Reykjavík Grapevine - 24.06.2005, Síða 48

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Whenever the urge hits you to pull
over on the Ring Road, or Highway
One, which circles Iceland, you should
take it. Even if you haven’t slept, even
if you’re dehydrated, even if you have
to get back to Reykjavík, which is nine
hours away, and edit a large magazine.
And so Paul, our only journalist, and I
pull over for a quick hike on the north
side of Vatnajökull.
The hike begins with a camera
shot, a “Wait, this is so perfect, the
waterfalls are back there, and the moss
is so green near the banks.” Then we
walk ten feet, and Paul’s getting the
camera out again. You’re doomed to it
here. My only solution has been to jog
well ahead of anyone with a camera,
video equipment or even a pad of
paper and a pen: they always want to
record the experience, but there’s no
appropriate starting or stopping points.
Every square metre of countryside in
Iceland probably merits a photo or two.
Following a sheep trail, we come
across three modest rock climbs, cover
about a kilometre from the road, and
find ourselves at a secluded waterfall
from a glacial river.
We have to delete photos from the
camera to try to fit in a waterfall shot.
In the one hundred shots, we really
didn’t document that much. We didn’t
cover the first case of Magic energy
drink, given to us by the bottling
company. We did photograph the
world’s largest oil funnel, proudly
displayed in Keflavík next to where
we picked up our rental jeep at Cheap
Jeeps.
From there we had the photos of
our first stop, Hindisvík, about three
hours north of Reykjavík off of the
Ring Road. Reporting for another
magazine, I stopped at the home to
the tamest seals in the country at the
nature preserve at the edge of the
Vatnsnes Penninsula. There we came
across dozens of seals that, of course,
weren’t that tame, but they were
curious enough to stay within view.
Just as impressive were the farmhouses
left in a decayed, almost gothic state,
intentionally by the farm owners. For
an amateur photographer, this was a
goldmine.
A day exploring and following
seals, including an ill-advised boat trip
to stare at an iceberg, and we began the
four-hour drive to Húsavík, famous for
whale watching and for a phallological
museum. We were interrupted by
Akureyri. The second city of Iceland,
Akureyri looks more like an authentic
Scandinavian hamlet than the capital
does. The Ring Road takes you up to
a mountainside overlooking Akureyri
and Eyjafjörður Bay for one of the
more serene vistas that you’ll ever come
across.
More impressive for us, looking
over the bay we see a humpback cow
and her calf in the bay. We watch them
from a parking spot off the road for a
half hour.
At Húsavík we came across the mob
Every Square Metre Merits a Photo:
Four Days on the Ring Road
We have been driving for three days straight. I have seen seals,
puffins, whales, dozens of species of bird, reindeer, sheep giving
birth, lava forests, waterfalls, and I am having heart palpitations
from my twentieth energy drink. This is the time to pull over.
The Ring Road
P
aul / G
rapevine