Prologue
Every story these days need an origin story, right? The story that precedes the big adventure. The whatever length story short of it is that, as I tumble towards my big 4-0, I’m wondering what my next decade should be. Can I be a web developer for 10 more years, but perhaps more importantly, do I even want to? So I guess that’s basically it, this big year-long-plus sabbatical is a mid-life crisis of sorts.
The imperfect start
Luton Airport, or London Luton Airport, as it’s officially known - even though it is nowhere near the great city, and it’s the airport I most loathed to depart from.
It’s about 5:50am when I enter the departure hall, standing in the queue for the security check. With a relatively small line, I start to prepare for the screening; iPad and camera body need to be taken out. I open my backpack from the top and reach into the laptop compartment - only to find nothing in there. I peek into the bag, hoping that perhaps I didn’t put it in its dedicated slot, but knowing exactly where I left it - on the bed of the hotel room.
What are my options now? Do I need my iPad for 9 days? Probably not, but it’ll be a hassle without it. No YouTube, no Netflix, no Lightroom for editing photos, no games. I wave down a security staff to tell him of my dilemma, who tells me that I can “reset” my boarding pass, and exit. Luckily though, my flight isn’t for another 1.5 hours, and that the hotel is nearby.
Ice, ice, Iceland
The first thing I notice when I exit the airport is that it’s not as cold as I had anticipated. The second thing I realise, is that catching the bus to Reykjavik is expensive - but what other choice do I have really? After getting off at the bus terminal in the capital of Iceland, I can choose to either walk, or pay an extra fee for a shuttle bus to take me directly to the accommodation. Anyone who knows how I travel, will instantly know that I will opt for the former. Uphill, downhill, on dirt roads, whatever - if the walk is less than an hour, I will walk it, on a good day, I will walk for 2 hours, even just to save £2. However, with a rucksack and a backpack stacked on my shoulders, my limit is lowered to about half an hour. As an added bonus, it allows to me explore the city a little and get a sense of it all.
As I approach the road to the hostel, I see beautifully snow-covered mountains across the sea (above).
TIP: Kex Hostel is a wonderfully decorated hostel, with a nice restaurant/bar and communal area. But as of writing, there is construction next door that starts at 7am, and does not stop until 6pm. If you are an early riser anyway, it might not bother you, but for those days when you want to sleep in, look elsewhere.
Reykjavik is a small town, with streets mostly in a grid-layout, and while I can see that its simplicity is an allure for people who want and do live there, there isn’t a whole lot to do as a tourist. But still, I appreciate the quietness of it all.
By now, it’s way past lunchtime, I order soup and a glass of water at the hostel, and with my iPad next to me, I start planning my next steps. Without devolving into a step-by-step account of “and then I went to, and then I did this”, these are my highlights.
Not prepackaged, refrigerated food
That title is mainly for those who lives, or have lived in the UK.
Icelandic Street Food. With a shop name like that, how can I possibly refuse. Although, it may be way too literal, and very similar to a domain name like freemovies.com that will serve you plenty of malware, the restaurant is actually quite nice. They basically just serve soup, but in a bread bowl (you can also choose bread on the side instead, but why would you?). You can ask for a refill, and try different soups, and I was also offered brownies and crispy treats, but I was already too full by then.
Kröst. This place is housed in “Iceland’s first food hall”, which itself is a pretty small fare compared to what I’m used to in London, but still plenty adequate. Anyway, I had a very nice burger and chips, with an Icelandic pale ale to wash it all down. They also offer the plant-based Beyond burger, but when there’s bacon on offer - never turn down bacon! I would later visit the food hall again when I arrive back in Reykjavik.
Skál. Cheers, in Icelandic, is a Michelin-recommended (not starred) restaurant; one that I had walked pass on my way to the aforementioned restaurant (or stall?). They provide Instagram-worthy food with plates decorated for the eyes and camera lens. I had the cod croquettes as my starters and spice pork cheeks for main. Despite being told that Iceland will cost me an arm and a leg for food, it hasn’t been overall too shocking at all. I highly recommend this place, if you want something nice, in a communal affair.
