europe. They are stunning.

The Arbaer Folk Museum. A reflection on the exhibits in the Folk Museum and indeed muchelse seen in Iceland is that Iceland has made incredible strides since independence in 1944.Prior to the second world war Iceland was a very poor country - the depression of the 1930shit it particularly badly. It did do reasonably well economically from hosting British andAmerican troops during the war, but its prospects when independence was declared in 1944really didn't look particularly good. An honest assessment is probably that its prospects weredire. Yet Iceland is a success story. Icelanders put fish down as the reason for their economicsuccess, but this hardly seems adequate. Geothermal power is surely a big part of theexplanation - in effect Iceland has free, non-polluting power - while the role of stable, sensiblegovernment for nearly six decades has to be considered a factor. Perhaps too it is easier for asmall country to make decisions which suit its economy.

Also not to be missed: the Labour Union's Art Gallery, which has some strikingexpressionist work, and is in a gallery which is itself a work of art.

Independence Day

17th June is Independence Day in Iceland. In 1919 as part of the Versailles settlementIceland was granted self-governing status within the Kingdom of Denmark with the right toindependence after 25 years. The outbreak of the Second World War saw the occupation ofDenmark by Germany, and in order to protect Iceland its occupation first by Britain and laterby America. While Iceland presumably saw these alied occupations as preferable to theGerman invasion such as that suffered by Denmark and Norway, they were far from popular.Independence from Denmark was declared at Thingvellir 17th June 1944, at a time when

Denmark really couldn't say much about it. In keeping with Iceland's tradition of being out ofdoors as much as possible the ceremony was conducted outside and in the rain, and thedeclaration of independence is smudged by raindrops.

The independence day celebrations of 2003 seemed to me to be very subdued, but it is apublic holiday, and the library and shops were closed. So as I couldn't work through forcesbeyond my control I went out to Thingvellir, parliament plains, where the declaration ofindependence was signed, and drove around the north shore of the lake, Thingvellirvatn.

In the middle of nowhere I was flagged down by two Czech hikers who had had enough andwanted a lift to civilisation. Hitch-hikers in Iceland have a rough time. There's not much trafficon most Icelandic roads, while on roads serving places of tourist interest the traffic is prettymuch exclusively tour groups and tourists in hire cars, neither group likely to stop. But these

hitch-hikers had the canny idea of flagging a car down in the middle of no-where, where it isinconceivable for a driver not to stop. And once you have stopped it would seem hard-heartedto just drive on. So I took them to their destination - Reykjavik campsite. They are check-instaff from the BA and CSA desks at Prague airport taking their annual holiday. They are doingIceland on the cheap, which I would have thought takes some doing. Indeed their intendedroute of hitch-hiking around Iceland I think they will find impractical as there just isn't enoughtraffic in the east.

Around Reykjavik

Reykjavik stops abruptly, and the real, wild Iceland is just on the doorstep.

The roads just south of Reykjavik are a sharp reminder of the true state of Icelandic roads.

The quality modern surface ends abruptly, and the road becomes a single track on mud andgravel with some extreme hills and bends. Tucked away in the fells is Kleifavatn, which is a


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sizeable lake of crystal clear, seemingly sterile, water. Local legend says that a monster livesthere, and it is easy to understand why, as nothing much else seems to inhabit the lake. Alittle further south is the geothermal area of Krysuvik. Lots of boiling mud, steam, sulphaterasand the like. Also a lake, Green Lake, which is coloured a funny shade of bright blue by thealgae which thrive in the geothermal heat. Now why isn't it called Blue Lake ....

Every tourist seems to get to the Blue Lagoon. This is an open-air swimming pool - openyear-round, and up to 24 hours a day in summer. The water is naturally warm, at acomfortable 36 to 42 degrees, and an opaque milky-blue colour, full of algae which areclaimed to be beneficially for lots of health problems. This is a very special Icelandicexperience, especially when the clouds pattern the sky, or even when it is raining.

Every tourist seems to get to the Blue Lagoon once. I managed nine trips. Its addictive! Somedays it was rather crowded. There's just too many tourists.... Only on my eighth visit did Inotice that in the vestibule a chunk of rock has a brass plate on it. Apparently it is the firstchunk of rock excavated when the changing rooms were built - and it was formed exactly in1226. I don't think I've ever seen this sort of precise dating on a rock.


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Chapter Three - Weather and Prices

Mention Iceland to anyone in Britain and there are two possible responses.

The first, and by far the most common, is to assume that Iceland means the British

supermarket chain Iceland. Most people in Britain have an Iceland quite close to them, anddon't think of it as a place to go on holiday, so the conversation that follows can get a bitconfused. My aunt thought I was going to Iceland, the supermarket. I rather think she thoughtI had at last got a proper job on an Iceland supermarket check-out.

The second response is from people who have realised that Iceland is a country - and stilldon't think of it as a place to go on holiday. The question they ask is "what's the weatherlike?", followed by "it's expensive, isn't it?"

So lets get it over and done with - weather in Iceland.

My trip lasted only three months, but this covers three seasons. June is spring, July issummer and August is autumn. And the rest is winter. When I arrived in Iceland in early JuneI found a few flakes of falling snow within ten miles of the port, while in early August just tenmiles from Reykjavik (on top of a hill) I got hit by some hail stones. Snow patches are visibleon the hills all the time. Despite the cool weather and short growing season, plants and treesdo flourish, and Reykjavik suburban gardens are full of colour. Of course everything is muchlater than Britain, with for example tulips in full flower in June, and everything races to get itsgrowing and flowering finished by the end of August before winter arrives.

Daytime temperatures June-August in Reykjavik were 10 degrees to 19 degrees centigrade.The highest temperature ever recorded in Reykjavik is 24 degrees centigrade. Even in Britishterms this is cool summer weather.

There was a heat wave in Iceland summer 2003, the hottest summer since before the secondworld war. Temperatures rose to 15 and 16 degrees, then finally hit 17 degrees in Reykjavikand very briefly a reported 19 degrees, and that without a cloud in the sky. Inland it waswarmer - a sizzling 20 degrees on Mossfell. There were even reports that residents ofReykjavik got a suntan, but this is presumably just rumour. Certainly I saw no evidence of it.On the Icelandic television weather programme they had on their best funeral faces. Clearlymuch suffering will result for Icelanders from enduring temperatures at this level. The specialtwist to Iceland sunshine is the hours and hours for which it can be sunny. Sunburn andheatstroke can be real risks. Icelanders really are slapping on the sun screen. Thesetemperatures are bothering them. When after the heat wave rain came and temperatures of11 and 12 the weather guy on television smiled, and Icelanders' sense of relief was evident.Temperatures as high as 16 degrees and 17 degrees just cannot be endured.

And then it struck me - I've been too long in Iceland. Today after the heat-wave it is over-castand raining, and it's a relief. I've seen no night for six weeks. And when it is not only light butbright sunshine hour after hour it gets weird. Disorientating. So a bit of gloomy weatheractually comes in very welcome.

