Day 1 – Luton > Keflavik > Fagradalshraun
LUTON
The last time we flew out of Luton I vowed never to do so again. But time heals all wounds, and when booking the flights I justified it to myself – “Wizzair is much better than Ryanair, so it’s worth it; They were doing construction work last time, it must have improved; Maybe it was a one off, we should give it another chance.” Anyway, all airports are horrible and just a means-to-an-end, so how bad can it be?
I write this now to warn you, reader, and to remind myself, that Luton Airport should be avoided at all costs. The first warning signs were apparent as soon as we neared the airport – we had booked long-stay parking, but were being directed around the back of the airport in what felt like a place we should have had to pass through some sort of barrier to get through. I’m talking the airport industrial estate, with warehouses and offices for in-flight catering and logistics companies. It felt very wrong. But we made it to the car park, which was fine (the ANPR worked at least), and managed to dash to the shuttle bus having heaved our suitcase (which I’m convinced had it’s own gravitational-pull) out of the car. The fact that all the seats on the bus were taken was the second red-flag. We were on one of those bleary-eyed, nausea-inducing early flights, so I had thought that it wouldn’t be too busy, but a full buss at 03:20 in the morning is rarely a good sign! Sure enough, the check-in area was bustling, disorganised, and bathed in that awful beige artificial light reserved for the most depressing places on earth.
We had tried to check-in online, but were told by the app that we had to still go to the desk to have our travel documents checked (proof of vaccination, etc.). Why they can’t do it like Ryanair and check this at the gate, when they’re checking your passport and boarding pass anyway, I do not know. Thus, despite their being several automated bag-drop machines, none were operational and everybody was being directed to the three Wizzair check-in desks that were open. This brought to mind Bill Bryson’s observation that:
“…as a rule in Britain no matter how many windows there are in a bank, post office or rail station, only two of them will be open, except at very busy times, when just one will be open.”
Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island
The queue moved painfully slowly, to the point that one poor girl had a literal fit about it (she recovered quickly with parents’ assistance and seemed fine for the rest of the queue). After a while a very shouty man came along and started shouting that anyone flying to Reykjavik should join a new queue, where they were opening up an additional check-in desk. Fortunately we were one of the first to respond and ended up near the front, but by the time we had been seen to the queue behind us was as long as the one we had recently come from, but only being served by a single desk rather than three. What a brilliant system.
Little did we know that our queuing woes had only just begun, as we were about to encounter security. I will give Luton some credit at this point because they were providing free see-through bags for liquids, as opposed to last time where the bags were locked away in gumball machines which demanded a £1 coin (and if you weren’t prescient enough to have brought a £1 coin with you, tough luck – I guess there goes your liquids). So having got everything ready for security, we headed through the doors. We joined a moving stream of people directed up-and-down the length and breadth of the security hall, moving in a fashion similar to the way the Snake does near the very end of the eponymous game. Honestly, it felt like we walked for miles, getting deeper and deeper into the throng of people until, at the end, we joined another queue. This one was being organised by a single man who seemed to have no respect for (or concept of) fairness, with people being directed to shorter queues even though they had been waiting less time than those ahead of them.
All this rigmarole had left us getting rather close to our departure time, and when a lady in the queue ahead of us pointed out to the man that their gate was due to close in 20 minutes, he ushered them forward to a shorter queue. Taking her lead, I pointed out that we were on the same flight as that lady, and he proceeded to acknowledge this before doing absolutely nothing. Thus we got through security with only a short time before the gate was supposedly closing, and with the screens showing “Go to Gate” we didn’t stop for refreshments or to fill up our water bottles (not that I imagine Luton would be gracious enough to provide free drinking water) and power-walked the half-marathon to our gate, thinking we would only just make it.
We rushed down the stairs leading to our gate, only to find another queue – clearly one that had formed some time ago as people were sitting on the floor. We joined at the bottom of the stairs so at least could sit comfortably on a step. Not a single staff member was present, even though our flight should in theory be leaving in the next few minutes. Eventually someone appeared, and the slow process of boarding began. At this point things started to improve, as the flight attendents were friendly, the plane was clean, modern, and thankfully free of garish blue-and-yellow or bright-orange upholstery that other low-cost carriers have.
KEFLAVIK
The take-off was quiet, the quitest I think I’ve ever had, and it wasn’t long before we were climbing high and heading north. It was still well before dawn, and my view from the window quickly went from the garnet-studded sodium glare from the urban centres of the Midlands and North England, to snow-covered Scottish mountains, the light of the moon dazzling me as it was briefly reflected in the lochs of the Grampians and the Northwest Highlands. At some point the moonlit snow merged with grey clouds, and I dozed for most of the flight.
About two hours passed before they announced that we were beginning the descent. The sun had risen in the eastern sky, illuminating the dark grey-green waters of the North Atlantic far below us, complete with small peaks of white horses. I had never seen a more uninviting sea. As the plane banked and turned to align the approach, I caught a glimpse of black cliffs out of the window. I wasn’t quite sure what I had been expecting, but Iceland certainly seemed to be living up to its name given the blanket of snow that covered the landscape.
