No view from the window intro today, too excited, too much to tell, what a day!
Our personal tour guide, Inge, picked us up in his super jeep at 9am - so breakfast at 8am & hence no view from the window shot of total darkness, to take us on the Golden Circle tour. And before you ask, Aussies, the tour did not include pineapple. First stop Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National park, east of Reykjavík. This area is known for being the site of Iceland's parliament from the 10th to 18th centuries and for a chasm caused by the separation of 2 tectonic plates which leaves Asia on one side, America on the other. We were here by 10:30am, still pre-dawn, I love this place
We went for a walk and saw pretty snow-covered things, all things should be snow-covered IHMO. Snow just makes everything so sparkly and clean, until the end of the season.
As we walked along the path, the big geyser erupted. Even though we knew this was going to happen, it was what we'd come to see after all, we all still jumped - surprised at the force with which this water was expelled from the earth. This event only happens every 20 minutes or so. We'd seen it. We were happy to retreat into the cafe warmth for some sustenance, but not Tony the Intrepid. He'd seen but was chagrined not to have captured so I'll slightly sheepishly admit that we left him there, finger poised or rather frozen on to the shutter of his trusty Nikon. And I blush to now share the picture with you, with his kind permission, that I went to absolutely no effort to get.
Going past this on the side of the "road" was a little bit alarming.
I say "road" because by now all we could see was this and Inge was using a very beefy looking sat nav to navigate the terrain. Driving in deep snow is very bouncy, especially sitting in the very back seat (Allans call it the Ricky seat). I have come to realise that I like movey modes of transport. I loved the gentle sway of the ship and also enjoyed the stormy tossing on high seas. I like turbulence on a plane and I now now that I LOVE bouncing over deep snow. I think this is perhaps unusual? Might explain why I enjoy roller coasters.
When we came across other travellers Inge would just go around them, you don't have to worry about passing when the road is in inverted commas. The snow was starting to look more like blizzard and we could see another super jeep and a monster jeep (really. that's what they're called) stopped up ahead. So, picture this, the road curves around like the curved part of a capital D, the other vehicles are stuck on the curved bit, so Inge goes around them by following the the straight line. Only this is fresh deep snow and we quickly come to a sidewards facing stop.
There is quiet in the car. We all know what each other thinking:headlines "4 trusting Aussies freeze to death in super jeep" but Inge was not at all concerned. He got out of the car and reduced the tyre pressure. Got back in and started rocking the car backwards and forwards to compact the snow into an icy driving surface. I actually wasn't worried at all, I was having fun, but as we know I like this kind of bouncy motion. Some others in the car were looking very worried, Tony I'm looking at you.
In a spectacular feat of driving prowess Inge got us safely to our next destination which was a Skidoo hut. We thought our Ski-doo adventure would be cancelled because of the blizzard conditions but no, we were on! Okay then ... I've never ridden one of these suckers on my own before, it's a white out, I look like an enormous Jaffa in my gear - let's get this party started.
That's me on the left. Then began the most terrifying 60 minutes of my life. That helmet is too big for me, so bumping over snow drifts forced it forward and pushed my glasses down. add to this my visor fogged up and with the white out and I couldn't actually see where I was going at all, terr-if-y-ing! I started seeing my life slip before my eyes, started breathing very heavily ... more fogging up of the visor, wonderful. The guide was very patient with me and helped to control my panic until we reached the rest point.
This much need break was in the snow filled crater of a volcano. THAT took away my fears pretty quick smart, I mean how absolutely gobsmakingly amazing it that. Also MGM tightened my helmet & gave me a little pep talk so I was better prepared to start off again.
So with my new mid-set of relax and let yourself enjoy this experience, we set off for home-base. I was driving into the blizzard this time. For something so soft snow can really bite when it's hitting you in the face at speed, but it was good because my face was so cold there was no fogging up the visor. Being able to see was a fantastic advantage. I then I really started to enjoy myself. I let out the throttle and did a lot of squealing as I came out of my seat going over unseen obstacles - just as well I was white-knuckling those handle bars.
I was entirely ready to go right back out again now that I knew how to have fun with this ski-doo thing but of course not an option - we had more to see - but first we had to get down off the glacier. Did I mention I was ski-dooing on a glacier? pretty cool right!
Getting back down off the glacier was enormous fun (if you're me), out-rag-e-ous-ly scary (if you're Tony) and mildly terrifying (if you're Wendy B and MGM). Inge used the sat nav again, because for a while we couldn't see the road markers, sticks poking up on the roadside that make no sense at all until you're travelling along the road in heavy snow. We did go slipping and sliding there for a while, Inge just calmly let the air out of the tires and went about his work - this is his day job after all. At one point Tony, who was sitting in front, asked 'are we on the road' and Inge replied, 'the road is (slight hesitation) nearby'. We laughed but Inge wasn't being intentionally funny.
Here we are about to set off.
We had one more stop at Gullfoss, which is a pretty spectacular waterfall.
Before returning to the hotel, very happy to still be alive. I was all for going straight to bed but we are responsible adults so we followed Tony's nose to a backpaker's chinese buffet, dutifully ate our dins and THEN came back to the hotel for en masse collapsing because
a) we'd had a big day
&
b) there's another big day tomorrow!
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