Oh, and prices in Iceland. I've come to the conclusion that most everything is double UKprices. Certainly this goes for supermarket prices, restaurants, hotels, and public transport forthose who have to use it. Now I've accepted this I don't have to worry about it. Supermarketssell very small quantities of just about everything, which sure helps the single traveller. Lots ofthings are free - for example no admission fee to just about every tourist site, and lots ofquality information from the many tourist offices. And a few things are actually cheaper thanBritain. Petrol is a little cheaper than UK (which probably only proves that the level of tax Britspay on petrol is theft by government). Hand-knitted wool items are hard to find in Britain - andthe Icelandic prices are quite a bit cheaper. Horse riding is about half the British price, a real

bargain.


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Lots of tourists seem to spend half their holiday grumbling about the prices. This seems to meto be a waste of energy. If you think the naff troll ornament or puffin cuddly toy in the gift shopis ludicrously expensive (which it probably is) then don't buy it. The experience of seeingGeysir is priceless, and you won't be charged a penny in entrance fee.


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Chapter Four - Horses, Roads and Driving

Horses are very much a part of Icelandic culture as they were the only viable means oftransport until the roads were built, many of them in the 1950s or even later.

Seeing Iceland from horse-back is part of the Icelandic experience - so says the tourist office,

and on this one they are right. So I took a couple of rides at Laxnes horse farm, and a rathermore sedate tour at Ishestar horse farm. Great. The big event of my final ride happened justoutside the farm gate. Laxnes farm horses have seen their share of cars, motorbikes anddogs, and are pretty unflappable. But what they haven't seen before is a kid in an electricwheelchair shooting out of a gateway more or less into the side of them, with the wheelchairmaking strained mechanical noises over the ruts in the packed earth. He was one of a groupof teenagers, all in electric wheelchairs, in a field adjoining the bridleway, and I guess he haddecided to have a closer look at the horses. What he got was an interesting action event asall nine of them took fright and were off at a gallop.

I'm pleased to report that I reigned in my steed pretty promptly. I choose to take this asevidence that I'm getting the hang of the riding lark. Suspicious minds could think that in factmy horse didn't really want to do anything as energetic as galloping, and was all too happy tobe reigned in. But I'm sticking with my version - I got it eight.

At Laxnes my car attracted its share of attention. An Icelander reclining on the Laxnesveranda and presumably with a beer too many inside him pronounced "It's amazing! It is notpossible to drive such a car in Iceland!" A group of Icelanders present reckoned they hadnever before seen a right-hand drive in Iceland. And they thought it would be impossible forthem to drive on the left. Yet every year thousands of British drivers manage this feet as theytake their cars to the continent and spend a fortnight or whatever driving on the wrong side ofthe road.

Driving in Iceland was a daily experience. I had planned a tongue-in-cheek section to the tunethat Icelanders drive their cars as they ride their horses. Icelandic cars, like horses, are packanimals. They like going along nose-to-tail. The one up front likes being up-front, and will driftall over the road to be sure no-one overtakes. The rest follow in a pack. Overtaking is donehorse-fashion - you ride parallel for a while around bends and corners, and might get past ormight not. Like horses, cars can suddenly accelerate, stop, turn-round or do just about anyother manoeuvre that comes to mind.

But I have abandoned this idea. In my time in Iceland I saw one accident happen and cameupon the recent wreckage of another six, a shocking total for a few weeks. The worst was at aReykjavik crossroads, where someone was being cut out of the wreckage of a car. Thisparticular accident was one where I had more opportunity than I wanted to see what washappening as the traffic was just crawling past the mess. Three cars, apparently travellingfrom three different directions, had gone front-on into one another, and all three wereseriously wrecked. There was an ambulance standing by waiting for the poor person trappedin one of the cars. Icelandic driving looks safe but is lethal.

Driving speeds are slow, and the roads range from half-empty to empty. Most cars appearwell maintained. At first glance the driving appears very sedate and sensible. Virtually all theroad miles in Iceland are done on the roads of Greater Reykjavik, which are in decentcondition and well signed. Iceland should have very safe roads indeed. But statistically theydon't, and in my experience they don't.

Grapevine, the English language newspaper, reports that during the first weekend in Junealone over 100 people were caught speeding by the police of Vik i Myrdal. Now my guidebookinforms me that this community has a population of 293 (as well as being the wettest place inIceland). My atlas indicates that the Vik administrative district is rather larger than thecommunity, but it is still tiny, and there's not many roads there. I rather think if in England the

police (or policeman, singular?) of the spot on the road called Bogvalley Bay (which is whatVik i Myrdal means) went out and caught 100 people speeding on one weekend, then thepolice would be in court facing civil liberty charges. It is as if the police in Iceland have


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abdicated responsibility for dealing with bad driving (time and again I see police cars ignorethe most ghastly examples of bad driving), and instead are dealing only with infringements ofspeed. And of all the many examples of bad driving I've seen, hardly any of them has beenspeed related. Route 1 through Vik i Myrdal includes long stretches of straight, wide road withan excellent surface where you can see for very long distances. And it has hardly any cars. Ofcourse drivers exceed 90kmh.

In Italy the driving is, well Italian, and speed limits which are much higher that Iceland anywayare pretty generally interpreted as minimum speeds. Yet statistics produced in Iceland showthat per capita of the population fewer people are killed. Iceland has got it wrong. And thismistake is killing people.

On a hill outside Reykjavik there is a pole with a couple of wrecked cars on top of it, and asign which gives the number of deaths in road accidents since 1st January. When I firstnoticed it the figure was 6 - by the end of the summer it was 13. This is a lot of deaths for acountry with a population as small as Iceland's. I rather doubt that the gravel roads, ghastlythough they are, are often the cause of deaths. Maybe it is months of darkness and ice in thewinter. Or maybe it is just plain stupid driving.

Generally speeds are slow, and most Icelanders are law-abiding. This should make for sedateand safe driving. But there are a great many idiots on the road doing idiotic things at slowspeeds. Things like parking at the top of a blind summit (to admire the view perhaps?), parkedcars flinging doors open in front of passing cars, wandering between lanes and across thecarriageway - plus a sense in Reykjavik that just everyone has done their present journey1001 times and knows exactly when to swerve for the potholes and how late they can leave itbefore cutting someone up to take an exit.

One accident I came upon was a shunt which led to some broken glass and bent metal, butpresumably little else. The police were on the scene when I got there. Indeed a policemansignalled the car in front of me to stop, but the driver apparently didn't see him and as goodas drove through him. The policeman gave a clear stop signal to my passenger seat, and as Istopped seemed amazed at seeing what he thought was a driverless car. At least that's how I

interpret his mouth falling open. Unless it was just shock that someone had taken notice of apolice stop signal. He had a broom, and wanted to sweep up the mess.

I've compiled my personal grumble list about the shortcomings of Icelandic driving, whichmight well irritate Icelanders, but in view of the number of accidents I've seen I feel bold tooffer.

