So it was in Iceland. We went with an Iceland specialist called Discover the World. We usually plan our trips ourselves but as we're all phenomenally busy thought we'd try the package-by-experts deal. We weren't that impressed by the pre-trip service. There were a few issues and we never seemed to be talking to the same person twice. But we booked, paid, and were able to get on with life.
One of the extras we purchased ... turns out it's very common in Iceland ... is a superjeep tour. Scheduled for Friday, I consulted a map before dinner on Thursday to see where we had to meet the driver. To learn that Discover the World had booked us on the other side of the country, 2.5 hours away from our hotel. Not pleased. Fortunately, they have an out of office emergency number. Manned that night by one of the directors. Who was mortified. And immediately set about making things right.
By the time we got to dinner 40 minutes later, two bottles of apologetic wine were waiting for us. The next morning at breakfast, they were on the phone informing us they'd booked us a private driver, who would spend the day only with us on Saturday. (Superjeeps often carry 10 or 12.) We would go wherever we wanted, to our schedule, and do a few things that were off the beaten track. Result.
Thus it was we had our day with Halle, driver to the stars. As a private driver he had ferried around oligarchs on fantasy tours and stars on film shoots. His most recent tales included taking care of Tom Hiddleston who, after doing a 24-hour shoot on the new Thor film, wanted Halle to take him directly in to Reykjavic to sample the town's famous clubbing scene. Respect.
Our day was far removed from anything so urban.
We started at the Deildartunguhver thermal spring (above), a gash in the earth of a gentle valley that pumps out 180 litres of water per second in angry, steaming bubbler fountains. This is the largest output of any thermal spring in the world. It hits the surface at 212F, then goes into a pipeline that circulates heat to the surrounding area. The pipeline's insulation is so good that even when the water reaches its most distant point, 24 hours later, it's still 149F. Clever Icelanders.
Not far from there is the tiny village of Reykholt, on the tourist map because it was the medieval manor of one Snorri Sturluson. A literary giant of Shakespearean proportions and a political player with the heft of Warwick the Kingmaker, Snorri was a nobleman in the 13th century who was twice the country's lawspeaker, one of the biggest jobs in the Althing (parliament), and a poet in his spare time. He penned some of the most famous of Iceland's famous sagas, including a history of the Norse kings and the Prose Edda. These have influenced all of Western Literature, even if you've never heard of them. In high school we started with Gilgamesh, the Illiad, Beowulf and the Edda ... the original super hero stories; I loved them all then and was excited to be at one of the sources.
There's a literary study centre here with a church, library and museum. The last doesn't offer much by way of artefacts, but has a series of well-presented signs displays that tell the story of the Sagas, the Nordic World and Snorri's life. And a fine gift shop with a great range of books (expected) and interesting silver jewelry (surprising).
On to the double waterfalls of Hraunfossar and Barnafoss. The Hvita river flows across a lava field and narrows here. Barnafoss is at the top, a traditional waterfall crashing over black rock to a churning pool below. Beautiful, but a dime a dozen in Iceland. What makes the site extraordinary is that the Hvita continues down a channel cut through the lava, and the erosion of the rock bluff on the north side has revealed scores of small springs releasing glacier melt that's been filtering through that lava for ages. Thus we saw one big waterfall followed by nearly a kilometre of little ones, bordering on our first chance to walk on the barren moonscape of a lava field. We didn't realise, at that point, that bleak lava fields would dominate our views for the rest of the afternoon.
Continue inland from the falls and you enter the highlands, a cold desert full of nothing but rock, snow, ice and big skies. It took nearly half an hour driving down a bumpy gravel road to get to Vidgelmir lava tube. We're all familiar with pictures of waves of molten lava sliding down hills. But lava also flows underground, boring long wormholes through the stone. Vidgelmir is a particularly big one, at its widest point almost 16 metres high and wide. A sign takes you to a small car park (we were the only people) from which you hike about half a mile to get to the point at which the roof of the tube has collapsed.
From there, you climb down a sturdy metal ladder. And then, the going gets rough. You scramble into the depths of the Earth over piles of jagged boulders, offered a bit of balance by a rope strung between poles pounded into the rubble. It's tough going. At the bottom, a path evens out and walking gets a bit easier. You continue on about 50 yards, losing all natural light, before you hit an iron gate. The authorities have closed the caves off from this point to preserve some magnificent ice and mineral formations. We saw tiny examples near the door. But the greatest excitement was the bone tingling fear created when Halle turned off our head lamps and we stood in the most complete darkness and silence imaginable. Turning on lights and scrambling back up, I kept thinking of Orpheus climbing out of the underworld. Perhaps thinking too hard, as that's when I hit a wobbly stone and took a spill. I was fine, but returned home with some exciting bruises. It's certainly a firm warning that nobody should be out here without a guide. Doing dangerous things in the middle of nowhere, in an invisible place, is a recipe for disaster. (Unsurprisingly, Iceland has a disaster recovery service as famous as the Swiss one.)
Saving the best for last, we staggered back to the superjeep and headed for the glacier. Up the northern ascent to Langjökull, the Long Glacier. Another 40 minutes of driving through frozen lava desert. Without sight of another human, climbing higher and higher, the road hardly discernible from the surrounding lava flow, the superjeep rocking with wind. At last, we arrived at the top of the world. There was a lonely wooden cabin for tourists, the first man made thing, with the exception of the road, a bridge and the lava tube sign, we'd seen for nearly two hours. And in front of us: ice. Stretching from our last edge of lava to the horizon in front and on each side of us. As deep as the valley behind us. Radiating an eerie blue-grey from its depths, colours shifting as dark storm clouds raced across a
We stepped out of the superjeep only with Halle's firm assistance, to find we could hardly stand. The wind drove off the glacier with the same punch as a water cannon, making it almost impossible to stand upright unless we leaned into it and braced hard with leg muscles. There was real water, too. Not yet in the cold of winter, the sun was melting the glacier top, sending streams skittering across the lava flow on which we stood, driven to high velocity by that crazy gale. This was elemental, frightening nature. Ice, water, wind. All with the power to drive through stone, shaping the landscape and dwarfing the power of man.
And yet.
And yet that glacier is melting. Despite its size and power, after millennia of unrivalled dominance, it's shrinking. Global warming has never been as real to me as at that moment, standing in front of the biggest, most remarkable force of nature I've ever witnessed, and realising that even this is submitting to the force of man. And not in a good way. The saga circle, with its glacial climax, will bring out the "Green" in anyone.
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