09 May WHEN IS A TRIP NOT A TRIP? – WHEN IT’S AN ADVENTURE
In this title I am trying to capture that age old joke “when is a door not a door?- When It’s ajar!” Boom Boom!! It feels really relevant here because this trip was not a traditional holiday but rather a trip with a very real purpose that had less to do with relaxing and much more to do with exploring and discovering and absorbing. For some of you this may be exactly what a holiday isbut I always associate holidays withswitching off from the day job but this was definitely not the case here. The day job was the reason we were going. The only difference being that my day job is exploratory and absorbing and fun. I wouldn’t go as far as suggesting it’s relaxing but I knew I had everything I needed with me for the trip to be a success, a treat and amazing- I had my family with me to share it with and make it actually happen. However, this trip had never been anything other than an unimaginable adventure that I could hardly believe was happening. I kept saying to my children “remember girls I am working and I will need you to help me. This is not an ordinary holiday it’s a working holiday for me but I promise you it will be fun”. It’s funny really because I think I was reminding myself more than I was telling the children. The girls were just so happy to be having this amazing adventure. I was simply trying to map it out in my own mind how this would need to unfold to ensure we achieved our main objective- to interpret Iceland as an artist and to my best ability. I didn’t want to ruin it for the children by banging on about it but I had to keep at the forefront of my mind that we needed to record this trip all the way. It took a little bit of managing on the first day of the road trip as we all squabbled over cameras etc but I have to give praise to my husband and children for truly entering in to the mindset of the artist and an artist with a mission! I would go as far as saying that having this key focus made the trip so enjoyable as a family as we all had each other’s perspective at the forefront of our minds. We valued each of our interpretations and shared so much and I don’t think we would have got as close to Iceland and each other if we had we not had this as our focus.
Our first steps on Icelandic Soil!
We arrived in Keflavik Airport on Thursday 19th October 2017, early afternoon and the first job was to sort out our car rental. We were driven to the car company about 1 mile from the airport and picked up a Fiat saloon car that would be transporting us around the island. We were briefed on what we could and couldn’t do and insured ourselves for every eventuality before getting behind the wheel and then remembering the wheel was on the other side swapped seats! Whilst Paul huffed and puffed until he had linked up his phone to the car, I walked round the car to check tyres were good and that there were no obvious scratches on the exterior. All was good and we smiled the brightest smiles as we drove off on the correct side of the road to the sounds of SigurRos teasing our ears.
We had driven less than a mile when we noticed a light had not gone off on the dashboard!! We looked in the manual and it sounded important but carried on for a few more miles then agreed that we had to go back to check since we had the car for 5 days and we needed it to work! We returned to the car company only to be informed that the light never goes off because of the turnover over of cars that they service they don’t always get to re-program the systems. The car company had been really helpful locating our apartment in Reykavik and had gone out of their way to find directions for us so we accepted them on their word and drove off happily in to the unknown. The car served us well for the duration of our trip!
As we drove away on road No. 41 from Keflavik towards road No. 413 to Reykavik we took in the semi industrial landscape which consisted mostly of warehouse-type constructions, Petrol stations, retail showrooms, manufacturing plants, fisheries and Bonus food outlets as I remember until we got closer to Reykavik and saw the vast metroplolis of its suburbs. I sketched in my sketchbook the change from low, long rectangular buildings nearer the airport to sparsely distributed one story cabins and bunkhouse style houses as we stretched in to the countryside. This soon changed to larger two storey style houses which were still quite sparsely distributed until entering the outer suburbs of Reykavik. Here the urban landscape became dense, high rise 6 story blocks, retail parks and housing developments with lots of glass in their structure.
The children were delighted to see familiar brands such as Sports Direct and Ikea but were more impressed that Iceland had an Iceland food shop! They sent images back home celebrating that lovely play on words. Another observation was the numerous sports fitness centres we passed along the way. Fitness was big in Iceland and strength building exercise venues were everywhere.
The road system was quite baffling but we did eventually find our apartment block thanks to the details given to us by the car company. We were tucked behind a Fitness centre in what were termed luxurious apartments. The apartment block was very modern and still had lots of development going on around it so much so that during our brief stay the most delicious restaurant and deli opened during the weekend we were there.