On the road again. I just can’t wait to get on the road again.
Time for another photo to break up the slabs of text I have forced upon you, and maybe you’re not liking the longform style of this post. Hit the like button and comment below!… I kid, this isn’t a YouTube video.
I pick up my small Hyundai i20 from the car rental outfit near the hostel, at an early 9am (the sun will not rise yet for another hour). The rain falls on me as I run to the car, and am relieved to find an USB port that will allow me to play my own music and charge my phone while I have Google Maps running. If you have ever driven alone, and requiring the GPS to guide you, it’s no easy feat, because you can’t look at the map, and have to figure out what “500 metres” mean, when you’re travelling at 50, 70 or 90 kilometres per hour.
Driving in Iceland, especially in Winter, can be nerve-wracking, and I’m glad that although I didn’t splurge for an AWD vehicle, that I at least paid a little extra for an automatic transmission. Some parts of the roads are covered in snow, some parts are slippery, there’s very little lighting when you’re outside of towns at night, and there can also be gale-force winds to contend with. One part of my journey, as I drive through the mountains, I am literally driving into a wall of white fog surrounded by more white from the snow-capped mountains with only about 20 metres visibility.
At one point, the music pumping in the background, and with only my thoughts, and amazingly beautiful landscape around me; it finally dawns on me that 1, that I have finally started my “big” trip, and 2, I don’t have to do the daily slog of going to work every day for at least another year. I turn up the volume and sing excitedly as the realisation grows.
Wet Hot Icelandic Winter
For anyone who is visiting Iceland, hitting the geothermal baths/hot springs will surely be one of activities on their to-do list. Most famous of them all is the Blue Lagoon. One I did not visit after finding out the price, and also finding an alternative. What you get at these lagoons is being able to bathe in naturally heated pools with milky-blue water, but at a fairly hefty price tag. What you also don’t know beforehand, is that you’re suppose to leave your towel in the changing room. This means that as you move from pool to pool, you’re half-naked with the wind blowing against your wet body. I tend to have a quite high tolerance to cold, but it’s still quite a shock when I first got out of the comfort of the heated pool.
So let’s talk more about the process before even getting to the pool(s).
Before entering the changing room, take off your shoes and socks
Get naked
Put your towel in a rack
Wash your body, your bits, your feet, your hair, your armpits; they don’t use chlorine to clean their water and insist that everyone is clean beforehand
Put on swimwear, and leave your towel
Enjoy
After you have rejuvenated yourself in the warm pools, you basically do the reverse.
Shower, at this point you can probably keep your swimwear on, but who cares?
Get the towel from the rack and dry yourself before going to the lockers
Put on your clothes
Put on your shoes outside the changing room
A couple of things that many tourists don’t do, or don’t realise are; getting naked for the shower beforehand and leaving the towel behind. At the Mývatn Hot Springs, many still take their towels out and tie them to whatever railing that is available around. I get it, it IS cold, but I like to do what the locals do. However, the reason I know this, is because I had already visited a local pool and made the same mistake. I was quick to realise, only because there are nowhere you can hook your towel on, or railings to tie to.
TIP: The local pool is only 1,000ISK, which is less than one-sixth of the price of the Blue Lagoon, and less than a quarter of the price of the aforementioned Mývatn Hot Springs. There is also a lesser-priced Secret Lagoon along the “Golden Circle” at 3,000ISK. However, what I got at the local pool in Reykjavik are 3 hot tub, 2 swimming pools (with the one outside heated slightly more than the one inside), a sauna, and a super hot steam room.
Before, during and beyond The Golden Circle!
