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Published: September 24th 2008
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Lake Lögurinn
the moored boat offers evening cruises With the sun out and a warm breeze we had a walk round the landscape around the hostel. Kasia was feeling a bit under the weather from some pesky cold so we kept it fairly short.
We set off north, inland now over the pass deeper into Eastern Iceland. Up a gravel road (and on a steep bend) Rosa unexpectedly came face to face with a bus and became detached from her motorcycle. Unfortunately that wasn’t the only thing to be detached from the motorcycle - a footrest came off too. There was only one thing for it, as soon as we could get a safe place to stop, Erling and Rosa set about fixing the bike with whatever there was to hand. Remember that programme on the telly - “Rough Science”, where some scientists were dropped off somewhere isolated with a shed and some tools and told to refine gold? Well here was Rough Science in action! The only suitable thing to fix the footrest was a load of bamboo sticks wound tightly with elephant tape and soon enough we were back on the road. Or on track as it was hereabouts.
We rejoined Route 1 and descended
Snaefell
View from the plateau to Egilsstadir. That seemed difficult to pronounce so I stuck with referring to it as Aylesbury which was bit of Saxon ignorance from me (but close enough). Egilsstadir is the largest town in Eastern Iceland and it is functional both in its facilities and appearance. Think of a Scandinavian Didcot and reduce it in size, (remove the power station of course, and resize the Downs upwards a bit. With some snow on the tops too, for effect).
After a lunch we headed back south into the mountains again to the Hallormsstadarskógur Forest by the shore of Lake Lögurinn. In the middle of the woodland was a campsite, which was to be our base for the nest few days. Now Icelandic Forests are rare, so this was something distinctly exotic!
After the Scottish Highland landscape of the previous valley this was distinctly Pennine, with flat topped hills facing us. The lake was a milky green, presumably full of glacial debris. We pitched up tent and set up the camper and rustled up a good meal.
Next day Kasia and me set out on a walk, armed with a map, GPS and phone. The day was really warm, and
our intention was to walk over the hillside to the next dale. We picked the most likely waymarked path to to that, but unfortunately the trails did not quite tally with the map. Nevertheless it was a scenic ascent up through the forest, and Kasia found plenty of fine mushrooms for the pot later on that day. The treeline was at the same height as the treeline in many parts of Pennine England, which indicates how badly are trees managed in the Pennines! But here too it has been a problem, and deforestation elsewhere in Iceland has led to disastrous denudation of the soil. Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” has a section on Icelandic woodlands, their demise and the disappearance of the vulnerable light soils, and the massive problems for agriculture. We picked up another trail that was going over the top, and on the other side there were no trees, and pretty manky soil. The flowers almost disappeared too. We followed the waymarks, but near a farm they ominously disappeared, probably deliberately. We were not chuffed as we ended up crossing deep ditches and wire fence for the last few hundred metres. Being Iceland, we got a strong mobile signal in
Erling and the art of motorcyle Maintenance(2)
Next, tape sticks together in and then hammer them into the bike.... the middle of nowhere and I was able to text Erling to pick us up. Not only did we get picked up, but Erling dropped us off at the nearby swimming pool so we could have a refreshing dip afterwards. Lovely.
Next day we set out in the vehicle to explore the interior highlands. The road lasted as far as the new hydro-electric dam construction site. This dam was a big undertaking, and it was odd to be rolling along the Tibetan plateau type place passing blokes with turbans - workers had come from all over the world to work at the site. The reason for this huge project was to provide cheap power for a new aluminium plant on the coast. Meltwater from the glacier was piped through to another valley through tunnels and then a drop of 600m or so ensured the turbines would whizz, and all year round at that. We got a view of the dam now nearly complete, and the Dust Mountain. Dust Mountain was this windblown peak, the wind blew dust off it like some giant smouldering island in the rising waters of the dam. Our journey continued across this moonscape before descending
to marginal farmland further north, and then we rejoined the main road back towards Egilsstadir.
Our last day was an unexpected trip by air - by being so far from Reykjavik, Rosa and Erling decided to book us on an internal flight back - to save to long road trip back which would interrupt their break. So a quick drop off at Egilsstadir airport and we were on the 55 minute flight to Reykjavik. The journey was across the very centre of Iceland, a view of stark bleak rock, mountain top icecaps and the occasional lake. A screaming toddler just behind us reduced the enjoyment, and sadly those in charge had abrogated responsibility and had either ignored it or had earphones on.
We were met by Erling’s brother at the airport, and he dropped us off at the flat to pick up the rest of our things. Later on Erling’s Mum took us to Keflavik airport and our flight home via Manchester. The last bit of the trip was uneventful, save for some Americans being accused of shoplifting by security!
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