Tales of the Subaru - Eurobodalla Bound

There's a damned fine wipe in Cate & Brian's guest bathroom.

We usually head south twice a year to visit my old uni mate Cate and her partner Brian who've had the extreme good sense to retire to beautiful Batemans Bay about four hours south of Sydney.  On the way down we visit Peter’s oldest mate John at Shellharbour then stay over in Kiama and have dinner at our favourite restaurant in the whole world - Hanoi on Manning.  Retirement is just one wild and crazy blur!  

John lives in a care facility just behind Shellharbour Square so he fanged it across to lunch in his bright red mobility scooter while Peter and I did our very best to keep up.  Now getting there was a bit of an endurance event but once settled at Jamaica Blue I started feeling really good about myself because I'm quite slim in comparison to the locals - in fact, I'm positively svelte!

We were seated beside the inclined moving footway that takes the mega-fauna from the ground level to the first floor and after the first few tonnes glided by I began to see them as an endless stream of overfed cattle being calmly transported away for slaughter.  But don't get me wrong here, I love to see these behemoths out and about spending money on consumables because we have 10,000 shares in Stockland which is the company that owns the mall.

Fats with tatts aside, the very best thing about visiting Shellharbour Square is the ease with which I can buy clothes.  In recent years I've been known to sneak off to the Fat Bastards section of Myer, Target or Kmart but not at Shellharbour where everything below 5XL is on the regular racks - sometimes even 7XL in Lowes!  In no time at all I was kitted out with a couple of pairs of shorts that were a perfect fit and I was happy as a pig in shit!

I am sorry to report that our night at the amusingly named Kiama Cove Boutique Motel will be our last.  This popular 1960s classic has succumbed to developers’ greed.  It closes in April and then the wreckers move in.  This time next year it will be yet another block of ocean view apartments as Kiama transitions into an outer suburb of Sydney.  It's at the southern extremity of the electrified rail line, just a short two hour commute to the CBD and being at the end of the line there's a good chance of getting a seat.

The worst of that is the motel is in Bong Bong Street, just a three minute walk from Hanoi on Manning which is the best Vietnamese restaurant I've been to since the Bay Tinh in Marrickville was bought out by a spoiler who updated the decor and the menu prices then downsized the serves.

Kiama Tucker Tip #1

Hanoi on Manning - of course!  Their green papaya salad, either chicken and prawns or mushrooms and tofu, is not to be missed under any circumstances.  I'm a green papaya tragic and theirs is second only to Viet de Lites at Southbank in Brisbane and a very close second at that!

Dinner was a treat, just as anticipated, so fully sated I suggested we walk back the long way via the scenic coastal track which was a bit silly because it was a pitch black and cloudy moonless night and I hadn't thought to take my stick.  I did, however, have a packet of ibuprofen in my pocket which was a welcome relief as we struggled to stay on the path in the dark and not topple off the cliff into the equally dark Tasman Sea below.

I don't have a bladder that's worthy of boasting about so the two hours on to Ulladulla next morning was my limit and that would normally be fine because if a public toilet exists I'll sniff it out.  I've even found them in New York and London but Ulla-bloody-dulla was a real challenge!  

And so are the drivers!  In Sydney we have to deal with DWAs (Driving While Asian) but in the South Coast retirement communities it's DWEs (Driving While Elderly) and the complication factor seems to increase exponentially.  There are some really shit dangerous drivers down there and PWEs (Parking While Elderly) as well.  I believe the below photograph from Clyde Street opposite the Batemans Bay shops adequately demonstrates that!

Time spent catching up with Cate and Brian is always special and Cate and I have 40 years of shared history so we never run out of things to talk about, particularly now that people are dropping of the twig.  Then there's their magnificent bay and ocean view which will get your chakra back into alignment in no time at all.  Add a swim to the mix and you're in nirvana even if there was enough loose weed floating about in the bay to make a week’s worth of norimaki for everyone in Japan.  Not so at an ocean beach next day though, it was perfect!

Batemans Bay Tucker Tip #1

If it's F&Cs you're after then head to the Innes Boatshed just past the public loos on Clyde Street which is itself just past where the PWEs do their stuff.  In fact, most of the PWEs will probably be having F&Cs at the Innes Boatshead when you get there.  

You may have to queue to order and some woman with three kids and a nanna in tow is sure to be in front of you still making up her mind and begging her brats to do the same but it's worth it.  Of course that can be avoided if you get in quick and go grab a table while your companion stands in line.

Now a word about the aforementioned nanna and PWEs…

They are organised.  They know exactly what they want and will either have their money clutched tightly in their hand or tied in a corner of their hanky.  You don't need to worry about them unless they're driving.

Batemans Bay Tucker Tip #2

The Mossy Point Cafe is a glorious step back in time - I felt at home from the moment we drove straight into a shady parking spot directly across the street.  Much of what they have on offer is locally sourced produce and if you're an iGen don’t worry too much about the über rustic appearance of the place, they serve smashed avocado and there's more pulled pork than a Christian Brothers boarding school during the 1960s.

