Icelandic magic lies outside Reykjavik

Iceland has been on my bucket list for at least the past five years. To pinpoint the initial interest, it goes back to Australian author, Hannah Kent's 2014 book, Burial Rites. Set in Iceland's north, the award-winning book tells the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, condemned to death in 1829 for her part in the brutal murder of two men. It's set in the landscape - a stark, cold, hard but beautiful landscape. From that point, I consumed just about everything Icelandic I could - teledramas like Trapped, and books, particularly Icelandic Nordic Noir, but also including ABC broadcaster Richard Fidler and author Kári Gíslason's Saga Land and The Almost Nearly Perfect People by UK journalist, Michael Booth (about the Nordic myth/miracle).

When I discovered a couple of artist residencies in the north of the country, my path was set. I just had to secure one. I applied for NES Artist Residency the day the applications opened for 2019 - that would have been towards the end of 2017. By February 2018, I knew I'd successfully gained a two-month placement for autumn 2019.

And here I am.

I'm not an enthusiastic traveller at the best of times. I hate the process of travel despite loving the destination once there. However, I was quietly excited on the plane from Bergen, Norway to Reykjavik. I just hoped it all lived up to my expectations that had been building over the past two years.

A low-key Reykjavik

Having experienced mostly warm, sunny days across most of Scandinavia, we were expecting a wet welcome to Iceland. We weren't disappointed. It didn't last long thankfully, as once we arrived at the bus terminal from the airport, we had about an 800 metre walk uphill to our guesthouse carrying and pulling our growing amount of luggage.

Reykjavik is not a glamorous or pretty city to travel into from the Keflavik airport - passing lava fields that look like a wasteland, with townships dotted along the 50km route into the city, abandoned and unkempt houses and industrial estates. There are almost no trees to be seen until you come closer to the city.

We finally found our guesthouse, about a 10-minute walk from the central bus station of Hlemmur and the main shopping street of Laugavegur. A key had been left out for us, and we found a note directing us to the backyard, where we thankfully discovered we were in a self-contained flat with our own bathroom. It wasn't the flashiest place we've stayed, but it was clean and dry.

Reykjavik granny flat: dry and warm

Our next job was to find a supermarket to buy breakfast and dinner and to scope the best places to buy the supplies I needed to take north with me - some cash, more thermal underthings, a thick jumper, SIM card, bus tickets (they come in packs of 20), batteries and food. Most things were located around Laugavegur - there's a Bonus or 10-11 supermarket on most blocks. They're similar in some ways with limited offerings, but only 10-11s stock SIM cards, which was on my list of must-buys.

Downtown Reykjavik

Mind-boggling currency conversions

One Australian dollar is worth 84.90ISK (Icelandic Krona), basically, you spend your time (when not using the great XE currency converter app), dividing everything by 85. I'm not a mathematician at the best of times, so I spent a lot of time with the app in action trying to get the essentials needed for a relatively comfortable two months up north. Iceland is expensive. I bought about two weeks of dry groceries at a discount supermarket near the hire car place before we left the city, and it came to about A$177. There wasn't much luxury on the list either.

One of the clothing items you see everyone wearing, including locals is the traditional lopapeysa (lopi means yarn, peysa means sweater) - the ones with the patterned yoke. If they're authentic, they're made with Icelandic wool, which is as coarse as a scouring pad. Interestingly, you'll find Merino wool used extensively across the Nordic countries for any cold-weather gear you wear close to your skin. I bought two superfine Merino t-shirts as extra thermals. I didn't bring heavy jumpers with me, largely because of the bulk of packing them, but I'd read that buying them second-hand in Reykjavik was the thing to do with a swathe of second-hand shops scattered along Laugavegur, some of them specialising in selling lopapeysa. New, these jumpers start at about A$330+, so second-hand sounded good to me. And I got lucky. It wasn't a traditional Icelandic jumper in terms of the patterned yoke (mine has a Viking symbol on the front), but it was hand-knitted, in good condition and great for layering on super cold days...and it cost me A$110.

Cam had left me to the shopping earlier in the morning, choosing to go sight-seeing instead given he wouldn't get another chance. He walked to the magnificent Harpa Concert Hall on the waterfront, co-designed by one of my favourite artists, the Danish-Icelandic artist Ólafur Elíasson. From there he made his way to Hallgrimskirkja - the cathedral with its 73m tower. Always one for a hike to the top for the view, Cam did just that, this time catching the available lift.

In my stroll along Laugavegur, I dropped in on a pop-up shop to see some handmade silver jewellery, where I got talking with the maker, an American who had settled in Iceland after marrying a native. We had a really interesting chat about life in Iceland and I promised to call back in when I come back at the end of October...I've got my eye on a lava rock silver ring if I have any money left by then.

