Waking up horrendously early in the pitch black of a February morning I was bundled into the car with what I would need to stay in a "summer" house for a night .. with no idea of our destination. We left late, as is our wont and rushed out of the city towards the south. We drove.. reached the turn off for Þingvellir (my first guess), headed for Vík í Myrdal (my second guess) and kept going. Further east we hit Höfn in Hornafjörður with barely enough time to refuel and grab a sandwich to feed our famished tummies. Still so far to go.. but yet little clues to our destination.. though I was beginning to guess. We were entering the east of Iceland, Óli´s world, where reindeer run free and where I was completely at his mercy!
As we drove, still late, I guessed we were heading to Neskaupstaður but still no idea where. Thats a fishing town not a summer house. We
pulled up by a big building in the port, humphed out our rucksacs and put on our waterproofs, covered everything in black bags and lowered a boat into the water. Ten o´clock at night, in pitch black again we were still on our journey, now across the dark rather scary-looking fjörð and into the night. My first time on such a boat. It was cold and we dashed with apparent focus across the water towards a destination that those around me knew so well they had no need to question navigation or go haltingly, instead catching up on their news from lives in the east and in Reykjavík. They dropped us off at a pier that we couldn´t see, in a fjörð a little around the coast from the town where no lights shone bar our head torches and the only sound was running water. And then they were off, colliding with nets on the way out so as to send back peels of laughter to us left on the shore in the pitch black with just our bags and a fiddle.We struggled up the deeply dark path and the unusually tall white house appeared ahead of us. Rather ghostly.. but perhaps that affect had as much to do with the stories I´d been hearing over the winter of teenage trips to the house and apparitions and eerie atmospheres encountered there more than the actual sight before me. We went inside and explored with our head torches .. I went around setting gas lamps and little candles in the rooms we were always going into to chase out the shadows. The house has no electricity and no water during the winter when its only very occasional occupancy (apart from the ghosts, who we assume don´t need running water) would allow the pipes to freeze and burst. We set the fire to a roaring, friendly glow and went back into the night to fetch water. Completely light adapted again we could see so little as we walked over the mirey ground to the river with our bottles.. and turning around to look back at the path we were taking so as to be sure to go the correct way, we saw all windows of the house full of that roaring flame. To anyone it would have looked like the house was on fire and we stumbled back to check and found only a cosy living room with the glass cabinet stove full of lively, but perfectly contained, flames.
We spent much of that weekend carrying water! In bottles and buckets, even in a plastic baby bath. The little house at the back has a cleverly designed steam room and shower, all lined beautifully in wood. It looks like a little Scottish croft house but is a luxurious Nordic spa! But, in winter there is no running water..
It was a wonderful weekend.. in February it was so warm that we could go outside in short sleeves amazingly and took a little walk and saw seals and stunning mountains. We explored the attic and looked in the bedrooms and I ran really quickly between candle-lit oases once it got dark. We never saw the ghost but the lack of heating and light makes for cold, drafty patches which contrast alarmingly with the toasty fire and the warm glow of flames.On Sunday the men from the boat came back to get us and we headed back to Reykjavík and back to reality with full wintery blasting winds and icy roads. It took ten hours to drive east and three days to drive back again. In between we had unexpected spring, wild nature, romance and music and the wonderful 30th birthday present mystery adventure break from the long winter could not have been better. Thank you Óli and also thank you Skúli, Ingvar, Helgi and Óli´s family who helped in the subterfuge.
