It´s all in the name...

ICE-land...I know it sounds cold, but you would think that by May things would have been a little warmer. Well you would be wrong!

Izzy and I were intending to go exploring yesterday over the mountain, visiting a museum and the National Park Centre before having dinner with some artists in Seyðisfjörður.  Unfortunately it did not quite work out that way.  Over the last couple of days the winds have been coming from the north and the temperature has been hovering around freezing. We have had ice cold rain and sleet, then yesterday it began to snow.

We abandoned our trip out, but got a lift into town with Oli and Bjarki in time to have a lovely dinner, a few beers and spend the night in town.

Returning this morning, with a hay bale on a trailer, was a very "interesting" drive along the track to Skalanes. Drifting snow had made it hard to see the track (and ditches, rocks and streams!) and only Oli´s 3/4 buried tracks from the day before gave me any idea where the track actually was. Now normally the 4x4 (Nissan Patrol) would have coped fine, but also towing a trailer with a hay bale things started to get difficult as the car fought for grip and pulled itself and the trailer up the track. 

 

Now I am very glad that last summer I did my LANTRA Professional Off-Road Driving course and also that I spent a snowy winter at the RSPB Forsinard Reserve in the North of Scotland. So that when the car was sliding at a 45 degree angle across the track I did not panic, but followed what I had been taught and learned from experience.

As I have said, it was an interesting drive but also a very beautiful one, with a blue sky and sunshine over the snow covered mountains.  Luckily Skalanes itself is free of snow, so as the track come back down to the coast the driving was much easier. We even came across a herd of Reindeer (15 of them) and can add Snow Bunting to our reserve bird list.

Drivers view of the track out to Skalanes

Oli´s tracks from the day before were the only guide to where the track is!

Beautiful day for a drive!

The view looking towards skalanes

The new sign just beyond our first carpark
(You wouldn´t have even made the carpark today without a 4x4!!)

Back at Skalanes we discovered we had a burst pipe in the boiler room, so we are currently without water until tomorrow, and Oli just phoned to let us know one of the Volcanoes in the South has erupted. It is not expected to cause the same ash cloud as the one last year (as it is under a glacier) but it will probably cause flooding in the south of Iceland.

Well...what can I say, Iceland is an interesting place to live and work!!