An impossible language

With some of the supplies now bought, there were more bags to add to our already heavy luggage. Our guesthouse operator thankfully allowed us to keep them in our room a bit later than usual while we navigated public transport across the city to pick up the rental car, before coming back to pick them up. My Icelandic pronunciation was tested as we checked with the bus driver that he stopped at Fiskislóð, the bus stop closest to the rental place. Go on! Try saying Fiskislóð. It's easier if you pretend to have a mouth full of marbles because otherwise, no native speaking Icelander will understand you despite all efforts. We opted for the last stop on the run - Grandi - said as it sounds.

My inability to get my mouth around Icelandic words was once again highlighted at the car rental when trying to tell the guy behind the desk where we were heading. I've been practising Skagaströnd for nearly two years, after watching YouTube videos for the pronunciation, only to have the rental car guy look confused, asking me to repeat it. He eventually said ""Skagaströnd"...which was what I said, wasn't it?

Heading across the road to the big discount (used loosely) grocery store, we picked up the final items on the list of dry goods to take north, before setting the GPS for Akranes (for a bit of a look) on our way to Borganes (another place I'd been mispronouncing all along). Borganes is situated about 75km from Reykjavik in the middle of West Iceland, you pass by amazing lava mountains, with emerald green pastures at their base, paddock after paddock of wrapped silage and round bales of hay, Icelandic sheep and horses, and a few dairy cows. You pass under Hvalfjörður (the fjord) via a tunnel on the way to Akranes - a long tunnel.

And we're off in the Suzuki Vitara at a top speed of 90km/h

Just outside Reykjavik: Icelandic rainbows

With not much to see there, we moved on to Borganes for lunch at The Settlement Centre and a look through the museum documenting the story of Iceland's first settlers and Egill's Saga (c. 850–1000), Iceland´s most famous Viking and first poet, Egill Skallagrimsson. BTW, Egill is not pronounced the way you're saying it in your head. It was a really interesting telling of the story of settlement. Incredibly hard to visual Iceland as covered in heavy brush to the point where the first settlers explore the country by the river systems as they couldn't get through the undergrowth. Clearing huge swathes of country for farming, building and fuel has left the country denuded, exposed and eroded.

Our accommodation on our first night out of the city was about 10km from Borganes, a collection of cottages and rooms (dongers) overlooking rolling, sage green hills, with blue-tinted lava mountains nestled behind them. Greeting us on arrival were a straggly collection of Icelandic horses and some pixie-faced shag pile sheep. We unpacked and then stretched our legs with a walk around the block in what was incredibly crisp, invigorating cold wind, introducing ourselves to the unique breed of horses that are literally everywhere in Iceland. I kid you not, there are more horses than people here.

A land of rock and water...and lots and lots of sheep and horses

Like Australia, Iceland is a rural and remote country of extremes. It's part of the attraction for me. There are parts of the countryside you pass through on the ring road north that is not pretty. I think if my interest in geology was keener, it might be more interesting. But it wasn't.

We had no plan in place as we left Borganes, except to be in Blönduós (the town just south of Skagaströnd) in time to book into our hotel. So, we headed to Reykholt, famous as the home of Iceland's best-known author Snorri Sturluson during the years 1206-1241 (he's often thought to be the author of Egill's Saga amongst many other famous Icelandic writings). It was a relatively quick visit as there really isn't a lot there and we didn't venture into the museum.

Church and museum at Reykholt

From Reykholt is was on to jostling for the view with Japanese tourists at Hraunfossar waterfalls, where I actually pulled out a video camera to get some footage. It provided to be tricky with so many people around - all fighting for that perfect shot. It at least made me feel like I was 'warming' up for what was ahead.

Top and above: Hraunfossar waterfalls

Our next stop was spontaneous, as we passed moss and lichen-covered lava hills near a blip on the map, Bifröst. There was a car park just past the turnoff to Bifröst, where you could walk up the side of the Grábrók crater, via wooden steps and gravel paths. It was impressive and I did set out with the right intentions but pulled up about halfway (40 flights of stairs according to my fitness tracker) - a combination of tight hips and acrophobia. Cam went right to the top though for what was an OK view. One of the interesting features was a set of what looked a bit like rock-formed stockyards at the base of the crater.


Cold and windy, halfway up the crater

Rock formations at the base of the crater

We had a lunch of shellfish soup and homemade bread at a farmhouse restaurant further up the ring road a bit, finally getting to Blönduós about 4pm. With detours to Reykholt and Hraunfossar, we'd covered about 300km over 6 hours, driving at the top speed limit of 90km/h.

