Karens solitary confinement .
SOLHEIMAJOKULL
After three days in Skaftafell I left the mighty Svenafell glacier for the greener (whiter) pastures of the Solheimajokull glacier about 2hrs drive away.
The trip started well as we stopped at my companions’ family house and had a real Icelandic feast of lamb and veg – two things that were missing from my diet of pasta and tuna.
It was delicious and I learnt a lot about the real Iceland – did you know they have 13 Santa clause and they are all evil!!!! Cool
Then we carried on to my new palatial accommodation,
This consisted of a 1 room house tent, the air conditioning was fabulous with a constant through breeze keeping things cool – you wouldn’t want it to get above 10deg now would you, I believe this was due to the design feature of the tent that stopped the fabric about a foot above the ground, my pup tent/bedroom I pitched inside.
The company car is something else (that is something other than a car). On the first day the tyre went flat and we had to discover how to work an Icelandic jack and 4 days later replace all of the tyres as they all had slow and not so slow leaks– interesting, after a fine day running around a brand new glacier with clients I dropped my companion off at the bus stop (2hrs drive in the other direction) and was left to my own devices for the next 9 days.
The time passed reasonably quickly with 3 walks a day. A 2hr at 9:00, a 3hr at 11:30 and another 2hr at 4:00. If the clients turn up, otherwise you wait in the car park for about ½ an hour then if no one is there, you go home!
The glacier is really easy guiding it is basically flat and has a cave and some pretty water filled crevasses, plenty to keep people going ooooh and ahhhhh and hardly any hazards to speak of. The great thing is you don’t need to cut steps which mean that all the general public can’t follow you up onto the glacier – so they come and buy a walk off you, heh heh heh.
I also went to the museum at Scogar and wow it is the most amazing museum i have ever seen. It has everything from boats to animal skeletons, houses with grass roofs and saddles made of driftwood. Its just great and I spent plenty of my time warming up and getting out of the rain wandering around it. Other cool things were the 62ft waterfall that lands about 30m from my tent! Really good hot showers and watching the stumpy horses taking really tall people for rides.
The main down side ....... its really really lonely.
Karen.
After three days in Skaftafell I left the mighty Svenafell glacier for the greener (whiter) pastures of the Solheimajokull glacier about 2hrs drive away.
The trip started well as we stopped at my companions’ family house and had a real Icelandic feast of lamb and veg – two things that were missing from my diet of pasta and tuna.
It was delicious and I learnt a lot about the real Iceland – did you know they have 13 Santa clause and they are all evil!!!! Cool
Then we carried on to my new palatial accommodation,
This consisted of a 1 room house tent, the air conditioning was fabulous with a constant through breeze keeping things cool – you wouldn’t want it to get above 10deg now would you, I believe this was due to the design feature of the tent that stopped the fabric about a foot above the ground, my pup tent/bedroom I pitched inside.
The company car is something else (that is something other than a car). On the first day the tyre went flat and we had to discover how to work an Icelandic jack and 4 days later replace all of the tyres as they all had slow and not so slow leaks– interesting, after a fine day running around a brand new glacier with clients I dropped my companion off at the bus stop (2hrs drive in the other direction) and was left to my own devices for the next 9 days.
The time passed reasonably quickly with 3 walks a day. A 2hr at 9:00, a 3hr at 11:30 and another 2hr at 4:00. If the clients turn up, otherwise you wait in the car park for about ½ an hour then if no one is there, you go home!
The glacier is really easy guiding it is basically flat and has a cave and some pretty water filled crevasses, plenty to keep people going ooooh and ahhhhh and hardly any hazards to speak of. The great thing is you don’t need to cut steps which mean that all the general public can’t follow you up onto the glacier – so they come and buy a walk off you, heh heh heh.
I also went to the museum at Scogar and wow it is the most amazing museum i have ever seen. It has everything from boats to animal skeletons, houses with grass roofs and saddles made of driftwood. Its just great and I spent plenty of my time warming up and getting out of the rain wandering around it. Other cool things were the 62ft waterfall that lands about 30m from my tent! Really good hot showers and watching the stumpy horses taking really tall people for rides.
The main down side ....... its really really lonely.
Karen.
posted by thekarenandbenshow at 11:18 AM
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