Land of Ice and Fire. And Rain.

The Land of Ice and Fire is how Iceland likes to brand itself, not entirely unreasonably either. It's home to many glaciers, including Europe's largest, and is the second most volcanic country in the world after Hawaii. But I would recommend, just for accuracy's sake you understand, the slight addendum of 'and rain'. In the days we were there it only stopped raining for 100 minutes; admittedly they were an amazing 100 minutes with some of the most crystal clear light and beautiful countryside I've ever seen but still. Now I know what you're thinking: the Welsh tourist board has already cornered that market, but I don't see why they couldn't come to some sort of mutual agreement.

When you live in a place where you're likely to spend a large portion of the year battling the elements it's always nice to know that at the end of the day you can have a nice hot bath and, thanks to another aspect of Iceland's extreme nature, Icelanders have a better deal than most. 14% of the surface of Iceland is covered by lakes, there are many underground reservoirs too and where these are found near to one of the many vents to the Earth's core that the country straddles the result is a vast aquifer of ready made bath water. You see, the mains water that gets pumped into Reykjavik isn't cold like ours but piping hot and so whereas we have to wait for the water to get hot they often have to wait for the water to get cold.

The reason Iceland is so geologically active is that it sits astride the mid-Atlantic ridge, in fact, worse than that, the fault line actually splits in two right in the middle of the country. This has resulted in there being more than 30 active volcanic systems in the country and one third of the total magma that has erupted to the Earth's surface in the last 500 years has been on this one island. In 1783 the Laki volcano erupted, and it was a real monster. The guy that told me about it said for me to look up the history of my country, or any country in the northern hemisphere, for that year and it would be mentioned; and he was right. That summer was known as the Sand Summer in the UK because the sky was changed to a pallid yellow from all the sulphur that was belched into the atmosphere. Ten thousand Britons were killed by the fallout from the eruption. One third of the population of Iceland were killed. Chilling statistics like that is probably why locals were all a bit nonplussed when their last major eruption was under way resulting in flights throughout northern Europe being grounded due to worries about the ash cloud. Apparently they found it genuinely amusing that people would get so worked up by such a small eruption and annoyed that the world seemed incapable of pronouncing a simple word like Eyjafjallajökull. 

A close up of the blow hole, so to speak, between eruptions. It smelt as bad as it looks.

All the poor weather we encountered meant that there was no chance of seeing the Northern Lights, which was a shame but not a surprise as I knew before we left that solar activity was low. Luckily, though, we did get to see the other main thing that I wanted to get out of the trip, whales. Minke whales, to be precise. These baleen whales are normally solitary but we managed to find two together that were presumably feeding on a ball of herring or some other such fishy goodness. The rolling of the waves and the lash of the wind and rain meant that the only vaguely in focus shot I managed to get was less than impressive but, for me, this particular encounter wasn't about photography, it was about seeing one of nature's wonders up close and personal. So although I didn't get a heap of shots of humpbacks breaching and fluking I was still more than pleased with my day.

When I'm away I now increasingly approach any new place with a view to how I'm going to represent it on this blog. What story am I going to tell? What are the key elements I need to photograph? What caption would fit here? And if I come up with a good turn of phrase I'll quickly note it down knowing that my awful memory will inevitably let it fall from it's grasp. But on this occasion I was content to just stand there trying to guess where they would surface next whilst simultaneously trying to dodge the increasing quantity of vomit puddles on deck and not fall into the briny deep. And there was a lot to dodge too, let me tell you; I hadn't seen that many people vomiting with wild abandon in one place since my last night out in Cardiff. Sue does not cope well on boats and, whilst she wasn't a contributor to the fish food being mopped overboard that day, she felt pretty rough the whole time we were out there but she manfully fought it all the way and coped extremely well. As we chugged back into the harbour she said that I have my 'roller coaster' face on. For those that haven't gone on a trip to Alton Towers with me this basically means I have a fixed grin on my face combined with a sort of wildness in the eyes that gives me an altogether unhinged appearance. This means I've had fun. The only slightly unsettling thing about the trip was that in the opposite berth to our whale spotting ship were two whale hunting ships; a stark reminder that these impressive creatures have no protection in Icelandic waters. The argument goes that they have been doing this for a thousand years, it's a part of their culture, why should they have to stop now?