We touched down almost unexpectedly. Unlike the UK where the patchwork of fields, hedgerows, trees, houses and roads gives you a sense of scale as you come into land, the approach to Keflavik (meaning Driftwood Bay) airport was marked by nothing, just occasional spots of black where the a rock protruded through the snow, or a different shade of white where the wind had caused a drift to pile up. Even the runway, as it came into view just as we touched down, was a strip of charcoal masked by translucent sheets of white blowing snow, dancing in the wind.
As we taxied to the gate it immediately became clear that Keflavik was going to be superior to Luton (not that it would be hard), as they announced they were using a jetway to deplane us. No standing around on the runway for us! Which is just as well as it was below freezing, without taking account of the wind-chill!
We made our way through the (modern, airy, light) airport in record time – we didn’t queue once, not through passport control or the various other checkpoints where people were checking our Covid documentation. Our baggage was already on the carousel when we arrived – it seemed too good to be true, and indeed it was. At the last hurdle, where we could see the doors out of the airport, the last check (of our LFTs) failed, as we had done self-swab tests. I had feared we may be tripped up by this, as I had noticed this exclusion whilst filling out the passenger locator forms the night before. Unfortunately it was rather too late by then, so I just sort of hoped it wouldn’t be an issue. And indeed, it wasn’t. Ro had recently recovered from Covid, which meant she was off the hook, and I was sent to one side where a PPE-clad Icelander immediately took a swab of my throat and nose, and sent me on my way.
We found the man advertising our car-hire company, and were joined by a few other couples before heading out of the airport. As the double-doors opened we had our first taste of Icelandic air – it was refreshing, and definitely cold, but not as cold as you might expect given that a sharp wind was blowing, and whipping up the snow that lay all around us. This was a bit of a theme in Iceland, that the reported temperatures (even with wind-chill) didn’t quite match up to our perception of them. Ro is notorious for feeling the cold, but even she didn’t complain too much. I put this down to one of several factors: psychological, physical, and sartorial. Firstly, we were expecting it to be cold so had mentally prepared ourselves for the worst. Secondly, very cold air can’t hold moisture, so it prevents that cold, damp feeling we’re so used to on those cold, dank, damp October days where the mist hangs in the air wrapping the world in opacity.
But probably most importantly we had made sure we were well-wrapped up, and had invested in some thermal base-layers before coming out. The depth and breadth of our wardrobe would have been apparent to anyone handling our luggage. The saying “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothes” comes to mind, which is supposedly a Scandinavian saying (although it’s also attributed to English fellwalker Alfred Wainwright, as well as Billy Connely!)
So we were warm between the airport and the minibus to take us to the car-hire office. The driver seemed friendly, and turned on some interesting music which he insisted on singing along to. And then we got our first experience of Icelandic roads. Bearing in mind we were on our way to a car rental, one might assume the driver of the mini-bus would show best-practice for driving in snow (not to mention that he had precious cargo, namely us!). But this was not the case. Snow-covered roads, only discernable because the snow was that much more compressed and shiny than the surrounding snow, dominated the whole way, despite the fact much of the journey was along major main roads (i.e. connecting the capital and Iceland’s only international airport. The driver, whilst showing us that the Icelandic way was to attack these roads confidently, nonetheless managed to skid and slide around roundabouts, accelerate up-to and then brake hurriedly around other cars on the road. The pieste de resistance was up a large hill, following a tesla, and at the top was a large snow drift. The Tesla approached the drift gingerly, before giving up and turning round, accompanied by mocking comments from our driver. He proceeded to speed towards the drift, before chickening out at the last moment as his wheels lost all their grip, and sheepishly turning around and going the other way.
As it happened, a snow plow loped along shortly after to clear the drift – apparently us arriving on a Saturday was bad luck as the plowers tend not to work on Saturdays. But after this small bit of drama, we arrived at the hire car office and were greeted by a battalion of Dacia Dusters, most of them completely buried under 3 feet of snow.
Having sorted out our car (and paid the eye-watering £2,400 deposit), we finally got on the road! We drove for about 5 minutes to the nearest shop, as breakfast was now well and truly dominating our minds. We stocked up on some snacks, grabbed a pizza for dinner that night, and then headed off to our first destination.
FAGRADALSFJALL LAVA FIELD
We had about 4 hours to kill before checking in to our AirBnB, which was (according to Google) 1 hour 45 minutes away from the airport. So we had 2 hours to spend exploring. Having seen the news reports last year of the volcano erupting in Iceland at Fagradalsfjall, I thought it would be exciting to go and see the site of the eruption – even though no lava was now flowing, I envisaged seeing the fresh basalt where the lava had solidifed across the land, and smelling the sulfur of a recently active volcano.
Fagradalsfjall was only 30 minutes or so south of the airport so seemed the perfect place to stop en-route to