We were arriving late (after 6pm) and we were not sure if any one would be there to let us in but we were pleased to see an office light on at the back of the building. There is no two ways about it- an absolutely beautiful man with piercing blue eyes, shaved head and a black puffer jacket on (I think he probably did have trousers on but my eyes didn’t progress further than his upper torso) greeted us.
He showed us to our apartment and we settled in. I genuinely panicked as we started to unpack and I promise I didn’t find just any reason to run back down to the office to chat to the beautiful Icelandic person but I had to ascertain if the pillows and duvets were duck feather. They felt like duck feather and if they were then we had a problem because my elder daughter cannot breathe in their presence. Said, beautiful man was 99.9% sure they were simply luxurious padding but not duck feather and we returned to our room hoping that was so. Worse scenario the room was so hot due to the phenomenal heat generated from the geothermal heating that Iceland offers its residents we could have coped by putting the quilts and pillows outside and dressing in our clothes for bed. Thankfully, said beautiful Icelandic person was right.Phew !!! Next morning I ran down to the office and declared “We are all still alive! Thank you! You were right they were not duck feather.” He greeted me with a nod and a smile.
Now that we had had our first night in Iceland we needed to prepare for the official Road Trip. We picked up food from the Bonus store for the day and the night ahead. We knew we were not coming back to the apartment that night as we had booked in to a bunkhouse on the West coast to help us achieve a greater insight in to the landscape. We re-packed a small case with a change of clothes and we packed a selection of food for the journey and something to eat that night. Breakfast was included in the bunkhouse the following day and we thought we would eat out for lunch on Saturday. That was the plan. We felt we needed a bit of a food plan as everyone had told us about the price of eating out and the cost of living in general in Iceland. We had already noticed it, so tried to budget a bit whilst also trying to literally, get a “taste”of the place.
Leaving the apartment to start the road trip was easy. We picked up the right road and before we knew it we were out of the suburbs and cruising in the right direction. Immediately the children and I started photographing everything we passed as if our lives depended on it. It took us a good hour in to the journey to appreciate that what we thought was worth capturing at the beginning was truly out shone by the sights we saw as we progressed further north. With no disrespect to the landscape, towns and villages that we were passing after leaving the suburbs of Reykavik it was not until we had entered the 9km underground tunnel and headed “properly up country” did we realise what was to come.
In this title I am trying to capture that age old joke “when is a door not a door?- When It’s ajar!” Boom Boom!! It feels really relevant here because this trip was not a traditional holiday but rather a trip with a very real purpose that had less to do with relaxing and much more to do with exploring and discovering and absorbing. For some of you this may be exactly what a holiday isbut I always associate holidays withswitching off from the day job but this was definitely not the case here. The day job was the reason we were going. The only difference being that my day job is exploratory and absorbing and fun. I wouldn’t go as far as suggesting it’s relaxing but I knew I had everything I needed with me for the trip to be a success, a treat and amazing- I had my family with me to share it with and make it actually happen. However, this trip had never been anything other than an unimaginable adventure that I could hardly believe was happening. I kept saying to my children “remember girls I am working and I will need you to help me. This is not an ordinary holiday it’s a working holiday for me but I promise you it will be fun”. It’s funny really because I think I was reminding myself more than I was telling the children. The girls were just so happy to be having this amazing adventure. I was simply trying to map it out in my own mind how this would need to unfold to ensure we achieved our main objective- to interpret Iceland as an artist and to my best ability. I didn’t want to ruin it for the children by banging on about it but I had to keep at the forefront of my mind that we needed to record this trip all the way. It took a little bit of managing on the first day of the road trip as we all squabbled over cameras etc but I have to give praise to my husband and children for truly entering in to the mindset of the artist and an artist with a mission! I would go as far as saying that having this key focus made the trip so enjoyable as a family as we all had each other’s perspective at the forefront of our minds. We valued each of our interpretations and shared so much and I don’t think we would have got as close to Iceland and each other if we had we not had this as our focus.
Our first steps on Icelandic Soil!