OVER-TAKING. I think I can safely say that the average Icelander has not been taught how toovertake, and has only the haziest notion how to do it. Icelandic overtaking is lethal. Thefavourite seems to be a car doing 89 kmph being overtaken by a car doing the legal limit of 90kmph. So they run parallel for half an hour, over hills and round bends.

DISTANCE. Maybe Icelanders think it is just friendly, but they do like to sit on the bumper of

the car in front. Perhaps they use less petrol in the slip stream of another car.

INDICATOR LIGHTS. Rarely used. Nor does anyone take much notice of them when they areused. In fact I've been so convinced mine can't be working I've checked them several times.

LACK OF POLITENESS. Given the habitual politeness of everyone in Iceland, the aggro ofthe Icelandic driver comes as a surprise. Get in the wrong lane at a junction and that's justtough, as no Icelander is going to hold back to let you change lane. Of course all theIcelanders know where they are going - pity the visitor.

TOO MUCH POLITENESS. The guy on a roundabout who decides to stop half way roundand wave a car on from an entry road. The guy at a green light on a junction on a dualcarriageway who decides to wave pedestrians across, into the path of traffic in the other lane.


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BIG IS BEST. Drivers of Reykjavik yellow busses have right of way at all times. I've decided itmust be written into the constitution of Iceland. Drivers of 4x4s with massive tyres think theyare king of the road. After all their contraption has cost more than the road they are driving on.Toad of toad hall is alive and well in Reykjavik.

THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. Iceland once drove on the left, as all sensible nations. After all

driving on the left is psychologically easier, and therefore safer. Then in a spirit of doing thewrong thing in company with their Nordic brethren they changed to drive on the wrong side.An older generation of Icelanders have found a compromise - they drive down the middle. Atall times.

DAFT JUNCTIONS. Top prize for what may well be Europe's daftest junction goes toReykjavik's clover-leaf. This land-guzzler is not only an environmental disaster zone in that itcovers acres of green land with asphalt (that's Imperial acres, not European hectares), but itis also downright dangerous. How about a roundabout? If M1 junction 1, London, whereBritain's M1 meets the North Circular and many of the busiest roads of London, can be aroundabout then there is no possible reason why a roundabout wouldn't work here. A fractionof the land, and far safer.

Italians break every rule there is when driving, but at least seem to be in control of theirvehicles. Icelanders are the opposite of Italians - slow, sedate drivers who nonetheless haveaccidents. The one accident I saw happen was a car that reversed out of a roadside parkinglot into a car that was in a queue of stationary traffic. The offending driver pulled the carforward - then reversed again hitting a second time, and making a second dent.

If Iceland wants to get their death toll down they have to look at their driving test (which Iassume is not much of a test) and they have to put the efforts of their road police into dealingwith dangerous driving, not pulling up someone who is doing a little over the speed limit.

The dire Icelandic drivers drive on dire Icelandic roads. There are some good ones, but thebad roads strike these from the memory. The exception is Reykjavik where roads are muchas any other European city - in no way like the hinterland of Iceland. The tourist whose visit to

Iceland is confined to Reykjavik and the road in from the airport will think Icelandic roads arefine. Reykjavik roads are on the whole pretty good and most cars look as if they never gooutside of the city. By contrast mine which did go outside was still grubby even with frequentwashes, with the mud oozing from the cracks and crevices (and two months after my returnhome the mud still oozed).

Tourist information boards in Iceland grade roads as follows:1) Metalled2) Unmettaled3) Suitable for Reliable Cars and 4WD4) 4WD only5) Modified 4WD Only (ie caterpillar tracks)

Category one is fine, even excellent. Category two is bad. Think really bad, then a bit worse.In Britain we're used to bouncing over a few yards of gravel and stones in a rough car-parkand that's it. In Iceland there's miles and miles of the stuff - even hundreds of miles' stretchesof these roads in the north and east. Category three is unimaginably bad. I once tried oneroad in the third category. After 7 miles I turned back. The surface was no surface at all, andthe grades were getting mighty steep.

My car rattles (and has done since the first few miles from Seydisfjordur). There are stonechips everywhere. But Mercedes make them tough!

From the newspaper The Reykjavik Grapevine, June 27th 2003:

Dear GrapevineWhere are all the foreign cars in Iceland?


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A week ago I brought my car to Iceland for the summer on the ferry from Shetland. Sincearrival in Iceland I've not seen a single foreign registration. My theory is that there's a big holesomewhere that swallows foreign cars, and that I had better keep a sharp look-out!My car seems to fascinate Icelanders. Frequently in car parks and garages I find Icelandersstaring at my car, first at the GB sticker and the funny foreign number, then at the steeringwheel on the right-hand side. When I parked my car for five minutes in Hveragerdi I returned

to find a dozen children looking in the windows.If you are driving a British registered car and you happen to see my British registered whiteMercedes somewhere in Iceland, please do toot to say hello.

Graeme DavisUnited Kingdom

Dear Dr DavisNice to get some response, your theory is indeed right. Grapevine research department hasled an expedition to confirm your suspicion. The research team managed to find out that thisblack hole you refer to is indeed in Snaefellsness, simultaneously we have also managed tofind scientific proof for Jules Verne's never before proven theory that there is a hole in

Snaefellsjokull which leads to the centre of the earth. So what happens is that when drivingyou suddenly begin to feel a little gravitational pull. Gradually you will end up in Snaefellsnessand your foreign car will be sent to the centre of the earth. Our centre of the earthcorrespondent George T Owen says that is beginning to create a bit of a problem in thecentre of the earth, the reason is that there are no roads there and cars are therefore useless.

Reykjavik Grapevine

Well after two days of telling myself I was imagining it I had to admit that the car was makinga funny noise. A loud grating when I turned a corner. In fact not a funny noise at all.

So I took the car into the Mercedes garage, and explained that the car was making an odd

noise. The mechanic decided he would give it a test drive, then when he saw it was right-hand-drive decided I would drive and he would be the passenger. Of course now a perfect,quiet ride, with not a grate to be heard. Finally as I wrenched the steering wheel to take a turntoo fast it grated.

The mechanic ruled out suspension trouble - suspension of a Mercedes does 200,000 kms onIceland's gravel roads before there are problems (and apparently only Mercedes can managethis in Iceland). And it wasn't steering either. He rather thought maybe a tyre problem, but thetyres are still virtually new and look just great. Finally he found a piece of the under-platedetached and clipping a tyre on sharp turns.

Problem solved in 5 minutes. And as I'm told that in Iceland this counts as a designshortcoming on the C180 - apparently this fault happens a lot on Iceland's roads with the C

class, though generally within the first 5,000 miles - so my car with 6 years and 108,000 mileson the clock is judged to be covered by the manufacturer's guarantee, and there is no charge.


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Chapter Five - Birds and Whales

The wildlife is one of the joys of Iceland, and one of the main reasons for visiting Iceland. Andit is the birds and whales that are truly outstanding.