Travelling from just north of Grábrók crater to the southern end of Miðfjörður is other-worldly. It's high up and incredibly windy; sweeping vistas with little habitation. Farmsteads are scattered; some are abandoned. The road is a narrow two lanes with next to no shoulder and you feel like the wind could sweep you off the road. Then you spot water, as the fjords come into view the further north you travel. The landscape changes from mountains of lava covered in moss and lichen, to glacial rivers and streams rushing their way across gravelly river flats and through valleys, divided up into paddock after paddock of Icelandic sheep, hundreds of horses, some goats and a few dairy cattle. Hundreds of black and white bales of silage sitting on turf-like emerald paddocks overlooking green-blue fjords with snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Late afternoon outside Blönduós, a large mob of horses graze fjord-side

Ducking into Blönduós, we did our regular supermarket reccy and dropped in on the world-famous (yes, it is), Textile Museum and its unique collection of homemade wool (including three 100-year-old traditional Icelandic jumpers), textile items, Icelandic national costumes and embroideries. It was founded by the Women’s Union in East Húnavatnssýsla. One part of the museum is dedicated and named after Halldóra Bjarnadóttir (1873-1981), a well-known Icelander. She was a domestic consultant for the National Farmers Union in Iceland for many years and she published the magazine, Hlín, for 44 years. Halldóra founded and operated the Wool and Textile College at Svalbarði in South-Þingeyjarsýsla, dedicating herself to the social and educational affairs of women. She collected varieties of weaving and knit patterns as well as many types of small objects related to wool and textile processing, donating all of them to the museum on her death.

Again, our hotel was out of town, about 20km south in the hills overlooking lake Svínavatn. It's part hotel, part school for 50+ school children from the region. It is like being in a boarding house, but very comfortable with a little restaurant next door in reception supplying a very tasty but limited menu of locally-sourced food (salmon, lamb and vegetables) for dinner and breakfast. No complaints at all.

Room with a view at Hotel Huni

Last day of the holiday

I woke with no desire to do much at all. A couple of nights of not sleeping long enough probably didn't help, but a bit of anxiety over what the coming months would hold had probably started to kick in as I woke in the early hours of the morning thinking about who I'd be living with, how I'd get around to do my field recordings, and what deadlines I had to meet. After a cheery call home to our girl and a late breakfast, Cam decided he wanted to see some seals.

We headed off to do just that, spotting some action at the wooden sheep yards not far down the road from the hotel. Belatedly deciding to stop and have a look, we reversed back and found a park amongst the trucks with crates, four-wheel drives, utes and horse floats. It was the very start of the autumn sheep muster, an annual event that brings the sheep and horses down from the mountains. The sheep run together in mixed mobs over the summer, identified by their ear tags and earmarks. Bringing them down to the circular, segmented yards, it's a social activity of catching each sheep, one-by-one; each farmer identifying their sheep and dragging it into one of the wedge-shaped yards, then stopping to lean on the fence for a yarn. Men, women and children are involved. It's not an efficient method of drafting sheep but one steeped in tradition. Once everyone has their sheep, they're loaded in crates, horse-floats and on the back of trucks for the trip home.

We stayed at the yards for well over an hour, chatting with a young German farmhand who had come to Iceland to work horses, her young babysitting charge - a precocious pre-schooler with incredible English language skills, and the pre-schooler's father (whose only reference to Australia was Crocodile Dundee!). In between watching him catch sheep, we asked a million questions about the sheep industry, the farming calendar, the sheep (they cut about 2-3kg of wool), and more. The next stage of this part of their year is the big muster on horseback over several days into the mountains towards the glacier in the east, taking four horses each (riding two horses each day) to bring sheep back to the farms for shedding over winter. It's also party time, with much celebration happening during and after the event. We were told that last year, one guy was so drunk during the muster they tied him to his horse and it just followed the others.

After leaving the sheep, we headed about 50km south of Blönduós, on the ring road back towards Miðfjörður, to Hvammstangi - home of the Icelandic Seal Centre. The centre (also the Information Centre) sits on the waterfront, where we walked around hoping to see some seals close at hand. No such luck. By this stage, a couple of busloads of French tourists had arrived - filling every available spot around the dock for lunch. We grabbed some maps from the Information Centre, some lunch from the supermarket next door and sat in the weak autumn sun to work out if the trek to see the seals further north on the peninsula was too far. It wasn't happening. After checking in on Iceland's biggest knit producer, KIDKA wool factory, we headed back to Blönduós, stopping briefly by the river Blanda to have a look at the island nature reserve, Hrútey, in the middle of the river, where I managed to do some more video and sound recording, noting it as a possible place to get back to.

Waterside, looking across Miðfjörður, Hvammstangi

Recording on the river Blanda, Blönduós

It'll be an early start tomorrow to get the last of the groceries, the fresh items, before making the 20-minute drive north to Skagaströnd. I've got a formal meet and greet with one of the residency co-directors and artists through the afternoon, and Cam has a four-hour drive back to Keflavik to drop off the car by late afternoon before finding his hotel and organising to catch his early morning flight home via Helsinki.

Next stop: Skagaströnd