By John Sellars - December 2005
Well, a certain event in my life has ensured I have the time to write this. The event concerns lines; two lines in particular. The first is the graph of age against weight and the second is the graph of age against muscle quality, particularly lower stomach wall muscle. Aging climbers beware. At the crossing point of these two lines lurks the beast of bi-lateral inguinal hernia or, as Spike Milligan would call it, nothing, because he's dead, you know ...
Sub-plot over, down to the main story line.
In August 2005 I was supposed to be going to Scotland with two friends for to shelter in our tents from the rain and wind for seven days but one "friend" used up all his holiday going walking with his mum and the other unpardonably pulled out just because he was moving house.
Faced with the option of going anywhere that my limited bank balance would allow I chose economy destination number one: Iceland. After slightly over a whole week of approaching seven days, each of about twenty four hours, all of similar lengths, of Chris Bonington-type expedition planning using the very latest technology:
Saturday: Buy "Rough Guide to Iceland".
Sunday to Wednesday: Go through emotional turmoil at the expense and finally book ticket after half a bottle of wine.
Saturday: Buy new walking boots, pack.
Sunday: Reykjavik.
I had sussed out where to go, which involved laborious hours of looking up "hiking" in my rough guide and reading "Thorsmork (Thor's wood) is the best area for hiking in Iceland" and thinking "I'll go there".
Sunday saw me (I tried to hide from him, but to no avail) wandering around Reykjavik and staying at the city campsite. Bought a map of Thorsmork that proved to be slightly useful as most of the mountains were still in the same places. Reykjavik was interesting, but it is a city and I was itching to get to somewhere wild.
At the campsite I chatted with a collection of transients (no, not Ford vans or blokes dressed as girls) who each told me their life story in the first five minutes. I then retired to my leaky antique tent.
Monday saw me too, but I saw her (I am so PC I could get a job with social services) first. I was on a coach for the four-hour journey to Thorsmork. The first half was in a normal National Express type vehicle and then we transferred to the submarine terror-bus, a four wheel drive Mercedes with a top speed of about 40 when not submerged. The track got slowly worse (or better) and then came the first river crossing, with water coming in the doors and out of my urinary tract. At the next stop I elected (out of cynicism, not fear of the biggest river crossing still to come, as the stop was owned by the bus company and had a cafe where a cup of tea cost about £300 (the moral high ground is easy to take in certain situations, like governments taxing beer and fags)) to walk the 4km to the campsite rather than wait an hour for the bus to leave and drive the long way round.
The campsite was (and, hopefully, still is) idyllic, set in a small stream valley and surrounded by mountains, with a wide alluvial river valley about a hundred metres away. I put my tent up and then went for an exploratory wander to get my bearings (I have absolutely no natural sense of direction and would surely be dead by now were it not for the invention of the Earth's magnetic field and the discovery of the compass-needle tree) and spent an awe-struck hour or so atop the hill by the campsite, Valahnukur, it was such different scenery from anything I had seen before and I felt really alive.
Had a chat with the hut warden to see where was best to walk and got some ideas, then retired to my marquee to cook, eat and fester.
On the subject of food, having heard how much it cost I took enough with me for the week. Cous-cous and Bean Feasts for dinner, cereal bars, scotch pancakes (hunners of the bleeders), cheese and chocolate for lunch and 2kg of muesli with dried milk for breakfast. This would have been enough but for the fact that, after Bean Feast and cous-cous every night, emotional issues occurred, resulting in spending £13 on a one-portion pack of noodles, a head of garlic, a packet of biscuits and four yoghurts. This was repeated later in the week in Reykjavik with a £3 loaf of bread, a 95p (very reasonable I thought - getting into it now) tin of beans, a £6 jar of peanut butter (but what lovely peanut butter it was) and a £4 bag of wine gums. If you are scuzzy and tight enough (I am) there is a stock of leftovers at Reykjavik campsite to supplement this. The amazing thing is that Icelanders seem to afford to drink loads. A half litre of beer is around £7.
Maps are best stolen as they start at about £10. They are more artistic interpretations than factual representations.
Bus tickets are expensive too and I re-discovered hitching later in the week. Rough Guide said that the first car would probably stop. They lied. It took me nearly thirty six seconds to get a lift as it was the second one and I had nearly got to the lay-by where I was going to hitch from. Brilliant, puts my all-time record of a night and six hours and about seven thousand cars near Manchester to shame. On this subject one of the most heartening things about Iceland is the importance given to pedestrians over car users. In Reykjavik cars will stop at busy junctions to wave you across, even if you have been a prat and got stranded in the middle by crossing the first half of the junction when the pedestrian lights were on red.