I saw the following birds in 10 days in July, in the Reykjavik area, Breithafjordur and Lake

Myvatn:

Great Northern DiverRed-throated DiverSlavonian Grebe (Horned Grebe)FulmarGannetShagCormorantWhooper SwanGreylag GooseMallardGadwallWigeonTufted DuckScaupEiderHarlequin DuckBarrow's GoldeneyeLong-tailed DuckRed-breasted MerganserWhite-tailed EagleMerlinOystercatcherRinged PloverGolden PloverTurnstoneDunlinPurple SandpiperRed-necked PhalaropeRedshankWhimbrelBlack-tailed GodwitSnipeGreat SkuaArctic SkuaBlack-headed GullHerring GullLesser Black-backed GullGreat Black-backed GullGlaucous GullCommon GullKittiwakeArctic TernRazorbillGuillemotPuffinBlack GuillemotFeral PigeonMeadow PipitWhite Wagtail

WheatearRedwingSnow Bunting


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RedpollStarlingRaven

This is a total of 55 species, and a good proportion of the species found in Iceland in thesummer.

What is special about Icelandic birds is the quality of the sitings. The above is not a twitcher'slist of birds fleetingly seen, but a list of birds properly seen and properly observed. Very manyof these can be seen in Britain, but often not seen easily or seen well. Iceland also seems tobe pleasingly short of small, beige birds. Instead most are large birds, easily identified andeasily observed.

The Great Northern Divers are the stars as far as I am concerned. These magnificent birdsare not particularly hard to see. For example close to the shore on the northern road roundThingvellirvatn I saw six Great Northern Divers at close range plus a glimpse of more well outon the lake. Americans call this bird the Common Loon, though it is hardly common in Icelandor anywhere else in Europe. The Icelandic name - Himbrini - is onomatopoeic, a reasonableapproximation of its curious call, a unique sound which with reason many have regarded as

the distinctive sound of the lakes of Iceland.

The White Tailed Eagle was special because of its rarity - there are only 50 pairs in Iceland.This bird is enormous, and mankind is largely to blame for the crash in its numbers. InShetland there are stories of the bird carrying off children - surely fables though the localsseem to credit them - while throughout Scotland, the Faroes and Iceland there are tales -almost certainly false - of the bird preying on lambs. For this reason it was hunted almost toextinction. Numbers are now recovering, but very slowly.

Barrows Goldeneye is an Iceland specialist, which breeds regularly only on lake Myvatn andthe Laxa river (which drains Myvatn) - and nowhere else in the world. There are records ofthis bird occasionally breeding elsewhere in Iceland, but usually without raising its chicks.Myvatn is not particularly big, and the Barrows Goldeneye there have a lot of competition from

other ducks. While I gather this duck is not actually considered to be endangered it issomething of a rarity, and an example of the fragile hold a species has on existence.

The two birds that got away this summer are the Gyrfalcon, and Brunnich's Guillemot. Thesummer range of the Gyrfalcon is north Iceland only, so there is no realistic chance of seeingit within day trip distance of Reykjavik. In the middle ages the bird was associated withGreenland, and falconers in Europe got their Gyrfalcons from Greenland, not Iceland - whichsuggests there were not many of them in Iceland even in the Middle Ages. Its population inIceland fluctuates wildly year by year as the numbers of its main prey - the Ptarmigan -fluctuates. And for that matter I didn't see a Ptarmigan either. Brunnich's Guillemot I confessto looking for, though I suspect this brands me as something of an eccentric. The bird differsfrom the Guillemot by having a tiny white mark on its bill, and so can only be distinguished atvery close range. So in hunting for a Brunnich's Guillemot I looked closely at a lot of birds

which turned out to be very ordinary Guillemots. Browsing the bird books in Eymundson'sbook shop (a much more cost effective solution than buying them!) I find that sightings inIceland are almost exclusively in the West Fjords, and only in certain places there. In effectthis is a Greenland bird which is found in those parts of Iceland which are closest toGreenland.

One of Iceland's rarest breeding birds is the Sparrow. There are believed to be around sixpairs, all around one farm on the south coast. Thus one of Britain's commonest birds is one ofIceland's rarest.

Icelandic birds know that the countryside is theirs. All over Iceland there are signs warning"beware of the birds". These signs don't mean take care that you don't hurt a bird, but rathertake care that a bird doesn't hurt you. Arctic Terns attack. They attack people, and in the

middle of the nesting season even attack cars. Alfred Hitchcock should have made a filmabout them. The Arctic Skuas dive-bomb cars. And everywhere the birds hold their ground.


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They are the dominant species, and they are not going to be intimidated by those funnyhumans who come with binoculas, camera and bird-book.

Almost as approachable as the birds are the whales. Minke Whales are the ones most oftenseen, both on whale watching trips and ferries, and they are lovely, though they are one of thesmaller whales, their spout is scarcely visible, and they tend not to show their tail flukes.

Sightings of other whales is more hit and miss, but the hits do happen.

The star of my trip on the Elding boat from Reykjavik harbour was a Humpback Whale. Thiswas a good, close sighting of a young Humpback Whale, from as close as 20 yards, and withsuper views of tail flukes and the whale spouting - everything a whale sighting should be.

There are estimated to be only 10,000-15,000 Humpback Whales worldwide, about 5% oftheir pre intensive-whaling level. They winter around Iceland and summer in the Caribbean,so it is particularly unusual to see one in July in Iceland.

And seeing this whale really was very special indeed. The whale was a youngster, maybe sixmonths old, and it is because he was a youngster that he - or perhaps she - was in theshallow waters of Faxa Floi, the bay of Reykjavik, and not the other side of the Atlantic in the

Caribbean. The life expectancy of humpback whales is ninety-five years, so if this baby playshis cards right and keeps clear of any whaling ships that might take to the seas in the twenty-first century he should outlive every one of the humans watching him. This whale has animpressively high spout (a complete contrast with the Minke Whales). When first spotted hewas effectively resting, and just occasionally diving. Later he seemed to wake up, pushed thewhole of his tail into the air and twisted it, and a few minutes later made a deep-dive.

In the summer of 2003 Iceland announced a resumption of whaling, with a "harvest" of MinkeWhales. Iceland's stated reason for whaling is "scientific whaling" , a reason which the Britishpress regards as bunk.

I find whaling very hard to justify, and reported my feelings on a web site I was running duringthe summer. I was swamped with e-mails from angry Icelanders telling me that I had got it

wrong, and in fact whaling was a perfectly humane, necessary and proper thing to do, as wellas being legal. Possibly one e-mail was from a regular reader of my web site - but the sourceof most e-mails appeared to be an orchestrated pro-whaling campaign which had found myweb-site and decided to try to correct what Icelanders saw as the error of my ways. In all thee-mails the tenor was that whales eat cod, and that in order to maintain cod stocks, whaling(implicitly at a level to deplete the whale stocks, though this never actually stated) must goahead - though curiously one e-mail states that only 6% of the Minke Whale's diet is cod. I amamused that Iceland and Icelanders are so thin-skinned about the issue that they aresearching for obscure web-sites (ie mine) which make moderate criticism of whaling, andtaking the time to write e-mails of protest. It seems to me that it must be difficult to defend theindefensible, though the e-mailers are having a good go.

