Pilar and I have now left the Wilderness Management team for the time being and are spending three weeks based in Reykjavik helping out with project support. This essentially involves taking care of food supplies for the teams: unpacking deliveries to our workshop/store room, packing up numerous sets of dry food boxes and doing big supermarket runs for fresh items, then helping to deliver all the food, plus any extra equipment and bits and pieces to the eight teams scattered across Iceland. This means we are now the proud custodians of a big silver Skoda, which is very exciting, although we have spent most of the week trying to get rid of the odd cabbagey hire car smell which came with it!
It has been good to experience what goes on behind the scenes of a programme which now has over 60 volunteers to feed, water and ferry between sites; and changeover days, when the teams move to different project locations, are particular logistical challenges/nightmares. Getting the cars and drivers where they need to be, with enough spare seats, plus space for luggage, the right food boxes and the right equipment, the right sets of keys even... the amount to think about is mind boggling. On Saturday, for example, three cars were involved in ferrying four new team members plus Pilar and I into our project site in Thorsmork, then bringing us both out again along with ten people from another team - and as the road to Thorsmork involves river crossings, the smallest car had to wait behind around an hour away. But somehow it all worked, and a few hours later we had two cars plus food for twenty heading east to Skaftafell, and the third heading west back to Reykjavik. Simples!
Some days, between food deliveries, there is little we can do in the workshop. However, we have been given a side project to keep us entertained at Gullfoss, a large waterfall and tour bus magnet a couple of hours out of Reykjavik. We have been heading up there in the early evenings, once the tourist traffic has started to die down, to replace a wooden staircase leading to the visitors centre. We are able to get through around six steps per evening and the view from the office window is terrific! The work itself is good fun and we have had some entertaining comments from tourists who have been somewhat shocked to find themselves climbing over two women lying under a staircase, nuts, bolts and spanners in hand!
The staircase at Gullfoss
The view from our work site
The waterfall in all its glory
The best part of project support, though, apart from playing extreme Supermarket Sweep on a daily basis, is undoubtedly the driving. I probably won´t be saying that in a months time, but this week, in addition to the off-road drive into Thorsmork, we were lucky enough to be sent up to Skorradalur to take supplies to half of the Wilderness Management team and spend a day working with them. It was an absolutely stunning drive around Hvalfjordur in beautiful weather: a vast fjord complete with snow capped mountains in the distance and colourful farm houses dotted around its banks, followed by a gravel road over the hills with a view of the bright blue lake in Skorradalur down below.
Before coming to Iceland I read a book called the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, in which he suggests that people do not wish to be millionaires, they just want the lifestyle that they associate with being rich, be it foreign travel, time to indulge in hobbies, or driving fast cars. He argues that these luxuries can be achieved without having millions in the bank, and that struck a chord with me today - there are people out there who would pay a small fortune to be able to drive all over Iceland, taking in all the sights, and even more to be able to go off the beaten track as we have done so often during our first month here alone. We are so incredibly lucky!
