West

Jackie woke me up at the ungodly hour of 2.05am. She was already showered & dressed - weirdo.

The taxi arrived at 3am & delivered us at Gatwick for a painless check-in for our EasyJet flight to Reykjavik. The aircraft was less than a third full, which gave us plenty of room to relax for the 2 hour 50 minute flight.

By 8.00am local time, (Iceland is an hour behind us) we had cleared immigration & customs with our smuggled contraband sloshing around in our rucksacks. We were met by a less than friendly driver from Ace Car Rental who drove us to the rental office just outside the airport.

At the office, the agent got our booking up on the computer & declared that we were not insured with them, but with another company called Discovery Cars. The agent started regaling damage horror stories & nearly convinced me that I needed to cancel my inferior Discovery Cars insurance that cost me just £60 & take out their comprehensive insurance package at £361. Luckily I came to my senses just in time, when I read in my paperwork that the car rental agents would try this on but our insurance cover was more than satisfactory.

After inspecting our car, a Dacia Duster, Jackie & I set off on our travels. Literally 2 miles down the road, Jackie noticed that we already had a chip in the windscreen. Good start, I suspect that it was already there hidden amongst the rain droplets.

We headed north, clockwise on Route 1, skirting round Reykjavik & out into the relative wilderness. Most cars on the road were tourists mainly driving Dusters. Every so often we found ourselves in a small Duster convoy!

Our 1st stop of the day was The Settlement Centre at Borgarnes. Lonely Planet identified this as a Must Visit Recommendation, which offered a fascinating insight into the history of Icelandic Settlement & the Saga era. We arrived at the exact same time as a coach party of annoying OAPs, so we diverted to the cafe for a reasonably priced (£4) Americano coffee.

Half an hour later we embarked on the 2 x 30 minute audio guided tours, which cost us nearly £20 each. The 1st tour told the story of the Vikings settling in Iceland. The 2nd tour told of Egil’s Saga, the amazing/murderous adventures of Egil Skallagrimsson, with his dodgy eye & his family. It was a nice, but expensive introduction to Iceland.

Before leaving Borgarnes, I took a wrong turning & managed to drive through the middle of a crowded school playground, much to the dismay of several parents. We also stopped at a Netto Discount Store & bought a mini pepperoni pizza & gallons of mixers for our duty frees.

Just outside Borgarnes, we hit Highway 54 & continued north west, then west along the southern coast of the long arm of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. The scenery was stunning with snow capped mountains to our right & the North Atlantic Ocean to our left. On the Snæfellsnes Peninsula we discovered/followed the other Dusters to a number of small stopping areas at significant geographical, historical or legendary sites.

Our first stop was the site of Oxl Farm, where lived Iceland’s best known serial killer, Axlar-Bjorn. He is believed to have killed 18 travellers, but he only confessed to killing 9. He was executed in 1596.

Our 2nd stop was Raudfeldar Canyon. The half-man and half-troll Bardur Snæfellsas and his voluptuous and handsome daughters lived nearby. Allegedly after a ‘domestic’ with his brother’s family, Bardur pushed his nephew, Raudfeldar into the canyon hence the name. Bardur went into hiding in the glacier & was never seen again.

It was a long walk to the canyon, so we gave it a miss especially as the wind was getting up and was bitterly cold!

The next stops after turning left on to Route 574 were the small coastal village of Hellnar & then to a viewpoint for nesting seagulls on the cliffs.

By now it was mid afternoon & we were getting tired, so we continued our drive around the perimeter of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula to our hotel. The drive took us through Snæfellsjökull National Park, where the coast road circumnavigated Snæfellsjökull, which is a 700,000-year-old glacier-capped stratovolcano.

We then drove back along the northern shores of the peninsula through the small towns of Ólafsvík & Grundarfjörður, before arriving at our home for the night, Stykkishólmur. We had driven a total of 359 kilometres today.

It wasn’t hard to find our bright yellow Akkeri Guesthouse, where we received a warm welcome with a mug of coffee. Our room with a balcony was ideal. Kristin our host recommended 2 local restaurants, but upon research discovered that between them they had just one non fish dish & the mains started at £30….ouch.

We were too tired to appreciate such an expensive meal so we settled on the fish & chip van at the port. At the van the choice was not exactly extensive, solely ‘Fish and Chips’ costing around £15. After about a minute of waiting, the opaque shutter opened and I ordered one portion of fish & chips. The miserable chippie said “Just the one?” & I confirmed, but as I started to enquire whether he would prefer me to pay by cash or card he slammed the shutter shut, à la ‘Kiosk Keith’!

10 minutes later our fish & chip supper was ready, which we ate in the car. Jackie had 2 large portions of battered fish, believed to be cod, which she reckoned to be the best battered fish she had ever eaten. Sadly the chips weren’t spectacular & to make matters worse I accidentally tipped over the pot of chilli mayonnaise which as luck would have it landed on top of the gearstick!

We drove home, had a couple of glasses of white wine on the balcony & went to bed around 9.00pm with it still broad daylight outside.

Song of the Day: Volcano by Damien Rice.Read more