Settlement Exhibition

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Today is my last in Reykjavik for a few days as I'm flying up to the north of the country to a base in Akureyri, Iceland's second largest town. With bags sorted into 'to stay' and 'to go' I leave my large bag in the hands of Reykjavik Downtown Hostel's capable reception staff and head off for a few hours mooching on my way to the airport. I've decided to walk there via a few geocaches and hopefully a perusal of the Settlement Exhibition that's so far been closed for the duration of the religious holiday that is now known as annoyingly disruptive Easter!

When I get to the exhibition entrance it's not looking too hopeful, but I push on the door and find that it IS open after all. I walk down the spiral staircase and find myself in an underground bunker that looks pretty gloomy and not really very inviting, but hey let's give it a go. Boy am I in for a surprise as this exhibition completely blows me away. It's the best interpretation of archaeological remains I've ever come across and the interactive technology used is simply stunning. So how to describe this masterpiece... well the main attraction is in the centre of the bunker/room - it's basically a really long earthen mound with stone walls on the sides - a typical ruined 'building' that we normally have to try and imagine complete with walls and rooms etc. but here we are helped out quite a bit. I find out the ruins were once 3 - 5 long houses from the first century after the settlement of Iceland. All around the wall runs a photograph of the surrounding landscape and every so often this is punctuated by a video screen that blends perfectly in with the photo but with ghostly white figures carrying out some activity in the landscape - pushing a boat to shore, working on an anvil, rounding up some sheep, chasing and killing a puffin etc. These figures slowly disappear back into the landscape and leave a fleeting impression of their presence floating across time. Sounds accompany their toil with birds and sheep and clanging metal enveloping your senses, bringing the characters to life. Further round the room is a massive, oval, touch-screen table at about hip height (or thigh height in my case - I have long legs!). There's the outline of the building and as you press your hand down on the words, out sweeps information and part of the building opens up to reveal what is inside. You can click through more information and there's everything from facts and figures to tales from the Icelandic Sagas, how the settlers used to live and how they made things. It's utterly absorbing and the technology reveals layer upon layer of pictures, photos, videos, more ghostly figures and is completely fascinating. Another brilliant interactive touch screen is in the form of concentric circles that you drag your finger around and a corresponding image on the video screen in front of you spins a 3D picture of the various stages of build of the long house around so you can see it from all angles. As you drag your finger towards the outer circles the more complete the building becomes until you are eventually spinning it around in the wider landscape that you had seen all around the walls. Completely brilliant!

Wow! I was amazed at how much I learnt and how brilliantly the technology had brought to life the settlement archaeology. I made sure I took loads of photos and videos to show my colleagues back at my own national park in the UK. Loads of fabulous ideas for funding bids for some of our own projects for sure!

Biggest geocache container in the world!

I am kind of spaced out after such an amazing experience at the Settlement Exhibition so walk in a bit of a daze in the vague direction of the airport intending to find a geocache I'd made special preparations for before coming to Iceland - it involved eyes and a smile - but more of that later. First I find myself on the famous Laugevagur main shopping street and happen across loads of interesting and quirky things along the way; from huge trolls in shop windows, to gold sequin knickers on display models, single gloves looking for love, how to tie your tie instructions on a gable wall, some wooden scaffolding, a busker group, and the famous Penis Museum (yes really!). Finally I get out of the main shopping area and nearer to where my famous geocache is hidden. I spot a mural on the gable end of a building, a kind of underwater, fishy, hair swirly painting in wonderful blue-green colours. This is the right place, I remember it from looking up the cache when I was back home, so I climb over the little fence and there under the wooden pallets in a big pit is the biggest geocache container in the world! Actually I don't know if that's true but it is ENORMOUS! I take loads of photos and know that I'm probably being watched from the flats that surround the bit of rough ground where the cache is hidden. 'Takk for the cache' I add to my log entry in the massive A4 hard-back book. I put the eyes and smile I'd printed off in the UK on the side of the container and take another photo before finally replacing the cache back in the pit it is hidden in ready for the next geocacher to find. What a brilliant cache to find in Iceland.

Next on my long trek in the vague direction of the airport is the Frisbee Park. I'm not expecting to see anyone actually chucking frisbees around as I think of this as a summer activity, but lo and behold there are a couple of guys going around the various stations trying to hit targets or get the frisbee between marker points. I head towards the corner tree where, just as I'm grabbing the very obvious container hanging from a branch, I'm met by yet another geocacher! This guy is also from America, this time from Washington. We take another geocacher selfie to celebrate our find and swap a few geocaching tails before I realise time is ticking and I ought to be heading towards the airport.

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