We arrived in Keflavik Airport on Thursday 19th October 2017, early afternoon and the first job was to sort out our car rental. We were driven to the car company about 1 mile from the airport and picked up a Fiat saloon car that would be transporting us around the island. We were briefed on what we could and couldn’t do and insured ourselves for every eventuality before getting behind the wheel and then remembering the wheel was on the other side swapped seats! Whilst Paul huffed and puffed until he had linked up his phone to the car, I walked round the car to check tyres were good and that there were no obvious scratches on the exterior. All was good and we smiled the brightest smiles as we drove off on the correct side of the road to the sounds of SigurRos teasing our ears.
We had driven less than a mile when we noticed a light had not gone off on the dashboard!! We looked in the manual and it sounded important but carried on for a few more miles then agreed that we had to go back to check since we had the car for 5 days and we needed it to work! We returned to the car company only to be informed that the light never goes off because of the turnover over of cars that they service they don’t always get to re-program the systems. The car company had been really helpful locating our apartment in Reykavik and had gone out of their way to find directions for us so we accepted them on their word and drove off happily in to the unknown. The car served us well for the duration of our trip!
As we drove away on road No. 41 from Keflavik towards road No. 413 to Reykavik we took in the semi industrial landscape which consisted mostly of warehouse-type constructions, Petrol stations, retail showrooms, manufacturing plants, fisheries and Bonus food outlets as I remember until we got closer to Reykavik and saw the vast metroplolis of its suburbs. I sketched in my sketchbook the change from low, long rectangular buildings nearer the airport to sparsely distributed one story cabins and bunkhouse style houses as we stretched in to the countryside. This soon changed to larger two storey style houses which were still quite sparsely distributed until entering the outer suburbs of Reykavik. Here the urban landscape became dense, high rise 6 story blocks, retail parks and housing developments with lots of glass in their structure.
The children were delighted to see familiar brands such as Sports Direct and Ikea but were more impressed that Iceland had an Iceland food shop! They sent images back home celebrating that lovely play on words. Another observation was the numerous sports fitness centres we passed along the way. Fitness was big in Iceland and strength building exercise venues were everywhere.
The road system was quite baffling but we did eventually find our apartment block thanks to the details given to us by the car company. We were tucked behind a Fitness centre in what were termed luxurious apartments. The apartment block was very modern and still had lots of development going on around it so much so that during our brief stay the most delicious restaurant and deli opened during the weekend we were there.
We were arriving late (after 6pm) and we were not sure if any one would be there to let us in but we were pleased to see an office light on at the back of the building. There is no two ways about it- an absolutely beautiful man with piercing blue eyes, shaved head and a black puffer jacket on (I think he probably did have trousers on but my eyes didn’t progress further than his upper torso) greeted us.
He showed us to our apartment and we settled in. I genuinely panicked as we started to unpack and I promise I didn’t find just any reason to run back down to the office to chat to the beautiful Icelandic person but I had to ascertain if the pillows and duvets were duck feather. They felt like duck feather and if they were then we had a problem because my elder daughter cannot breathe in their presence. Said, beautiful man was 99.9% sure they were simply luxurious padding but not duck feather and we returned to our room hoping that was so. Worse scenario the room was so hot due to the phenomenal heat generated from the geothermal heating that Iceland offers its residents we could have coped by putting the quilts and pillows outside and dressing in our clothes for bed. Thankfully, said beautiful Icelandic person was right.Phew !!! Next morning I ran down to the office and declared “We are all still alive! Thank you! You were right they were not duck feather.” He greeted me with a nod and a smile.
Now that we had had our first night in Iceland we needed to prepare for the official Road Trip. We picked up food from the Bonus store for the day and the night ahead. We knew we were not coming back to the apartment that night as we had booked in to a bunkhouse on the West coast to help us achieve a greater insight in to the landscape. We re-packed a small case with a change of clothes and we packed a selection of food for the journey and something to eat that night. Breakfast was included in the bunkhouse the following day and we thought we would eat out for lunch on Saturday. That was the plan. We felt we needed a bit of a food plan as everyone had told us about the price of eating out and the cost of living in general in Iceland. We had already noticed it, so tried to budget a bit whilst also trying to literally, get a “taste”of the place.