Minke whales are known for the small size of their dorsal fin compared to their body size

More of a struggle was our next excursion where the plan was to spend the day going to Thingvellir, the seat of Iceland's ancient parliament the Althingi; a set of geysers, one of which is called geyser and is what every other geyser in the world is named after; and also the Gullfoss waterfall. The weather was absolutely appalling, incessantly, all day and it was particularly annoying for this last item on the agenda as it is one of the most impressive waterfalls I've ever had the good fortune to visit. I could have easily spent a whole day just photographing this one location but all that I could do was snatch a few hastily composed shots before my camera got saturated. The photo I've included here has rain drops on the lens and the sky looks miserable; it's a damned fine waterfall, though. I could probably say the same thing about the geyser; to really appreciate it you would need a nice blue sky to give some contrast to the vast, boiling jet of water that surges upwards every 4-8 minutes. As it was, in my photos, it just sort of blends into the background so that you can't really get a feel for the dynamism of the moment.

Before we set off on this trip there were several 'facts' about Iceland that I wanted to check out, like: Iceland has no trees; Iceland has no dogs; in any town there is only one shop where you can buy alcohol and it's run by the Government, and a few others. It turns out that only the last of these is true. Iceland does have trees but the rule of thumb is that if it is taller than a man then it is an imported species. The saying goes that if you ever get lost in an Icelandic forest then just stand up. And Iceland definitely has dogs, in fact it even has native dogs. When the first human settlers arrived the Arctic fox was the only mammal living on the island. That has now changed with the introduction of sheep, reindeer, rabbits and the inevitable rats and mice. A generation ago a farmer asked permission of the Government to import some mink so that he could farm them for their fur. The Government said no on the grounds that they might escape and overrun the country. The farmer continued to apply for years but the answer was always the same. Eventually the farmer died but then his son took up the cause and continued to apply. He commissioned specially built mink-proof cages from which there could be no escape and, eventually, the authorities relented and granted him a license. Within four days the mink had escaped and so they complete the list of mammals you can find in Iceland.

The lower section of the Gullfoss falls

I really enjoyed our time in Iceland. At times the weather had completely kicked our arse but it was always beautiful and always compelling. If it wasn't so damned expensive it would definitely be a regular haunt as it only takes three hours to get to and has lots to offer anyone that likes wild landscapes and a strong Arctic wind. At some point we were looking through our guidebook and it mentioned that Reykjavik is the northern-most capital in the world; I love this sort of thing. I like having things that I can tick off of a list, especially things of a geographical nature such as this. It can go on the list right under the other places I've gone like southern-most town, northern-most town, highest altitude town. As we were discussing this, and as we rapidly approach our tenth anniversary of travelling the world together, we decided to tot up all the different countries we had visited as a pair, ignoring ones we had gone to the one without the other. We were somewhat startled to come to a total of 25 countries, an eighth of the world's total. That's good going; but then we realised that at that pace it'd take 80 years to get them all done - the Ultimate List. Must up the pace.

Reykjavik

The reflection underneath is a bit spidery for my liking.....

Takk. That's how you say thanks in Icelandic; nice and easy. Every other word in the language, every single other word, is completely unpronounceable. You might be forgiven for thinking that there would be some slight similarities between Icelandic and English, they both have a solid Norwegian base to them from when  our two islands were colonised by the vikings in the last half of the first millennium; but you would be wrong. Very wrong. Icelandic is actually more like ancient Norse than modern day Norse is; due to centuries of isolation and a policy of actively coming up with words with an Icelandic root instead of borrowing from other languages it has evolved very little. As examples of the way they police their language: their word for computer translates as number prophetess; telephone is long thread; mobile phone is travelling long thread; and, rather worryingly, they have no word for interesting. To hear Icelandic spoken is, however, quite interesting. It has a fairly quiet and reserved tone to it, as do the people in general, but every now and then, out of no where, they throw in an exaggerated ook sort of a noise as if they're trying to out honk one of the local geese that populate the area in place of the pigeons you normally find in most cities. Imagine a drunk Welshman doing a Monty Python impression and you might be half way there.

