21 August 2002

At present, Terry and I are full of our Iceland experience, and we'd like to share that with you, since not many people we know have been there, and you, like us, may have had an image of a snowy wasteland somewhere near the north pole.

The trip had its origins early last year when an Icelandic school teacher asked if there was any chance of having some of my early reading books translated into Icelandic for Iceland's early readers. This country, with its fine literary traditions, does not have real books in Icelandic for their children. I replied that this could be done but it would be much better for children to have their own stories, written by their own authors, situations that they could identify with, and I offered to go to Reykjavik and run some writing workshops early August 2003.

We imagined the country would look rather like northern Alaska, snowbound tundra and desert, small frontier towns and villages, and we were quite unprepared for the beauty of the landscape, the well-developed road systems and the sophistication of the towns. Nor did we realise that Iceland, although definitely cool, has a narrow range of temperatures, approx 15 C in Summer and just a little below freezing in winter, the chill factor made quite tolerable by geothermal heating for 86% of Iceland's houses.

The country is astride two great tectonic plates - the European and the American which means that it is being pulled two ways at the rate of about 2cms a year. Great rift valleys show this slow division. The population of less than 280,000 is not evenly spread. About 200,000 live in Reykjavik, the capital, the rest in farming and fishing villages, which means that there is a lot of true wilderness country and very beautiful it is, too. We had a rental car and Terry had a week of touring, but on my two free days, I accompanied him through some of the loveliest landscapes I have ever seen. There is evidence everywhere of volcanic activity, shattered mountains, great lava fields now covered with lichens and low-growing tundra-like plants. There are huge glaciers, waterfalls that hang like skeins of white silk against black volcanic cliffs, lakes and rivers filled with salmon and trout, hot thermal pools, geysers, grasslands filled with sheep and wildflowers, huge glaciers, little fishing villages huddled against cliffs that teem with seabirds - puffins and arctic terns. There are lots of horses, too, rugged little Viking ponies that wander along the edges of the roads, holding up vehicles in their quest for snacks. Have you ever had a horse snorting and grinning through the window of your car, its rubbery lips puckered as though for a kiss?

The sheep had so much wool, they looked like bundles of bedding in the green swamp grass. Everywhere, wild herbs grew and the landscape was speckled pink with flowers of wild thyme. This means that the sheep go to the butchers already seasoned, and are utterly delicious. Terry and I quickly became addicted to Icelandic lamb and NZ lamb has dropped considerably in our estimation. However, there was one dish on restaurant menus that we couldn't face - "tender leg of foal." But the puffin breast looked quite attractive.

While touring, we went down a side road to photograph a bright blue corrugated iron church sitting in a green field against a solid black lava cliff. Then we discovered that we couldn't proceed. There were thousands of arctic terns nesting on the road, many with chicks. I got out of the car to continue on foot but quickly changed my mind as the parent birds rose in a protective battalion. If I had kept walking I'd have had holes in my scalp. So we left the road and the church to the tern nursery. St Francis would have approved.

The writing workshops went well. All the participants understood and spoke English, although that is their third language. (Danish is second.) They wrote in Icelandic and I had the stories translated so that I could edit them and grade them for early reading. That task has been almost completed and then the shortened texts will go back into Icelandic.

On the last day, I packed up the computer and Terry and I went down to a thermal resort called "Blue lagoon" a hot blue lake where we could submerge and relax and eventually sit at lunch ( more Icelandic lamb!) watching other bathers in the steam. It made a nice finish to the week and reaffirmed our decision to go back and see all of Iceland.

With much love from your friend,

Joy Cowley