Iceland, Land of Trolls. By Geoff Murray

I first visited Iceland in 2012 on my way to East Greenland. My time in Iceland on this first trip included driving around the Ring Road, the road that circumnavigates this incredible country. Since then I have been privileged to fly into Reykjavik’s airport, Keflavik, a further 5 times.

All the way around are stunning, raw landscapes. Iceland is a relatively young country geologically at less than 33 million years old and its landscape is shaped by active tectonic movement, volcanoes and glacial action.

And then there is the weather... In the brief summer, the weather is relatively benign but it still has the potential to deliver storms, lashing rain and ferocious winds. And winter is just plain savage.

On picking up my hire car I was warned to watch out for storms that could blast the car with highly abrasive black volcanic sand and strip the paint down to the bare metal. “The insurance doesn’t cover that…”

In 2016 my wife Lyn and I travelled to Iceland together and once again we drove the Ring Road, camping along the way as well as staying in B+Bs. I used the Mont Epoch tent for this trip, happy in the knowledge that few “conventional” winds would faze it. Plus my wife loves the spaciousness of the tent.

Iceland is a country with a deeply Shamanistic background with legends and Sagas interwoven into the country’s history. Part of the folklore of Iceland describes the trolls that live in the mountains and many Icelanders to this day still accept the existence of trolls and elves. Planned highways have been diverted because it might interfere with the elves. To look at the landscape as the mist swirls amongst the jagged mountains, it isn’t hard to agree…

Iceland is an amazing country with a remarkably small population of 344,000, 40% smaller than Tasmania’s but it contains landscapes that rival anywhere else in the world.

Geoff Murray
Mont Ambassador