The story was widely reported in the British press, for example in the unemotional Financial

Times:

Iceland faces protests over new whalingFinancial Times August 23/24 2003

"Sales of fresh meat from the first Icelandic whales to be harpooned for 14 years were brisk inthe supermarkets of Reykjavik this week, but outside the small island nation the decision toresume whaling has been greeted with less enthusiasm.

Foreign governments and environmental and animal welfare groups have protested ..."

The article points out that the US is reviewing Iceland's resumption of whaling under the 1967Pelly amendment, which permits trade sanctions against nations deemed to have violated

International Whaling Commission rules - though it suggests that while Iceland has breachedrules the chance of the US imposing sanctions against Iceland is remote.


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Icelanders do passionately believe that whaling is right, and that they should be killing whales.It is virtually a matter of national pride, and I rather think Icelanders are prepared to nail theircolours to the mast on this issue. They think the rest of the world is soft in the head foropposing this harvest of the bounty of the seas. The situation is made worst by the urbanmyths circulating in Reykjavik, which don't stand up to scrutiny. One is that the numbers of

whales, particularly the Minke, are at an unsustainably high level, another is that the Minkeeats substantial quantities of cod, and another that it is legal for Iceland to whale. All threestatements are set out as myths by the British press and for anyone who cares to look at it bythe scientific and legal literature also.

I suggest that the starting point for thinking about whaling is that Iceland has, according to theFT, broken international law. I trust the FT to get its facts right. Whatever the rights andwrongs of whaling, Iceland has shown its disregard for the international community andinternational law in breaking international law. Of course Iceland has done this before duringthe Cod Wars. Then Iceland broke international law in order to prevent non-Icelanders fishingwhat were at that time international waters. Iceland "won" the Cod Wars (or wasn't brought tobook for breaking international laws) when the law was changed in line with Iceland's claim.And just as most Icelanders don't believe that Iceland acted disgracefully during the Cod

Wars, most Icelanders don't see any reason why Iceland should take the least notice of therest of the world on whaling. Yet the simplest objection to Iceland whaling is the categoricalone that whaling is illegal in terms of the international agreements to which Iceland hassigned up.

A second objection to whaling is that killing a whale is often a particularly painful business,and a form of slaughter we would not accept for farm animals. We are very keen to ensurethat cows are quickly and humanely slaughtered in abattoirs. Icelanders point out that weaccept the harvest of millions of fish, and that these die in a way which isn't very nice. Maybe,but a whale is a large-brained mammal, while a fish is a fish. And we are now the twenty-firstcentury, and are moving away from the ethic of mankind being, like the rest of the naturalworld, red in tooth and claw.

A third objection is that whaling isn't essential to Iceland's economy. Certainly cod is crucial ,and cod stocks are fragile at the moment. Iceland's desire for a resumption in whaling isprimarily in the hope of boosting the cod stock by reducing the numbers of a predator, theMinke Whale. The intention (at least as implied by Icelanders) is to slaughter enough MinkeWhales to substantially deplete their numbers. But this isn't going to work. While the low levelof cod stocks is a horribly complicated issue, it is not as simple as saying that cod is depletedbecause Minkes eat cod. And while the whale's carcass has an economic value, and muchwould doubtless be eaten by Icelanders and others, the Icelandic economy doesn't actuallyneed this income stream to remain prosperous.

A fourth objection is that there are environmental issues in hunting an animal where numbersare depleted. The Minke Whale is far more numerous than a few years ago, but is still wellbelow its previous maximum numbers, a fact clearly stated in the British press and with

impecable academic support, but a fact Icelanders louldly dispute. Other whales - admitedlynot part of the present resumption of whaling - are on the brink of extinction.

But Iceland seems to feel that she will get away with whaling without an internationalbacklash. One pro-whaling e-mailer pointed out that Norway resumed whaling without anoticeable blip in its tourism industry. Yet Iceland is facing talk of a boycot by Britain of touristtravel to Iceland (reported in the FT, as above), and calls for British companies to think twicebefore doing business with Iceland. I don't recall this happening when Norway startedwhaling. Maybe Iceland will find there is an economic backlash that hurts.


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Chapter Six - Tourism

Iceland was voted top destination 2003 by Observer newspaper readers. I'm not surprised -Iceland is a very special place. With lots of media coverage of Iceland in Britain, and the low-fares airline Iceland Express delivering a good service from London, Iceland is set to see atourist boom.

Iceland Express is much in the Icelandic news. They have taken Icelandair - the state airline -to the monopolies and mergers commission in Iceland - and won! Icelandair have a near totalmonolpoly on flights (ie transport) to and from Iceland, and charge the extortionate rates ofmonopolies. Iceland Express have come along on the London and Copenhagen routes withlow prices, and Icelandair have responded by dropping some of their prices below IcelandExpress's level - in effect Icelandair are making a loss on these routes so that they can driveIceland Express out of business.

The ruling is complex, and it is also Icelandic in its logic. Basically Icelandair are now requiredto charge prices which are higher than Iceland Express. They do have better times thanIceland Express and Heathrow slots, so maybe they can compete on quality. Maybe. But Iguess the champagne is flowing freely at Iceland Express.

Once in Iceland the "Golden Circle" is the trip just about every tourist manages: Kerith(crater), Geysir (the original geysir from which they all take their name; in English we'resupposed to spell it geyser), Gullfoss (waterfall), Thingvellir (site of the Icelandic parliamentand national park). These major tourist draws are each one in their own way unbeatable. Theother big tourist draw is the "blue lagoon" outdoor pool - in all ways unique.

Tourists can also find the most unexpected places of interest. For example Nesjavellir is thegeothermal power station for Reykjavik from which the city's hot water comes, The plumes ofsteam and acres of steaming ground means it should be used as a James Bond film set.

On one and the same day I saw two faces to tourism in Iceland.

One was a guy I met at the morning coffee break at a conference at the University of Iceland.The conference is using two hotels. There's the very respectable Leifur Eiriksson, where Istayed last year, which is a comfortable hotel in a central location. And there's the HolidayInn, which offers a cheaper but doubtless similarly respectable alternative. Now this guy is notstaying at either of them, but rather at the Salvation Army hostel. I imagine this is clean andtidy as everything in Reykjavik. If he were in his 20s I might even have thought this was asensible way to deal with the costs of Reykjavik. But this guy was mid 50s. He had broughtfood with him from England, and was tucking into the conference coffee break's free cake asif he hadn't eaten since he left England. He was physically in Iceland, but his constrainedfinances meant he wasn't planning to leave Reykjavik, which means he really wouldn't seemuch of the country. And he certainly won't experience the Icelandic horse, or the bluelagoon, or any other of the fun things Iceland has to offer. A shame.

