Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.12.2011, Blaðsíða 30

Always best price online.
Various online-offers to all Air Iceland's destinations.
www.airiceland.is
websales@airiceland.is / tel. +354 570 3030 Contact Air Iceland or
travel agent for reservation.
ÍS
L
E
N
S
K
A
S
IA
.I
S
F
L
U
5
13
93
0
9/
20
10
KEFLAVÍK
BORGARNES
STYKKISHÓLMUR
SNÆFELLSJÖKULL
DRANGAJÖKULL
FLATEY
NESKAUPSTAÐUR
BLÖNDUÓS
SIGLUFJÖRÐUR
BOLUNGARVÍK
HRÍSEY
NARSARSSUAQ
Greenland
FAROE ISLANDS
REYKJAVÍK
AKUREYRI
EGILSSTAÐIR
ÍSAFJÖRÐUR
VOPNAFJÖRÐUR
ÞÓRSHÖFN
HÚSAVÍK
GRÍMSEY
KULUSUK
Greenland
Blue Lagoon
AKRANES Geysir
Gullfoss
Jökullónið
Kárahnjúkar
Kraa
Hallormstaður
NUUK
Greenland
ILULISSAT
Greenland
www.airiceland.is
CONSTABLE POINT
Greenland
30
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2011 The Reykjavík Excursions ‘Gullfoss - Geysir & Langjökull’ tour can be booked at
re.is or by calling +354 580 5400.
Travel | South-West - Words and photography by Jake Harris
At the Reykjavík bus station BSÍ bright and early, I
shook hands with our tour guide for the day, a large
Nordic-looking man (read: Viking), who introduced
himself as Gústi. Gústi quickly ushered me into a
monstrous vehicle waiting just outside. In typical
Icelandic fashion, this vehicle seemed to have un-
necessarily large wheels, but as I later found out,
these wheels were in fact very necessary indeed.
THE MId-ATLANTIC RIdGE
We made our first stop at Þingvellir, where Iceland’s
first parliament—allegedly the oldest one in Europe—
was established in 930 AD. However, this site is not
of mere historical relevance; stepping out of the ve-
hicle I was met by my first view of the Mid-Atlantic
Ridge—jagged cliffs stretching out endlessly, flank-
ing a no-man’s land where the plates have been
moving away at a steady two centimetres a year for,
well, a very long time… We took some quick snaps
before jumping back into the cocoon-like monster,
and escaping the punishingly horizontal rain.
Then we drove across the no-man’s land, unsup-
ported by any tectonic plate, from North America
to Europe. This was the first time that I was glad to
have the massive tyres, as I imagined they reduced
the chances of the land’s crust giving way, plunging
us into a fiery oblivion.
A GOLdEN WATERFALL
Our second stop was the Gullfoss waterfall, a spec-
tacular two-tiered waterfall where Gústi let us loose
for an hour to wander about, take photos, and have
some lunch. The waterfall is so powerful that a fine
mist circulates well above the pool, surrounding the
cliff paths around the site.
From one of the plaques, I read a story about a
boy and a girl who lived on either side of the river, just
upstream of the waterfall. One day, the girl beckons
for the boy to join her on her side, and the absurdly
brave boy wades across, somehow makes it, and
they lived happily ever after. Having seen Gullfoss
in all its glory, I can only conclude that the girl must
have been really, really, ridiculously good looking (or
at least well out of his league). The waterfall flows
at a rate of up to 2000 m3/s, which, being English,
some quick calculations reveal, equates to roughly 2
billion cups of (very cold) tea per second!
AN ASH-bITTEN GLACIER
After eating some fortifying kjötsúpa, which imagi-
natively translates to ‘meat soup,’ we were off to take
on the Langjökull glacier. After we put on our kindly
provided snowsuits, shoes, gloves and helmets and
Gústi let some air out of the tyres “for extra grip,” we
descended the face of the glacier. Again I was glad
to have the massive tyres, and probably for better
reason. The very slow descent was extremely steep,
and an intense rocking sensation was created in tra-
verse of various unavoidable boulders.
After we got out of the vehicle and received
some hand-waving instructions about how to use
(and not use) our snowmobiles, we set off across
the ash bitten ice. We drove for 25 minutes, in single
file so as not to fall into any unseen crevasses, be-
fore stopping at the southern edge of the glacier. To
the north, only the white-black expanse of glacier
was visible, and to the south was the barren volcanic
landscape of Iceland, which we photographed duti-
fully.
A GEySER CALLEd STROKKUR
Next up was the great Geysir, from where all gey-
sers take their name. However, Gústi informed us
that Geysir is currently a little “grumpy,” and no lon-
ger erupts. Eavesdropping on another tour, I learned
that they used to dump gallons of soap into Geysir
in order to encourage it to go off, a practice that is
(sadly?) no longer used.
However, as Geysir’s reliability has decreased
over time, its little brother, Strokkur’s, has increased,
suggesting that they feed from the same thermal
vent. Wandering over to Strokkur, which erupts ev-
ery 10–15 minutes, there were many tourists with
their cameras poised and ready. Fools, I thought, 10
minutes can be a long time to wait with your cam-
era ready. But the impressionable eruption lasted
for all of about 2 seconds, and I barely had time to
unsheathe my camera before it was all over.
A VOLCANIC CRATER
After driving through elf-inhabited rock land, we ar-
rived at our last stop—a small, extinct volcano called
Kerið (which last erupted 6.500 years ago). It was an
exact scaled up model of a school science project
volcano, being completely conical, with a vast cra-
ter in the centre. The crater was filled with crystal
clear blue water that quite frankly looked almost too
placid to be real.
After admiring it and taking some more neces-
sary photos, we climbed back into the monster one
last time and headed to Reykjavík. We had seen as
many of nature’s great wonders as one can take in
a day, and I was looking forward to having a hot
shower and a relaxing cup of tea.
Iceland by Monster Wheels
A day chock full of nature’s wonders