Iceland 2015

[cmcmill01]

Great looking trip, in your opinion would Iceland be good as a trip to take the kids?? Probably a hard question to answer, noticed 1 of the organised trips next year is in the school holidays and me and wife loved the place when we went alone for a long weekend a couple of years ago. Cheers Craig


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[AndyCook]

Kids would be ok, if you have good down jackets for them and plenty of other warm and at times waterproof clothing. A strong ground tent would be useful for them to shelter in during evenings before sleeping in RTT? If that is what you use.




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[AndyCook]

Great trip. Would love to do it that way. Did you get to try any of the local food like Puffin or Minkie Whale? Was your trek an all inclusive trek or did you have much expense on top as it is hugely expensive over there? Thanks for sharing.

Tried local lamb few times, in restaurant and bought in supermarkets,

Trip costs covered guiding, support, campsite fees and showers.

Diesel is £1 a litre here. Restaurants are very pricey so we only ate out once. A dinner for two and a few drinks works out around £60-80

Beer is £5 a pint in bars and restaurants




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[Charlie]

Looks like you had a great trip, I know I enjoyed my trip last year but as you say it can be wet, cold and windy at times.

 

[StarCruiser]

At £60-£80 for two you were doing really well. There's a Tapas style restaurant in Reykjavik that was about that sort of price and that was the best value and most interesting food we found. We got treated in our hotel one evening and it was £110 a head with wine and 5 (small) courses.

Sounds like some of the cost was offset by camping and taking the guided trip. And the diesel being cheaper as well.

 

[cmcmill01]

Kids would be ok, if you have good down jackets for them and plenty of other warm and at times waterproof clothing. A strong ground tent would be useful for them to shelter in during evenings before sleeping in RTT? If that is what you use.




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Thanks Andy useful info, 3 kids so only have ground tent! Will keep the idea in mind.


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[AndyCook]

And I had 6 rock pegs, 50cm long I got from Boab and I needed them at some remote camps in highlands. But this was for tent attached to vehicle. There are usually grass areas for ground tents though. But generally decent pegs are needed, like the oztent ones. Cheap ones will bend when hammered in.


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[AndyCook]

Fuel was 98 ppl for diesel and on ferry they left discount cards under wiper of cars, and this reduced price to 94 p p litre, at Orkan and shell stations




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[AndyCook]

Well got home safely on Monday after covering 3580 miles in the Hilux.
It performed superbly on trails and with cruise control on autobahn at 85mph.

What a superb trip, a bit warmer would have been nice, but Iceland had one of its coldest Julys. At least it was pretty dry and wind dropped after first week.
Trip was on par with Morocco for the long trails and scenery.
Only used 4x4 and low range a few times for ford crossings.
So trails not tricky, but can be harsh on vehicle due to corrugations.
And few other places in Europe where you can be on tracks for a full day and have lots of river crossings and sheer remoteness

Only issue with vehicle is me rounding off the rear diff filler plug when checking oil condition, since I didn't bring the "lathed" 24mm socket with me... But one with beveled edge.
And put a new air filter in for drive back through Europe, since it was pretty dusty on the trails in Iceland


A few more pictures to finish

Passed by Shetland on the way home on ferry

Duty free

BP Bruce field infrastructure

And time to cycle around a bit in Amsterdam before ferry to UK

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[StarCruiser]

Cracking trip and excellent report. Thanks Andy. A bit out of season for them but did you get to see the northern lights at all?

 

[AndyCook]

Cracking trip and excellent report. Thanks Andy. A bit out of season for them but did you get to see the northern lights at all?

Nope - it never got dark enough.


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[StarCruiser]

Not surprised, I guessed it might have a touch of the midnight sun.

 

[SteveS]

For those of you on Facebook I am currently posting Iceland pictures to Wandering Hedgehog - feel free to join that group. I will do a full report here at some point in the next week or so to add to Andy's excellent report. In terms of the question above regarding families - we have a 7 month old in our group and a 11 year old. If you go up in the highlands and get bad weather like we did then you may consider 7 months a bit young to be bunk-housing it in storm conditions. I would thoroughly recommend Iceland for a 'cold' Morocco-type option.....there are some quite large expanses of 'boring' trails and plenty of wash-board...but the scenery is stunning for the most part, plenty of river crossings, and lots to see and do. I'm glad we went back.

 

[SteveS]

some images of Iceland

 

[SteveS]

some more from the last few days

 

[AndyCook]

Being geologists the long trails were not always boring for us [emoji39], and preferable to the crowded tourist spots


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[SteveS]

Being geologists the long trails were not always boring for us [emoji39], and preferable to the crowded tourist spots


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Still a great feeling of being the only people for miles and miles.....I struggled to get the group to understand there is an optimum speed for wash-board....got there in the end. Good work out for the truck and a great shake down for our north America trip next year

 

[AndyCook]

What is the group you are with ? People you met out there or friends ?. Great pictures.


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[AndyCook]

Getting some video clips together, also got many hours worth of dashcam footage to extract some clips from

http://youtu.be/yDyPOeqT6Qw


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[AndyCook]

Dettifoss waterfall

http://youtu.be/Dkq22vm509U


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