A little later in Eymundsson's I overheard a middle-aged lady buying some books. NowIceland produces some super books, but at prices that have to be seen to be believed. Ifcosts matter to you at all you look in the bookshop, then go into the internet caf 50 yardsaway, order the same book on-line through Amazon, and pay the UK or US price which isabout half the Icelandic price. The books would be delivered to your door at home in a veryfew days (indeed probably before you get home), and you don't have to carry them. Basicallya foreigner buying a book in an Icelandic bookshop is, well lets say comfortably off. She wasalso American, which meant that the sales transaction was conducted in that carrying voicethat is so much a part of American self confidence. "Would you like a tax refund?" the shopassistant asked. "No thank you". "But its 700 krona!" (about 5.40, $8.10). "Thank you fortelling me, but it won't make me any richer and I couldn't be bothered".

I've no doubt Iceland prefers the second sort of tourist. And for Iceland a few tourists andwealthy makes more sense than a lot of tourists and poor. The American's 5.40 donation to


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the Icelandic economy - which is what not taking your tax refund amounts to - is a largessethat the Brit in the Salvation Army hostel won't be giving.

It does raise questions on whether tourism is to be regarded as an industry. I rather think theanswer for Iceland is that yes it is. The high costs in Iceland are almost exclusively for thethings which tourists have to buy. Hotels are top notch prices - but no Icelander ever uses a

hotel as they have relatives and friends everywhere. Excursions are expensive - butIcelanders have their own cars. Car hire is expensive - but no Icelander ever hires a car.Flights to and from Iceland are expensive (save for Iceland Express), though they arecheaper in the winter when few tourists travel, so Icelanders aren't hit as badly as tourists.Alcohol is seriously expensive, but in a country where prohibition lasted from 1912 until 1989 Isuppose this is inevitable. And maybe a consequence is that it keeps the lager louts out.Restaurants are reputed to be expensive, but I'm not sure that I agree - they are a lot cheaperthan London prices. And prices in supermarkets - well, you get used to them. When you'vejust paid 299 ISK (2.40) for a few lettuce leaves you jolly well enjoy them. Cars cost a lot -pretty much double UK prices, but then housing costs are quite a bit cheaper than Britain, somaybe it balances out. Icelanders might like to grumble that everything in Iceland isexpensive, but they don't do so badly. Tourists however are skinned alive. And if you seetourists as an industry, why not skin tourists alive?

At least it stops too many people coming, which keeps Reykjavik crime free and Europe's lastwilderness relatively undamaged.

Accommodation in Iceland is often in short supply, at least in the summer. The better hotelsusually have a room, but at a price. Mid-range guest houses tend to be full. So that leavesyouth hostels, school dormatories which double as summer hostels, and camping for hardyfolk.

Once tourists have done Reykjavik, the Golden Circle, the Blue Lagoon, and a few otherdestinations around Reykjavik a trip to the north is likely to be attractive. Akureyri is the bigtown in the north - big in Icelandic terms. It's a long way to Akureyri - about 250 miles. On mytrip I stopped at Glambaer, which is a nineteenth century farmhouse, turf-built with a grass

roof. A stop somewhere makes sense.

For tourists Akureyri is a pleasant town, but the big draw is the proximity of lake Myvatn. Thegrand tour is to Godafoss, around the lake, around and beyond to the volcanic area. The fallsare great, and as indescribable as most natural wonders.

On my trip the range and quality of bird-sightings at Myvatn was second to none. GreatNorthern Diver (singing, if that's the word for the strange sound this bird makes). Red NeckedPhalarope and chick at four foot range. Slavonian Grebe, again very close. Merganser.Harlequin's Duck. Barrow's Goldeneye. Lots of others. All these birds can be foundelsewhere, most in Britain, but I know of nowhere where it is possible to see them all within acouple of hours and up close. But however enthusiastic you might be about the birds, no-onecan speak of Myvatn without mentioning the midges. They bash into a car with a sound like

falling rain. When out and about they are an ever-present nuisance. A face net isrecommended and worn by most tourists, certainly including me.

Once the birds have been seen there's the sulfateras and volcanic activity of Krafla volcano,which includes a very recent lava flow, with steam rising through it in plumes. There are clearnotices warning of the danger, but everyone ignores them.

East from Myvatn the road runs into the central dessert. In the middle of the wilderness isGrimsstadir, an Icelandic farm in the desolation that covers much of NE Iceland. What isremarkable is that a family are making a living farming there, and have done for generations.Accommodation is available at the farm - pretty basic, but all part of the genuine Icelandicexperience. Nearby is Dettifoss. This fall is the most powerful in Europe, the water dark withbasaltic dust and contasting with the pure white of the rising spray There is a sense of power

here - it is beautiful, but also raw. In theory the road goes on to Asbyrgi, a canyon I would


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very much have liked to see, but the road was just too ghastly. For on;y the second time inIceland I decided that a road was too bad and turned back.

From Grimsstadir on to Egilstadir, the main town of the east, the northern road is better thanthe southern road, and in view of the volume of roadworks will all be surfaced in a couple ofyears. But there are still some rough stretches, and my car grounded once, briefly, and pulled

free with an interesting scrunch.


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Chapter Seven - History

Iceland has a lot of history but an absence of ruins. For a Brit familiar with a mediaeval churchin every village, used to living and working in Georgian and Victorian houses, and familiar withevidence of the past just about everywhere, the lack of tangible history can take some gettingused to.

For example Skalholt is the main bishopric of Iceland and effectively Iceland's Canterbury, butthe church building there is brand-spanking new - because in Icelandic fashion churches arerebuilt every couple of generations. Exceptionally at Skalholt there is an archaeological sitewhich is presently being excavated, and a few remains in the museum, but the overwhelmingimpression that the visitor to Skalholt gets is not of its antiquity but of its newness.

Yet there are surprises. Take Reykholt. This is where Snorri lived and was murdered (1241) -that's Snorri Sturluson, one of the great writers, scholars and politicians Europe hasproduced. The museum at Reykholt really is very good - but what knocked me for six isSnorri's bath-tub. We've nothing left in Britain from Geoffrey Chaucer's life, and precious littlefor William Shakespeare, but here in Reykholt is of all things Snorri's bath tub. It's a stonelined pool fed by a longish channel from a hot spring. The water temperature strikes me as onthe hot side, but apparently people do still use it to bathe, and I was tempted. This is a mostcurious link to the thirteenth century.

Even more surprising than the bath tub is the quality of the mediaeval studies library atReykholt, and at which on several visits I was the only scholar. This is a serious researchlibrary, and situated literally in the middle of nowhere. I suppose Reykholt could be comparedwith Iona as a church retreat plus study centre out in the wilds - but with the key differencethat there has been a continuous tradition of study at Reykholt, while Iona is a modernresurrection. The Prose Edda, Heimskringla and Egil's Saga were all written here, and muchelse. In Britain we have a very Mediterranean-based cultural world picture, in which the ideaof Iceland as a centre of learning really doesn't fit. Yet when Britain was in the grip of theMiddle Ages, Iceland was experiencing a Northern Renaissance, which with a little nurturingmight have given the world a two-centuries head start into the modern age.

