N-Iceland

I'm sure you've heard it before, but I'm going to repeat it - Iceland is incredible. Indescribable. In-frigging-sane. Five days was both enough and not enough time to discover how much we loved it.

Sarah, Daniel, Cameron and I flew into Reykjavik  last Tuesday afternoon and had the evening free to do a quick wander. By some crazy fortune, the hotel I'd booked us was a five minute walk from Hallgrimskirkja, the tallest building and church in the whole country. We arrived just in time to buy tickets to go up to the top, to get a bird's eye view of the capital, before getting a much needed coffee. This was when we discovered how expensive coffee was; during the course of our trip, we paid between $6-7AUD for a teacup-sized coffee.

(Hallgrimskirkja is the pointy building, centre stage - I promise, it's taller in real life!)

We walked the Rainbow Road, visited a few souvenir stores (in what was our only real free time to shop), had a hot dog at the famous stand, Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur (overrated), and visited the Sun Voyager sculpture. 

During our exploration, we froze. We definitely discovered that the wind was an icy blade and hermals/gloves/beanies/scarves were a daily requirement for getting dressed.

Dinner was another expensive experience but wow was it good! Admittedly we were tired and cold, so our bar was lower than usual, but the chips had CHICKEN SALT, the burgers were delicious (including Cameron's reindeer one), the fish batter was thin and actually tasty....we were stoked. 

The next morning our car rental agency picked us up and took us to the depot where we collected our Kia to start the 4 day self-drive adventure. 

If you're looking for a cheaper way to see Iceland, I cannot recommend this enough. Our accommodation and car hire were taken care of, and we were provided an itinerary to follow each day. We chose to use Extreme Iceland and they were so helpful, from changing our dates at the last minute, to checking on us during that first day when there was particularily bad weather and giving us recommendations on where else to go. 

WE SAW SO MUCH. The landscape was made up of tiramisu and cookies & cream, and when the sun made an appearance, everything was bright and blue and stunning - but so, so chilly because the sun held no warmth. The Icelandic palette was made up of browns and blues and whites, with a hint of gold where the sun hit. Or silver, if the snow started to melt a little.

In those four days of driving, we saw epic fields of snow, enormous mountains, lakes of ice, hot springs, geysirs, fierce and frozen seas, and all manner of waterfalls - frozen, running, aand those that had frozen on the outside but water still ran through the centre like a crazy waterslide.

We decided to be smart and save money on lunches so we hit up a supermarket before we started driving, and while there were some items that blew our mind ($20AUD for a 500gm punnet of strawberries???), we were able to get the fixings for sandwiches and snacks. All of which (including meat, yoghurt, butter, cheese) lived in the car for the next 3 nights since days and nights were well below zero. We would open the car in the morning and if we'd left drinks in there, they were half frozen - such a novelty!

I think one of the things we all loved the most was how much freedom the itinerary gave us. We had suggested places to go but no scheduled times. If we wanted to stop for coffee, we could (though finding an open cafe in the smaller towns was nigh on impossible). If we wanted to take the time to make a snow angel, we did. If the snow was perfect for snowman-moulding, you can be sure we made a snowman. And had a snowball fight. And acted like the biggest kids because IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. Wow.

We had to check the roads every day to make sure they were a) actually open and b) see what the surface was, be it clear or icy, but otherwise, driving on the wrong side of the road didn't present too much of a problem. Cameron did have to drive through a blizzard on the first day, which was slightly horrific since visibility was maybe 5m ahead - we were literally driving from one yellow road marker to the next. We quickly learnt that in those situations you need to have your hazards on for extra visibility to other drivers - fun fact.

If you left your car, you HAD to wear your beanie, gloves,scarf, and do up your jacket. It was too cold not too - most days averaged about -3C. We were so exhausted at the end of every day and we put it down to the fact that our bodies were working overtime in the cold. Even though we all had multiple layers and thermals to boot, it was just so much colder than we were used to. Otherwise, we were only really driving and moving anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour at a time.

There's not a thing we would have changed about the entire trip. It would have been the icing on the cake to see the northern lights but the weather and the lights themselves were just not in our favour. We also got super lucky that Corvid-19 didn't impact our trip. We flew out Saturday night and on Monday they imposed restrictions on restaurants, cafes and gatherings.

For the last time (in this blog at least), Iceland was stunning. And worth every cent. Every corner we turned, a new vista made our jaws drop. The snow that fell during the middle of the trip was unprecedented which made it even more special. Being able to see these stunning natural monuments AND play in the snow whenever we felt like it - dreams are made of this stuff and we were living ours.