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A new Thing... ICELAND
I went to Icleand last weekend. All by myself, in order to do a "trial run" to see how suitable it is to take you, dear readers, out there. I met up with my Icelandic contact Haddi, and we had an ADVENTURE. Click for more info here
Iceland was superb. You have to do it. Fantastic. See attached photo, click it. This was approx 10 :00 / 10:30 at night, me riding on the longest day of year - in fact in permanent daylight. We rode 'til 1:00am on Thursday night (Fri am), put tent up at 02:00am by the Snaefellsjokull glacier - sun still shining of course, rode till 23:45 on Friday night - then got hammered in the small town of Isafjordur - rode back to Reykjavik on Saturday, got back at midnight. Played on Haddi's quads on Sunday morning, before flying back to Stanstead.
Thursday night to Sat night we did 1200km!!!!! Much of it on unsurfaced roads, as pictured. Certainly no motorway or dual carriageway. Permanent blue sky & sunshine. Except for one tiny black cloud over a Volcano on Saturday evening, where it rained for just 3 minutes.
We went right up to the Northwest tip of Iceland - the Western Fjiords. Off the beaten track, off the tourist route. Perhaps NOT the area I'd recommend for a first time visit, although stunningly beautiful, there's little geothermic activity there compared with the rest of the island. This Fire & Ice, geysir / volcano stuff is really a must when you first go to Iceland. Anyone interested in physical geography or geology would simply LOVE this place. Where we went this time is very quiet & deserted. No exaggeration, once we'd left the Reykvakic area, we saw a total of about 12 cars out on the road, and 1 other motorbike.
Wow! This is truly an amazing place. 100% recommended.
It wasn't my first visit there (I first went in 2006), and it certainly won't be my last.
I have quite a bit of Alps admin to do right now, and I'm going to see Shrek, still in hospital, but soom there'll be a full write up on the Icelend mini-tour, and some suggestions on how you can go and do it also. If interested, email me ASAP. The summer is but short. Book yourself a flight with Icleand Express like I did (or Iceland Air), and you too can do this.
It's quite tough going though, if you really want to see the place properly - not just doing the tourist day tours from a comfy hotel base in Reykjavic.
Contact myself or Haddi (in Iceland) to get this sorted ASAP. Haddi +354 695 1855
see www.adventuremag.net to see my trip report on last years tour. We go again 18th to 22nd June 2009.
Haddi is a nice guy who speaks good English. He lived & worked in Bournemouth for quite a long time. He has Suzuki V-Strom 650s, a couple of Kawasaki KLR 650s, some Kawasaki Versys bikes and at least 4 quads for hire. This is the new thing. I'm hoping these tours are the start of many. The trouble, this is real, proper adventure. Many potential customers don't actually want this. They want pretend adventure, "soft adventure" with 4 star hotel at the end of the day and a warm garage for the GS.
I don't do that kind of thing.
There are no hotels AT ALL in the interior of Iceland, so I couldn't use one, even if I wanted to. These interior dirt roads only open in July & August. We go beyond the Golden Trianlge of South West Iceland. Yes, it's fair to say, you can stay in a hotel in Reykjavik, and see a lots of the sights of Iceland from a the seat of a heated tourist coach, as "day trips".
I prefer to ride and sleep out in the wilderness, and lounge in a natural hot spring at midnight. With not a normal Tourist in sight. |
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