Iceland, February 2022

… the lochs reflected the moonlight as our Wizzair flight from London Luton to Keflavik Airport passed over. As it turned out, this view was a fair indication of what our trip to Iceland would be like. Water, moonlight, and snow.

Despite its name, Iceland doesn’t usually get loads of snow in February. But the weeks leading up to our arrival had seen several storms dump plenty of the stuff over the whole country. Despite this, the flight and landing was smooth and our transfer to the car-hire place relatively hassle free. Though the mini-van that took us there sliding down an icy hill was a further portent of what we were in store for.

We had hired a 4×4, complete with winter studded tyres, to give us the freedom to explore the country at our own pace. Also, our Airbnb was in the middle of nowhere, an hour out of Reykjavik. And the hire wasn’t too unreasonable (for Iceland!). Once the paperwork was done, we were off!

The plan was to head south to the new lava fields of Fagradalsfjall, which had been created by the eruption in 2021. Then, take the coast road to the town of Selfoss, not too distant from our accommodation. We grabbed a few supplies close to the airport, and then drove south along Highway 43 towards Grindavik. Almost immediately, as a consequence of me trying to mimic the speed that the locals were driving at, I drove into a snow drift and skidded off the tarmac onto the gravelly verge. Apparently, the ice is not so much the issue when you’ve got studded tyres, but the snow drifts are!

Proceeding slightly more cautiously, we reached Grindavik and turned onto Highway 427, that runs along the south coast of the Reykjanes peninsula. Iceland have an excellent system of road monitoring, and rate them based on the conditions. Highway 427 was, at that moment, rated black: “difficult road conditions”. The wind was whipping up from the ocean, driving the snow into drifts along the road. But the lava fields were only 20 minutes from Grindavik, so we figured we’d see what it was like and could always turn back if necessary – after all we had a 4×4, how bad could it be!

Well, the road to Fagradalsfjall actually wasn’t too bad, but at the entrance to the car park we came across a family (and English family!) that had suffered a similar experience to me earlier. They had driven into a drift but had come fully off the road and were now stuck in a 3ft deep snowdrift. We parked up, and went and offered them help, as the locals drove past in their jeeps and off-roaders without even seemingly glancing in our direction. Slowly we were joined by several more English travellers, along with a couple of French who’s incentive was, I presume, similar to mine – namely that it seemed fairly likely we would be in a similar position at some point over the next week, and in that case it would be nice if someone stopped and helped out.

After some faffing and digging and using bits of wood under the tyres, it seemed as though the car had just dug itself deeper. At that point I stepped up and asked if I could have a go in the drivers seat. I had, after all, spent a good three minutes looking at a website about how to drive in snowy conditions before we came. After a few more minutes of messing around, I succeeded in freeing the car and driving it safely to the car park – and let me tell you, I have never felt such a rush of testosterone as at that moment!

With that excitement done with, the lava fields felt a little underwhelming, although the wind blowing across the basalt creating little snow tornadoes was pretty cool to see, as was the scientific equipment left to monitor any volcanic activity. The wind was nearly strong enough to blow us over, so we didn’t venture too far. And, in any case, the day was getting on and we didn’t want to be driving in the dark. So we continued eastwards on Highway 427 and immediately ran into a huge snowdrift across the road, and several cars waiting the other side to get by. An Icelandic man with a huge Toyota pick-up truck, with comically large wheels, soon appeared and proceeded to smash through the snow drift, creating a narrow path through it. Unfortunately I was first in the queue and he came up to me to give me some advice: “get some speed up, and aim for the tracks”. This actually proved to be very pertinent advice later on, but in this instance I only managed the former piece of advice and missed the tracks slightly, therefore skidding along with some pace and almost hitting the car waiting on the other side of the drift head on. But importantly I was through!

We spent the next hour or so in the car dealing with similar conditions, and attacking the drifts with speed did seem to be effective. But we were both slightly concerned by the fact that we did not see a single other soul on the road for a full hour. When we reached the other end of the road it became clear why – a highways van was there, blocking entry to the road. It turned out that, between helping with the stuck car, walking across the lava fields, and making it through the drift, the conditions on the road had deteriorated that much that the road had been deemed unsafe and was therefore closed.

Driving along a red “impassable for normal vehicles” route had been a slightly stressful experience, and I admit that there were points where I was planning on what we would do when we inevitably got stuck in a drift or came off the edge of the road (we had snacks, a full tank of fuel, and all our winter gear in our suitcases…). But it buoyed my confidence for the rest of the holiday, and when driving through blizzards or up icy mountain slopes, I could remember that we had tackled a red route and lived to tell the tale.

The rest of Day 1 passed without incident, excepting the discovery that our Airbnb only had hobs and no oven. A non-issue usually, but the only meal we had picked up was frozen pizzas. My attempts to cook these in an “oven” constructed of two frying pans on top of each other was not hugely successful, and acted as a suitable foil to my heroic efforts with the car earlier.