I station from Akureyri, dubbed “the capital of northern Iceland”, after leaving Reykjavik to join, or in attempt to join, a whale-watching tour, and hopefully see the northern lights in the evening. However, it ends up being quite a fruitless and disappointing journey when a lack of bookings for whale-watching meant that it is not financially feasible for the operator to go with just 3 or 4 people. So, with my chance to see a flipping humpback whale dashed, I am still hoping to see the much touted northern lights. That evening, at about 9pm, I check the Aurora app on my phone and drive out of town, away from the city lights, to Gásir - a medieval trading place, 11 kilometres north of where I was. As the clock ticks forward, and I check my phone every now and then, it finally happened at around 11pm. Me, along with a few occupants in other cars, get out of our respective cars to see the wonder that appear before us. I take out my DSLR camera and mount it to the tripod, but in the end, the lights really weren’t lighting up the skies I had hoped. I am not sure if it’s the clouds that is dampening the view, but after 15 minutes or so, the soft whispy green lights fade away with no good photos to show for it. Objectively speaking, one can say that the drive up north was not worth the effort, but I disagree. Regardless of it all, I still saw beautiful, breathtaking views, and all I can think of now is that next time I go to Iceland, I will be able to see the whales. That’s the important take-away here, I will be back in the future.
After a quick overnight layover in Reykjavik, I start to make my way to the “Golden Circle”, except a subset of it, due to the road conditions and time limitations. I want to get to Vik by the end of the day. First stop, not far east of the capital, is Thingvellir National Park (above). Honestly, there isn’t much there, but I also can’t imagine there being much more in the Summer either. Still, the walk around the park is pleasant, and the view is not disappointing.
So what is this “Golden Circle” then? Put simply, for the Europeans who have a 3 day weekend to spare, they can hit these spots. Yes, they are touristy, but I guess if you don’t have the time, this is nevertheless a good taster to Iceland.
The Barn in Vik is an amazingly comfortable “hostel” as the bunk beds are double-sized, with the downside that the only food they have to offer (that I don’t have to cook myself) is a heated-up frozen pizza. At least the price for it isn’t extortionate. After a long day’s drive, I am hoping for a nice long slumber with a rather lazy morning until sunrises at 10am. However, a wrench is thrown into my lethargic plan, when the ice cave tour that I want to join is only guaranteed to go the next day at 10am. The drive there itself is 2 or so hours, which means that if I want a shower in the morning, I should probably be awake at the latest 6am, giving myself time to spare. Despite that, the thought of the whale-watching tour, or lack thereof, still fresh in my mind, I sign up to the tour. By then, I feel like a seasoned driver in Iceland already; no gale-force winds or lack of light can stop me!
The tour starts on time, with me, are Malaysians who have found their new home in London. But unlike me, they’re fresh off the boat. The ice cave we are visiting is temporary, because every year, as the glacier recedes more and more, new caves are formed. While we peruse the insides of the cave (at one stage, basically crawling), there are groups doing the glacier walk on top of us. All in all, clocking in just shy of £100, it’s one of those activities that can be considered either “worth it”, or “can do without”. I think if you’re going to Iceland, you should probably prepare yourself to spend some of your hard-earned dosh. To make up for it though, I buy instant noodles for dinner from the supermarket near the accommodation.
Even though it didn’t feel like a long time, when the guide drove us back, it’s already around lunch time. But before I grab some fish and chips from a food van, I grab my camera to walk around Jökulsárlón - a glacial lagoon where icebergs from the glacier flow through before they float into the Atlantic Ocean. I have read that hundreds of seals are hosted there during Winter, but that is not the case for me. Maybe later in the season? Maybe it’s climate change?
Last chance to catch the lights
While at Vik, it is alternating from bucketing down, to light showers, either coupling with 20-40 kilometre per hour winds. It’s only two days before I have to leave Iceland, and the last day before I have to drive back to Reykjavik. The viewing point for the northern lights are about 20 minutes drive west of where I am, and I want to scout out the area in daylight so that I know the geography of where I am going. The lazy side of my brain tries to convince me that it’s not worth the effort given the weather outside, but the determined side prevails to drag me out of bed and into the car. To my surprise, as I drive only about 10 minutes out, the sky is clear and blue - there is hope for tonight, I thought to myself.