Iceland has some super historical sites that Icelanders seem to undervalue. One of these isStong.

I had a great trip to Stong, though the start was not promising. Rain that morning was heavy,and at times torrential, but then this is Iceland. I was heading out for Thjorsadalur and Stong,and it was becoming clear that it was a longer journey than I had expected - but again, this isIceland, where everything is further than seems possible. And when I pulled in at Selfoss tocheck opening times for Stong, the tourist office staff somehow managed to imply that theycouldn't understand why anyone would want to go there.

But the rain turned off suddenly, leaving a bright day with breathtaking views. Breathtaking isa bit of a clich, and I'm not at all sure that any views can be described easily or even at all.These were very special. The Thjosa - the Bull River - is a large river, as wide as the Thamesat Dartford or the Tyne at Tynemouth. It runs on a lava base formed in what was one of theworld's biggest ever lava-flows about 8,000 years ago, and therefore has an un-erodedcourse full of islands and jagged chunks of lava.

Then into the Stong access road, which is a good excuse for a digression on Icelandic roads.Of course some are excellent, and there is a massive programme of road-building. The roadup Thjorsadale is one of the excellent ones, brand new, with stretches of the old gravel roadsometimes running parallel. But many Icelandic roads are as far as Brits are concernedunimaginably bad. You've got to see them to believe them. I met an American in Reykjavikwho was going to hire a car to drive round Iceland. I said something about the road quality, towhich he replied that the roads in Chicago are terrible. He then said he had been to Scotland

where the roads are really bad, indeed they just couldn't be any worse, and Iceland couldhave nothing on the terrible roads of Scotland. I managed not to tell him I'ld lived in Scotlandfor nine years and could compare the roads there with Iceland - and even Scotland's worse


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road, whatever that might be, is head and shoulders above the Icelandic standard. I nowimagine him duly humbled by the roads he will have found in Iceland.

For the final stretch to Stong the only access is 5 miles along a road which is one of Iceland'scategory two roads (and supposedly therefore not even the worst category for an ordinarycar). The road was 5 miles of car-juddering, bone-shaking ghastliness. No one in Britain

would take a 4x4 on such a "road" - they would be worried about stone chips on theexpensive paintwork or even damage to the suspension and steering. And as for the LandRovers and Discoveries that run around Wimbledon with a pair of clean green wellies in theboot, well they and their drivers would just give up and go home. Imagine a mud track,transversely corrugated like a ploughed field, covered with stones and boulders of veryvarying size, and deeply potholed. That's the surface, and its much worse than I've seen offthe beaten track anywhere else I've been. Then add the hills - one on this stretch must havebeen 1:3 - the blind summits, bends, and drops at the side of the road. This road had a noveltwist - about 2 miles of driving across sand. Not golden sand of British summer holidays, ofMargate or Bamburgh, but rather volcanic sand, a mix of rocks of varying sizes overlayedwith grit. There really wasn't a road, just a direction. The trick seemed to be to avoid wheremost of the other cars had been as that was where the potholes were deepest.

At the end of this truly awful road was a very sedate car park, with three very ordinary carsthere and a very old bus. That's right, a bus, which I can only assume had come in by flyingsaucer.

Stong must be one of the world's biggy archaeological sites, though just about no-one seemsto have heard of it. A bit like Nemrut Dagi in Turkey, another hard-to-get-to and stupendousarchaeological site which no-one seems to have heard of. In 1104 Mount Hekla erupted andburied under tephra the farm at Stong and a couple of dozen other farms. In fact everything ina 30 mile radius was destroyed. Archaeology has therefore been presented with theremarkably good remains of farms of 1104. This is the clearest archaeological guide to howpeople were then living in Iceland, and throughout the Germanic world - a farm in England of1104 would not have been so very different.

Stong is additionally remarkable in that we know the names of people who lived there. In thetenth century it had been the farm of Gaukur Trandilsson, a farmer and warrior who seems tohave managed a remarkably prosperous life in what must have been a very comfortable farmhouse. A mediaeval ballad tells of an affair between Gaukur and a woman in a neighbouringfarm, Steinastadir - neighbouring in Icelandic terms, miles away in ours. The affair got out ofhand, and Gaukur was killed in a duel with Asgrimur Ellida-Grimsson, who was a relative ofthe woman at Steinastadir (some people say her brother, some her husband) - and as ithappens he was also Gaukur's foster brother, so it was a real family feud. The weapons forthe duel were axes - the real intention of such Viking duels was that one or both of the menwould be killed and the problem thereby solved. Asgrimur won, and as victor, Asgrimur wouldhave kept the axe used by Gaukur, which would in effect become an heirloom in his family.

Icelandic genealogies have been preserved in amazing detail, and we know that fifty years

later Asgrimur had a direct descendant, Thorhallur Asgrimsson - either his son or more likelyhis grandson, - who in the 1150s went on a crusade to Jerusalem led by the Viking Earl ofOrkney. On return to Orkney en route for Iceland it seems that Thorhallur and his Icelandiccompanions became a little bored (if Orkney on a wet evening then was anything likeShetland now that's easy to understand!) and decided to break in to the ancient burial moundof Maes Howe, presumably looking for treasure. It seems they found no treasure (unless theykept very quiet about it), but they then spent quite a time carving graffiti on the interior walls ofthe tomb. When the mound was first excavated in 1861 the Viking graffiti was found, includingthe inscription:

These runes were carved by the greatest rune-master in the west, with the axe once ownedby Gaukur Trandilsson in the south of Iceland.

With real-life stories like this it is easy to see where JRR Tolkien got his ideas from! It doesseem quite amazing that the story of Gaukur and his duel and the Maes Howe graffiti can be


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linked, through Thorhallur's pride in owning an axe which his ancestor had won in singlecombat. And Thorhallur's own achievement in travelling from Iceland to Jerusalem and backagain is quite a saga in its own right!

A few days after visiting Stong I discovered that there is a pub in Reykjavik called the Gaukurof Stong. So the Gaukur story lives on in popular memory. The pub seems a little on the lively

side, but perhaps today's Vikings are not quite into axe fights, even on Friday nights!

Stong is sited in rugged countryside. A half mile away is an impressive gorge which I'ld like toexplore better some day. In the area I saw Harlequin Ducks, the bird that every foreign bird-watcher in Iceland looks for, three of the battling along a very fast flowing stream. On my visitto Stong the flies were maddening and did not encourage lingering. The area of Stong cannever have been particularly fertile, and no-one seems to be farming it now that it is coatedwith ash from Mount Hekla. Yet Stong was a large and comfortable home.

Back along five miles of juddering semi-road, the Icelanders have reconstructed Stong on asite close to the main road - and gone out of their way only to do what is supported by thehistoric record rather than create a Disney-style long-house. The result is fascinating. Amongthe sources they have used for information on doors and other timber are Viking remains in

Greenland, which in some cases have been better preserved by the ice there than anywherein Europe.