Names, of people, are also a little unusual. Similarly to Russian they have a patronymic and matronymic system; basically you come up with a forename for your new son but his surname is already decided - it's his mother's name with son added onto it. Concordantly, the surname for a girl is her father's name followed by the Icelandic for daughter, dottir. To clarify, I would be called Jason Pearlsson, my wife would be called Susan Davidsdottir and SKY news correspondent Kay Burley would be Kay Satansdottir. Simple.

So it was that Sue Davidsdottir and I set off into this alien culture with aspirations of whale watching and a good view of the aurora borealis; sadly, we would only achieve one of these.

Reykjavik was first settled by Norse colonists in the year 870 and was called such because you can just about make out steam from nearby hot springs (Reykjavik means Smokey Harbour); the city, indeed the country, was mostly just a fishing and sheep farming outpost for the next several centuries and when the city received its charter from their Danish rulers in 1752 the population had grown to a colossal 167 individuals. The charter wasn't granted to the people themselves or some sort of mayor or ruler but to a corporation that was tasked with developing native industries with a view to improving living conditions of the indigenous population. Today there are 120,000 people in the city and 320,000 in the country as a whole and they are free to enjoy what is widely acknowledged to be amongst the best healthcare and educational systems in the world. This is probably in no small part due to the fact that 80% of the tax collected in Iceland is spent on those two areas alone. This, combined with the fact that they have no standing army, 100% of their power comes from geothermal or hydroelectric sources and a few other key indicators, has led to Iceland being rated the most peaceful country on Earth.

The most built up area in all Iceland; some of those buildings are as many as four storeys high!

Despite being the largest city in Iceland by quite some distance Reykjavik has maintained the feel of a sleepy fishing town. The picture above is from the top of the Hallgrimskirkja cathedral looking west towards the harbour over the most developed part of the city but it looks more like a leafy suburb. As they have chosen not to build upwards it does mean that the urban sprawl continues for some miles east and south and is beginning to swallow up what used to be smaller satellite towns in the same way that Copenhagen and Oslo have done.

The panorama below is of the far side of lake Tjomin which nuzzles up against the side of the Icelandic parliament the Alþingi, pronounced AL-thing, the oldest parliament in the world at well over 1,000 years old. I like the contrast in the leaves of the trees as they begin their journey from green to brown through yellow and red. It also nicely highlights the degree of variation that is to be found in Icelandic architecture; it's quite unusual to find two buildings next to each other that are the same and this makes walking the streets of the capital all the more interesting. This is in stark contrast to the unrelenting tedium of new, suburban developments in the UK where conformity seems to be the order of the day.

I really liked Iceland. As soon as I stepped off of the plane and saw the bleak, rugged landscape and felt the icy wind bite I knew that I was going to enjoy this rough, harsh country. When I go on holiday I prefer to see mountains and ice over sun and sand; I like to feel that at any moment the weather could turn and you'll be hit with a storm that makes even getting something to eat an ordeal. This is just as well, because this is what we got. Our first day was wet, cold and blustery; pretty bad weather-wise. From bad it turned to brutal as winds reached gale force and the rain got heavier and heavier so whilst I enjoyed doing battle with Iceland and its weather it did mean that photography opportunities were few and far between, not if I wanted my camera to avoid a soaking in any case.

In my next post I'll describe the trials and tribulations of sightseeing in a country that is the second most volcanic in the world and sat between two of the roughest oceans we have. For now I'll say that there was a brief moment of respite; for two hours on our final morning in Reykjavik the rain stopped, the wind dropped  and the clouds parted. For two hours the sun shone through and gave me some of the most beautiful, crystal clear light I have ever seen. When I saw how things had improved I instigated a desperate rush around the city revisiting the key landmarks that we had been perusing under much less favourable conditions for the last few days. Even though it was almost noon the sun was still very low in the sky as we were only a degree or so from the Arctic circle. For the shots of Mount Esja and the Sun Voyager sculpture the light also happened to be coming in from the side and so was perfect for giving depth to the mountains. I am very happy with the panorama below, it is well worth looking at on a big screen and I foresee a canvas print of it on my living room wall in the not too distant future.

Click to enpanaramatudinate