It all has to start with the dog ofcourse! She was most distressed seeing me start to pack my backpack and obviously on my way to somewhere.
The somewhere is Austurdalur, a long valley to the south in skagafjörður which is the valley along which the eastern glacial river runs.
This is the back pack complete with sneekers for the river crossings and norwegian walking sticks to help me keep my balance - I owe my life to those sticks!
Maggi his pack and all our other crap... yes I had the runs all day - not at all sure that I would make it. 25k treck on day one and 10 on day two... hmmm
Just before we reached our destination on friday night the bus got stuck in the sand... we had by this stage driven for 3 hours along roads I never want to see again. I am now officially phobic about bus trips in the Icelandic interior.
Once we reached our destination the temperature had gone down to 2° C and we being us decided to grill our meat - all the rest were already eating sandwiches and noodles... but hey we are extreme..
As I said it was cold....
Time to take off.. this is the group all looking rather ready to go
You can just barely see the bus and the hut where we stayed in the far distance... I thought by this stage I would probably die somewhere along the trail.
This is where the river that ran by the hut/camping area meets the glacial river, notice the difference in colours.
Maggi putting on the sun screen whilst a cross atlantic jet flies over. Behind the hill behind Maggi is Hofsjökull one of Icelands many glaciers and the glacier that feeds the river that we will be following.
more walking.... This part of the landscape is so arid, so typical of central Iceland.
After 7k´s of up it came to going back down into the valley... this is the view down - can you see a trail.. no neither did I... did I mention that I am scared of heights????
You may be able to make out three figures on the hill coming down, the one in the middle is me.. I had to have help to make it to the bottom, fell on my ass a couple of times, lost footing, felt dizzy, you name it I had it.. God what a wuss I was.
After the down hill there was a bit of a stream crossing which involved jumping between large rocks... I fell on my face ofcourse, but was extremely happy to have made it down the hill and over the stream, the weather as you can see was amazing!
After a bit of a hike, we had to cross a river, Fossá, it was cold and it was quite a distance, unfortunately the picture below doesn´t actually give a full indication of how bloody far it actually was (or perhaps felt), the water was really really really cold and came up over the knees.
It was really pretty though, it looks as if there is actual land in the middle and towards the other shore, believe me this is an illusion - they are just rocks sticking out of very very cold water, that also had a pretty hefty current.
keep going, oh soo pretty but only just half way there.
Another break in the sunshine, Maggi soaking up the rays. (As you can see from the reflection his aus tan is all gone)
The next river crossing, a lot shorter and alot warmer, when the guides had told us this we had not believed them but they were right - this one was a breeze. Hvítá is the name of the river, there was some grafitti on the other side from the late 1800's good to know things don´t change.
This is the forrest in Fagrahlíð, the oldest natural birch forrest in Iceland - believed to have been untouched, perhaps an indication of what Iceland was like before the vikings came with the horses, sheep, goats and need for kindling. (7pm and still at least 2 hours of hiking to go)
Where the hell is the hut, every corner, every hill one hoped the hut was about to show itself...
Made it and the sun goes down.
Next day and off we set.
Our destination is at the base of the hill/mountain far in the distance. - but hey it´s a sinch, I no longer had a sleeping bag in my pack and no more hills, no more river crossings, just a flying fox/box thing at some stage... we will worry about that later.
Oh, did I say no more river crossings, it´s just a stream with a few very slippery rocks.... Maggi came after this guy and actually nearly came a cropper, I meant to take a photo of him going over but I was so tired that I couldn´t figure out which mossie net man was which. The shirtless guys are the two Gisli´s, Gisli Runar our main guide is on the rock in the stream, the other Gisli is at the end of the line - he looked after the laggers like moi.
At last a bridge to cross a river.
Another great break, we were tired, Maggi had an allergic reaction to nature which made things not too pleasant. But we were coping quite well at this stage and I was no longer the last man in the line.
Above our last stop were these wonderful bassalt formations. Not the usual straight up and down stuff but actual rosettes created during a volcanic eruption. Can you see the face in the formation below?
finally reached Árbæjar church, this church seats 40, and has a service once a year - to get there is quite difficult but once a few years ago 400 people came to the service (the service is radioed to cars that are on the other side of the river... ) Needless to say an historic and amazing site.
Last downhill, we had to go down and the walk along the river bank, which sometimes wasn´t a bank but rather rockfall, loose rock fall, yet again I fell to the back of the line and had to be molly coddled along.
Last challenge the final river crossing, this time across the eastern glacial river, in a box, held up by two steel wires and pulled across the river by the third in the control of Gisli.... do I look scared, - I was shitting myself...
If I look like I am smiling - I am faking it... I closed my eyes after this and once I reached the other side - faked it and said -that was a piece of cake....
On the other side armed with a shot of whiskey - don´t we all look extremely pleased with ourselves??
This was an amazing trip, I am so glad that I did it..
After this we were taken by bus back to Bakkaflöt where we all settled into hot tubs with a beer and let the hot water take out some of our pain... the beer fixed the rest. Then we had dinner of roast lamb, rather yum, before heading back home at around 9.30pm.
I can still feel pain when I think of the back pack, but hey it was worth it... now the question is - what next?
The photos are from Maggi´s camera as well as mine, I have uploaded them on flickr if you want to check them all out - be warned there are lots and lots and lots
The photos are from Maggi´s camera as well as mine, I have uploaded them on flickr if you want to check them all out - be warned there are lots and lots and lots