Stong is a great site. Yet it is dwarfed by the nature around it. In the vicinity is Hjalparfoss, yetanother superb Icelandic waterfall. And everywhere there are views of Mount Hekla, todaysnow-covered and at no time completely clear of clouds. It seems to have a big eruptionabout every 30 years, the most recent in 2000, some more violent than others. Since 1104 ithas blown its top off no less than 15 times. The 1947 eruption lasted 13 months. It is apopular climb and can be done in about eight hours I'm told ... though not the safest of climbsnow, and becoming less safe year by year as 2030 approaches.


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Chapter Eight - Icelanders

Iceland is doing its bit for South American prosperity by drinking coffee.

Now I drink coffee, and rather a lot of it. I get through a 200g (large) jar of instant in just over amonth, and perhaps another 100g or so a month in filter plus cups out, say getting on for 4kg

per year. My friends tell me I'm a coffee addict. Yet in fact my consumption is an example ofexceptional moderation. The average Icelander gets through 12kg a year. And if this is theaverage many must drink more, so what the heavy Icelandic coffee drinker must get throughbeggars belief.

It seems that this has been the national drink for centuries. Even in the eighteenth centuryevery farmhouse had a coffee grinder. Today Iceland has discovered quality coffee andcaf culture. Coffee in Iceland is good. It can also be lethal. It is often strong, and when servedafter a meal in a restaurant can reach a strength which is almost intoxicating. Maybe in acountry that was dry, coffee took the place of alcohol. Italy cannot match this brew. A doubleespresso in Turin is nothing to the punch delivered by an Icelandic coffee. And there are noItalian-style little coffee cups here. Coffee is strong, good, smooth, long, black and strong, anddid I say strong? And there are as many free top-ups as can be managed. It's a bit like theBirmingham tandoori that reputedly offers its hottest curry free to anyone who can eat it.

Television feels as if its only just made it to Iceland. Iceland in theory has a number ofchannels, but the reality is that many people only have one, the state channel - and that onechannel transmits evening only. Lots of the programmes are in Eglish with Icelandic sub-titles,though news and weather are in Icelandic - which is the closest I came to an incentive forlearning Icelandic. One evening full up with pepperonni pizza and claret I found myselfwatching the Icelandic evening news. After one lead international story (on Iran) the newsswitched abruptly to Icelandic news. The big story of the day was something about a Keflavikcompany that is marketing Harlequin Duck eggs for the discerning Reykjavik pallet. Then astory about Britain's Sellafield nuclear plant, with a map showing the spread of pollution toIceland. Basically the story is that Britain has polluted Iceland. A follow-up showed pictures ofwhat was probably Britain's Pontefract power station and focused on Britain causing acid rainin Norway. Then Harry Potter, with the new novel released today. I've been surprised at theprominence that JKR gets in the bookshops - after all this is a children's book written inEnglish, and can reasonably be read by children who speak English. Perhaps the reality isthat Icelandic children can read English almost as easily as Icelandic.

Spending a summer in Iceland means staying in a flat with an Icelandic landlord and landlady.Typically Icelandic houses have basements (often in fact a ground floor) which might be a flat,an office, a workshop, or utility space, linkes to the main house above. So I was livingimmediately below my landlord and landlady, and I got to glimpse how Icelanders live.

When my landlord and landlady went on holiday they left me in charge of watering thegeraniums. By geraniums I mean what we are now supposed to call red pelagoniums, and infact just a couple of stunted specimens. I've grown geraniums in Northumberland and gothalfway decent results, though nothing to what the Mediterranean can produce. The Icelandicspecimens are going to flower, but they really need temperatures of 30 degrees or more andmust be freezing in Reykjavik. I've been asked to water them, and I'm doing as I'm told. Butthey're drowning. In the Med, geraniums flourish in pots of hot, dry dust. The best thing thatcould be done for these sopping wet specimens would be to never water them again. Letthem dry out completely.

By contrast the arctic lupins in the Icelandic countryside continue to bloom, with great carpetsof blue for mile after mile. And hardly anyone in Iceland bothers to grow them in their gardens.They could have the world's best lupins - but Icelanders seem to think they are a weed.

My landlord and landlady have also asked me to pick up their mail and put it on a table (out of

sight of the glass panels in the front-door) - and to be aware that their house is empty and atrisk from burglars. But I'm not to be hasty in hitting anyone who comes in, as their neighbourand son and perhaps others might come in. So in fact I'll have to assume that anyone who


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appers should be there, unless they are actually wearing a balaclava and carrying a bagmarked swag.

Today at about five someone indeed came in - and tried to leave after a few minutes. But theyhad problems with the front door. It must be something to do with the Icelandic psyche thatmost doors are wooden, don't fit properly, and are a pain to open and close. My flat's front

door takes a shoulder or a foot to open it. There is a knack to closing it, and I've mastered it tothe extent that I now manage second or third or fourth time. Never first. The main door to thebuilding clearly has the same sort of problem, and I've heard my landlord and landladyslamming it. But whoever visited today really had problems. Serious problems. I reckon it tookthem ten minutes to get the door locked behind them. PVC double glazing and doors don'tseem to have made it to Iceland.

Visitors to Iceland often get the idea that Icelanders don't have a sense of humour. Theymight just be right.

Icelanders have a very serious view on life. Maybe months of Gothic night every winter has itsimpact. Their television news is read in a monotone, even when it is clearly a good-newsstory. Their television weathermen must feel they will be sacked if they ever smile. Ask an

Icelander a question and you will get an answer - a full and comprehensive one, so makesure you have the time. Icelanders are at their worst when talking about local writers,painters, sculptors and the like. Invariably they start: "the world-famous prize-winning writer Xlived here". Don't they realise that if you have to say someone is world-famous, then bydefinition they are not?

In England we tell jokes about the Scots and the Irish. In America there's a fair few Irish jokes.Even in Ireland they tell County Kerry jokes. In Iceland they tell jokes about Norwegians andHafnies.

Norwegians are seen as Vikings who haven't mellowed. They are seen as over-fit, overhealth-conscious, over sophisticated. Which probably proves that no-one in Iceland ever goesto Norway.

Hafnies are the folk who live in Hafnafjordur, the next town to Reykjavik and its poor relation.Apparently in Hafnafjordur they tip-toe past the chemist's shop so as not to wake the sleepingpills. People there go shopping with ladders because they know the prices are high.

One Icelanders never seem to tire of is "What do you do if you are lost in an Icelandic forest?"The answer is "Stand up". To relish this joke you need to know that "forest" in Iceland is birchand willow scrub not more than three or four feet high. To laugh on the 100th telling of thislame joke you have to be an Icelander.

The biggest joke is directed at foreigners. It concerns hand-knitted Icelandic jumpers. Icelandhas a centuries-old tradition of knitting, some distinctive patterns, and super quality wool.They also maintain the home-industry of knitting. Their jumpers are great quality, ideally

suited for the Icelandic climate, a genuine Icelandic masterpiece of art and utility . and inIcelandic popular culture worn o

a brit in iceland

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