The location of where I will ultimately end up 10 hours later is a black-sand beach called Sólheimasandur, where a DC-plane had crashed in 1973, when it ran out of fuel and was abandoned by the pilot. No one died in the crash. You used to be able to drive your car up to the beach, but due to damage or what not, it is now forbidden. Instead, I have to park at a parking lot, about 45 minutes to an hour walk away, or if you’re feeling particularly flush, catch the shuttle bus at around £10 a pop. So of course, I walk.
Apart from the plane wreck, there isn’t much there. But with the black sand, it looks like a spaceship that had crash landed on the moon. I took a few photos, and head back to my car. On the way back, a man walking in the opposite direction asking me how long the walk to the plane is, and what is there. I tell him that there’s about another half hour walk, and offer to show him the photos I had taken so that he can decide if it’s worth trek. By that time, it’s already 3:30pm, not too long until sunset. He walks a little bit more than decides to turn around in the end. I suspect he only has a few days in tow, and doesn’t want to spend 2 hours walking to see this little plane wreck when it is already starting to get dark. Further along, I encounter more tourists, with a couple of them asking the question of distance - I am only about 10 minutes from the car by now, so despite informing them that it’s a long walk, they continue onwards.
One thing I note to myself is that during night time, I will probably get lost.
You might be thinking, “Joe, why don’t you try not to get lost?”. It’s entirely sensible, and I don’t intend to, but I need to be prepared. I make sure that I have plenty of juice in my portable charger, and a torch to take on the walk. It’s night time now, after a bowl of freshly-brewed instant noodles, and a quick nap, I took the car out at around 9:15pm. From my experience last time, I know that I don’t really need to get there until 10:30pm.
Walking along the path at night, I realise how weak my torch is; I had already put in a set of fresh batteries when I packed, but I just don’t think it’s a particularly bright bulb, at least compared to the LED lights that we are accustomed to now. As I approach the end of the path, to reach the wreck, there is no path, but there are 3 men in front of me with much stronger torches that l am able to follow.
I set up my camera, making sure that I am pointing at the plane in the foreground, with plenty of sky for the magnificent lights that I am about to see.
The clock ticks pass 11pm.
Now it’s midnight.
The group of guys had already given up and headed back. I look at the Aurora app on my phone again, in the cold, and see that it’s apparently active south of where I am. You know, in the ocean. Reluctantly, I look up at the skies once more and pack up my camera to leave. With no one around me, and complete darkness apart from the lighthouse a few kilometres east of me, and some lights north in the direction I need to go.
As expected, I am lost, I don’t know where the walking path is, so I follow the GPS on my phone. I see what appears to be a darker part of the terrain, hoping that it’s the walking path, but then I hear the sound of water. It turns out, it’s actually a river or stream. “I don’t remember hearing any water last time”, I think to myself and veer away from the flowing water, “just trust the GPS, and as long as you are walking towards it, you are fine”.
It’s a long walk, and nothingness surrounds me, there are no points of reference, and on the map I am just a blue dot on a solid grey-brown emptiness. Regardless, at no point, do I think I am going to be stranded overnight until daylight, and there are no wild animals to eat me alive, so as long as I’m heading north, I will be fine and reach the road. Eventually, about 50 metres from the parking lot, I join back on the walking path to reach my car.
See you in Summer, and maybe another Winter?
One thing I know is that I need to experience the country again in Summertime, with less worries of treacherous road conditions, and limited daylight. It’s now just a matter of being able to fit it in my schedule when I plan to come back to Europe in Summer of 2020.
TIP: Perhaps even more than London, you can do Iceland with just your credit/debit card. The petrol stations are card only, and they are not attended. Even the ice cave tour, because I was a late addition, the guide brought the card machine for me to pay, instead of having to bring cash. So don’t bother with getting Icelandic Kronas, and just bring a good travel card that doesn’t charge you excessive fees.