I met the rest of the group at the airport and it was lovely
to catch up with Jill and Jo again.
Paul, the other original member of the Finland Gang, was already in
Iceland having done a week’s photography with another group. Wendy and Colin the new members seem lovely
and have been on Rob’s trips before so I’m sure will fit in splendidly.
The flight was very nice and very uneventful, I was fairly
near the back and had two seats to myself so plugged in the headphones and
watched a film.
As you can see from these snaps the land is very barren but there appears to be very
little snow!
When our cases finally came through (seemingly after two
subsequent flights from Paris and Berlin (I blame Brexit!) we got out to meet
Rob, Dirk and Paul. We had a long drive
ahead of us, to practically the opposite side of the island and Rob thought it
would take 5-6 hours including a stop.
So we went to a nearby supermarket and stocked up with snacks for the
journey. The scenery was breathtaking
and ever changing but all the camera gear was stowed in the boot and my phone
really isn’t up to the job. I hope on
the way home we’ll be able to stop in places and take a few pictures.
After about 2 hours we stopped at a roadside restaurant
which Rob had pre-booked and luckily too as the place was completely empty and
what made us all crack up was when the waiter/barman/ chef took our order, he carefully
noted down the table number. Still the
food was very nice and fortunately for me they took credit card (for some
strange reason I didn’t think I’d need currency – whoops!). Whilst we were eating it started to snow
quite heavily and the roads quickly covered, but we drove out of the snow in
about an hour. To cut a long story short
it was a very, very long trip and we finally got to our hotel in Hali just
before 1am. Poor Dirk had to stop several
times as he was in danger of falling asleep and the road is so monotonous, just
a more or less straight line and marker posts every few meters (to keep you on
the road in deep snow). There was very
little traffic but what there was you could see coming for miles as there are
no trees, buildings, bends or any landscape features. He did a great job and we all crashed out for
the night in very comfortable, if simple, rooms.