Leaving the apartment to start the road trip was easy. We picked up the right road and before we knew it we were out of the suburbs and cruising in the right direction. Immediately the children and I started photographing everything we passed as if our lives depended on it. It took us a good hour in to the journey to appreciate that what we thought was worth capturing at the beginning was truly out shone by the sights we saw as we progressed further north. With no disrespect to the landscape, towns and villages that we were passing after leaving the suburbs of Reykavik it was not until we had entered the 9km underground tunnel and headed “properly up country” did we realise what was to come.
We had been told about an underground tunnel that we would need to go in but I don’t remember anyone stating how long it was. Had I realised I wouldn’t have embraced myself and children in our favourite game of “hold your breath while we go in the tunnel”! The tunnel was about 9km long and completely underground. We lasted our usual 30 seconds then took a deep breath in. Oh my goodness it was horrible. I am so claustrophobic I had to talk myself through it! Then if that wasn’t bad enough as soon as you exit the underground tunnel my husband spotted we had gone through a toll booth camera. We had to pull over and walk back to pay a toll at the Toll booths that we had missed. Others had done the same and they staff seemed quite accustomed to people paying on foot having missed the signs.
Since we had parked up we took some shots of the mist hanging low over hills. It was quite haunting and almost melancholic watching hillsides disappear under mist.
We followed this misty, foggy climate for a good hour passing between hillsides on one side and extensive fieldsinterspersed with distant coastline on the other. At times the mist and fog hung leaving gaps for light to creep through. We pulled over regularly to capture this increasingly remote landscape that delighted our view with startling drops of colour provided either by a roof top on a bunkhouse/ cabin or by a blast of colour from a beech coppice or an exposed iron rich rock.
The first part of day one of the Road trip was made richer by the solitude that the journey afforded. A Rock shuffle soundtrack was playing from Paul’s phone through the car stereo yet the journey was quiet and still. Whist Bruce Springsteen and Ryan Adams sang to us we simply looked in awe as the landscape unveiled itself to us as if it wished us to know it not just for it’s obvious beauty but also for its dark side too. I felt very heartened by this and very grateful to the landscape for trusting us but also for easing us gently in. I would go as far as saying this landscape was proving to be the greatest tour guide ever. It slowly revealed its secrets and teased us a bit with the fog and mist but never let us leave without witnessing something truly remarkable. This was sometimes a split second change as light crept in or a turning of the head for a moment to take in something else only to turn back round to see something utterly stunning. For example, the sunlight sweeping over the lower levels of a mountain side and across the plains in front. The stark contrast between the mist covered surroundings was incredible and physically caused an intake of breath. This landscape had changed in a split second. It was playing with us and we felt really privileged.
Our first official stop was Gerouberg to see the Basalt Columns. We passed the sign and had to turn back and park up along a gravel track. Our car insurance had stated we were not allowed to drive down gravel tracks so we got out in the pouring rain and walked the half mile down to the columns. We didn’t mind the walk despite the rain because we had been in the car for most of the day and we needed to stretch our legs and walk off some of the biscuits and crisps that had constituted “lunch”. It was a fine mist that absolutely drenched us and people drove past us in both cars and 4×4’s all nice and dry. We wondered if we had been silly not driving down but we came across a beautiful, intriguing set of buildings that we would have missed had we driven and we stopped for sometime to take photos and take it in.
It was a combination of derelict buildings, old farm machinery, cars etc. and was absolutely mesmerising. We took so many pictures from so many angles before moving on towards the Basalt columns.
We all took photographs as we walked around the area. We tried to notice as much as we could. We looked down at the fauna and up at the sky. We looked across and to each side. We recorded as much as we could. We tried to get a sense of the enormity these columns represented but even with my children upon the top the foreboding presence of these intrusions was difficult to capture.
I will leave it at the Basalt columns for today as I want to sit and reflect on it as the pictures are taking me back and I just want to time to think and remember and wallow in them before moving you on.
Thank you for travelling with me today,
Francine
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