Off-piste and off-the-ground in Iceland.

Herewith, the penultimate installment on the enchanting island of Iceland; namely, on traveling off the beaten track on the ground, and up off the ground too – in a helicopter.

In just four days we covered more than a thousand kilometers of Iceland, but these were anything but boring kilometers. From one place of – particular – interest to the next, there are hundreds more exceptional sights to be seen: ludicrously breathtaking landscapes made up variously of volcanoes, cliffs, glaciers, waterfalls, dark gray fields of volcanic slag, and lava fields coated in seas of green or the lilac of lupine, plus distractingly dazzling dusks and dawns, pastoral scenes with sheep and horses… in short, a veritable feast for the eyes!

The Ring Road’s total length is 1332 kilometers (828 miles)

The Ring Road crosses a few glacial outwash plains, which are subject to frequent glacial outburst floods

The Ring Road was completed in 1974, coinciding with the 1100th anniversary of the country's settlement
32km of the 1332km of the Ring Road are unpaved. I wonder if this is the famous Icelandic history preservation habit?
Almost all of Route 1 is serviced in the winter - mainly snow removal; some parts are not kept open in the winter
Iceland's longest bridge crossing the Skeiðará river in the southeast was opened in 1974 - the same year as the Ring Road
Traffic volume on the Ring Road near Reykjavík comes to around 5000–10,000 vehicles per day, while away from larger towns you can see fewer than 100 vehicles per day on average
The maximum speed limit on most of the road is 90 kilometers per hour (56 mph), and 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph) on gravel. I haven't seen a single traffic police car around
The Ring Road's longest tunnel is Hvalfjörður, which is 5770m long and reaches a depth of 165m below sea level
Vikurkirkja in Vík í Mýrdal was designed by one of the first Icelandic architects, Gudjon Samuelsson
For almost all its length, the Ring Road is two lanes wide

Now, I’ve mentioned before how the roads here are of a full-on Euro-bahn standard; turns out that apart from the Ring Road and roads around (relatively) densely populated centers and tourist places of interest, the roads in Iceland are decidedly… dodgy. The further to the left or right off the Ring Road you drive, the more and more tarmac becomes a rarity. So much so that the rent-a-car folks warn how finding insurance cover for off-the-main-road getting stuck in the mud or – worse – vehicle ‘drowning’ is simply impossible!

This is a good unpaved road open to everybody to drive to enjoy the landscapes
Sometimes you end up driving along a road with nothing: I mean nothing to see

We very nearly found ourselves in one such drowning incident.

Preparing the route ahead of our day’s driving, on Google Maps it looked like traveling along the Thórsmörk valley was the way to go – the road runs right along it, the views will be amazing, etc. However, just before setting off, we asked a local guide what he reckoned about our route. His eyes widened, the jaw dropped and head started to shake from side to side slowly, then quickly. Hmmm, not the reaction we’d hoped for. In the end we did do our route of choice, only – on the crucial advice of the guide – in these here tanks!:

Convoy!
You're better not going alone for the Icelandic off-road experience
Tire balancing adjustment, Icelandic style
Ready to go!

Now I see what our guide meant: Indeed, the ‘road’, in parts, isn’t really a road at all. Google Maps – get a grip!

There is an alternative to the tank approach to non-ring-road travel on the ground in Iceland – one that’s much cheaper though somewhat more inconvenient. You can buy a bus pass for a week or two and take your time seeing the whole island in ‘hop-on hop-off’ mode. Public transportation here: impressive.

While at the other end of the scale in terms of budget for getting around the island, there is… the helicopter! Iceland on the ground is imposingly impressive; from up above – even more so!…