Once we had decided that the weather was too strong for sailing to Grindavik Gudrun lost no time in implementing Plan B. Equipped with a roughty tuffty four wheel drive thanks to her kind brother, she arrived on Sumara at 09:00 sharp asking if I was ready to go. I inquired if I needed to bring anything special and she said no. Then she said “maybe some walking boots”. Then she said “oh, and maybe a tent”. Then she mentioned glaciers. So armed with pretty much everything, off we went on a hectic schedule that would have put a Japanese cruise ship to shame. Gudrun’s mother gamely came along and on the way out of Reykjavik we collected Gudrun’s friend Owen. Owen is very affable Englishman who fell in love with Iceland years ago and now lives here permanently. He is having a nice house built near Reykholt but currently staying near Reykjavik.
By the way, “Reykja” means hot spring and “Vik” means bay but I expect you knew that.
I can’t describe the two days in detail as they were so busy it would be impossible but you could describe day one as “Farmhouse Day” where we visited lots of farms owned by relations of Gudrun and drank an awful lot of coffee. We also climbed a few hills and saw lots of interesting places from Gudrun’s childhood memories. In the evening we ended up in a Farm Hotel owned by relations of Gudrun. Gudrun’s mother treated us to a fabulous meal in the restaurant and then Gudrun and I climbed the mountain behind a wonderful plot of land that Gudrun owns overlooking the valley. After the climb we relaxed in the hot tub with a beer. We didn’t need our tents as we were offered the barn to sleep in. It is a bank holiday so the hotel was full.
Day two was “Summer House” day. The Icelandic summer houses can be pretty spectacular with huge decking areas and BBQ’s. The houses are all heated with hot geothermal water piped through the floors so they are toasty warm. The drive took us between the Langjokull glacier and the Ok glacier. We didn’t climb them but by midnight I was climbing the security fence back to the boat as the gate key was left onboard. It was my first night alone on Sumara for a couple of months. Strange but very spacious!
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