Hmmmm, my first novel, by John Sellars, age 41 5/8
Next day I went for a walk up a hill / mountain (Rjupnafell, 600m ish) on the same side of the river as the campsite. After about an hour I came across a group of people going the same way as me, but they soon turned off (they had little knobs that went 'click' as you turned them anti-clockwise) and I didn't see anyone until I got back to the campsite about six hours later, and this is acknowledged as the best walking area in Iceland! The walk, the silence and the views from the top of the hill were just amazing. I managed to find a path (the whole walk was on paths of varying obviousness) that returned a different way and I arrived back at the campsite at peace with the world after one of the best day's walking in my life.
The weather while I was there varied from very light drizzle to hot sunshine and I was plenty warm enough in a 2-season bag.
The following day I crossed the river by the dodgy wooden bridge and walked about 12km up a long distance path (Thorsmork is in the middle of a four-day path with huts and everyone else at the campsite that I spoke to was doing this) to about 1300m where two glaciers poke their tongues at you by an eerie lake. The scenery was almost monochrome, with pure white snow against black volcanic sand and ash. I waited until the noisy French party had left and I had it to myself and spent ages just wandering around the lake and taking it in. One of the advantages of being so near the Arctic Circle in the summer is that you don't have to worry about getting back, if you have enough cereal bars and scotch pancakes, as it never gets too dark to see.
I did leave when the thunderstorm hit, though. Walking back across the 1km wide billiard table plateau with lightning in the sky (it goes sideways in Iceland. I thought that was the Chinese?) was slightly worrying, but I was so chilled that I didn't really care if I was vaporised. It rained in Scottish for the next four hours that it took me to get back to the campsite and I discovered that my ancient Karrimor cag is not only not very breathable, and not very waterproof either. I adopted the Ray Meers Philosophy and enjoyed being part of my environment, rather than isolating myself from it and had a really (I do actually mean it) enjoyable walk back.
The next day I left Thorsmork and it was a bit of a disaster as I didn't find the area I was looking for. I ended up in Reykjavik and did the puffins and whales thing - saw a humpback whale jump out of the water in front of the boat, do a somersault and crash back into the water again, which was pretty spectacular.
The following day I went back to the right place (Hveragerdi, pronounced Kkkkerakkherrrthi like a grizzly bear chewing gravel) and wandered around sulphurous pits, bubbling pools and belching holes in the ground. This was my first experience of volcanic activity, other than curry, and I was awe-struck.
The good old Rough Guide said that it was vital to stick to the paths as blah, blah, zzzzzz. At the sight of the first bit of steam coming out of the ground I was off, didn't follow a path for the next six or eight hours and the facial plastic surgery has been a success. Anyway, to avoid erosion never stick to the path - it would work. I even managed to fit in a 500m hill, Tjarnarhnukur, which had been active not too long ago and I walked up unstable lava-flow slabs to get to the top. There are dodgy rock cornices (or, as Gary Glitter would say (recurring IMC newsletter theme, eh Pete?): "Corrr! Nieces!") overhanging the valleys in Iceland, where lava has cooled and the soft, ashy stuff underneath has been eroded away. The rock that these cornices are made from is as friable as ginger nuts post-dunking and best avoided as it hurts your teeth and makes your tea taste horrible. The maps actually show the lava flows and the year of their occurrence, but unfortunately they only go back in time. Back to our hero: At the top of the hill there was no sign of human visitation, just a few pellets from birds of prey (big boogers, by 'eck). I thought back to crowded weekends on Tryfan...
On the way down I inadvertently jumped up and down really hard lots of times in one place without realising I was right by a seismic monitoring probe buried in the ground. What are the chances of that?
Back to Reykjavik for a five course slap-up meal, twenty pints of lager and then home.
My payment for all of this enjoyment was a few weeks of life seeming dull and monotonous and a need to do more of the same, which has faded until the next time...
If you are put off by the cost of going to Iceland you should turn on the telly, increase your pension contributions and look forward to discussing your ailments at every opportunity.
In case you were wondering, my boots were perfect, no blisters or rubbing at all. Buy 'em the day before you go, take my advice.
Editor's addition: If hut accommodation is more your choice John included this to whet your appetite.
The World's smallest YH?