Two nights at the bay always feels like four, five if you manage a couple of swims.  We were a bit sorry to be pointing DeDe northwards but there's always next time and I did manage to pick up an excellent deco style green Depression Glass bowl when we stopped for lunch at Milton on the way home.  Besides, we had the guilts about missing Kevin’s 18th birthday but made it up to him a few days later.  Tiger prawns always do the trick!

Kev enjoying his 18th birthday prawn salad.

Once More Around the Sun

We did Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ in reverse this year – we went to the land of the ice and snow to the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow and I have to tell you a little midnight sun goes a very long way!  We were delighted to watch the sunset in Singapore on our way home.

We kicked off with a mainly wet week on a sheep farm in the Cotswolds but our rather smart cottage was spacious and very comfortable and the occasional view through the mist quite extraordinary.  I damaged my already swollen feet and gammy hip running through Changi Airport to get from Gate 192 in one terminal to our connecting flight at an equally high numbered gate in a different terminal with little time to spare.  As a result I wore thongs for our first two weeks in the UK and chuckled to myself as people whispered “He must be from New Zealand.”

We drove to Bath and Stonehenge where we did the evening Inner Circle Tour but by that part of a very long day my feet said “NO!” so despite cool temps I removed my thongs and paddled about the stones barefoot in my shorts and Hawaiian shirt which perplexed the Americans in the group who seemed satisfied once I said it was a religious thing – Barefoot Antipodean Druids.

A week in London followed but it was hot and most of Britain has been constructed to exclude cooling breezes, not to take advantage of them, so a temperature that would be simply warm in Sydney was downright uncomfortable in London.  We cruised to the Thames Barrier last time and loved it so went up stream to Hampton Court this trip and I would have loved that as well had we not then gone into the palace.  I’ve come to detest everything to do with Henry VIII who should have been drowned at birth.

But back to loving things: we saw The Book of Mormon again and it was just as good as the first time; then followed that up with Miriam Margolyes in Madame Rubinstein at a small theatre in North London and had the best evening.  The play was excellent and we met a very interesting older couple over dinner – both actors.  We spent a most pleasant couple of hours with them.

The train up to Edinburgh was a treat which we wished took longer as the same distance in Australia would.  We were immediately struck by just how much you could make from starting up a stone and masonry cleaning business in the Scottish capital – or then again, perhaps they like everything filthy.  A couple of days were enough as the throng of the tourists and associated retail experiences combined with all the grime to become quite oppressive.  That and the constant tales of who was hung; drawn and quartered; or burnt at the stake on which corner.

We hopped a train to Glasgow and immediately loved it.  The pace was slower, the people more relaxed and there was no tourist crush.  We arrived with a passion for architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald so set off to see as much of their work as we possibly could and were not disappointed.  We also tried a deep-fried battered Mars Bar which contains all three basic food groups – salt, fat and sugar.  It was excellent!

Those of you who are JK Rowling fans will probably remember the Glenfinnan Viaduct from Harry Potter and the Temple of Doom or some such movie.  We went to see the viaduct and ride the Jacobite – not for any other reason – and what a great ride it was.  It’s a two hour run from Fort William to Mallaig on the coast across from the Isle of Syke with a two hour turn around so you become well acquainted with the old fishing port and buy expensive glass.

We were seated with Americans on both the outbound and return journeys, pleasant folk in each direction who immediately announced that they did not vote for Trump.  It was an interesting introduction but if I was an American tourist I’d have done the exact same thing.

Three days wasn't nearly long enough to do the Scottish Highlands justice in terms of its scenery but I've now tasted everything I want to eat in that part of the world. I went to great lengths to pre-order a meal not stuffed with black pudding on our dinner train excursion out of Aviemore but there it was, in front of me, well and truly stuffed!  The people were lovely though.

We had a long day’s drive down to Lin near Durham through some spectacular scenery which left us wanting more so here's hoping we have at least one more trip left in us.  And it was lovely being back with her and wee Westie, Piper, but we were only there two nights before the three of us drove down to Manchester to meet Lin’s cousin Margaret who took the train up from London to join us on our travels around Iceland.

As we approached Keflavik Airport next day, Iceland’s stark grey lava flows were a severe contrast to England’s green and pleasant fields but we spotted the odd non-monochromatic patch on the one hour bus ride from the international airport to the domestic airport in Reykjavik.  From there it was on to Egilsstaðir which is the main town in the Eastern Fjords where we collected our Kia Sorrento for the nine day drive back to where we began.

Parts of Iceland are a little like New Zealand while others are reminiscent of Canada but the whole place is uniquely Iceland. It's barren, it's green, it's icy, it's dry, it's mountainous and it’s flat but the one thing it’s not is crowded – except for Keflavik Airport which was chockers.

My Iceland highlight was standing before the Lögberg or Law Rock at Þingvellir (Thingvellir) which was the site of the world's first parliament in 930. Forget what you've been told about the Greeks, they just provided us with some of the vocabulary as well as tzatziki and souvlaki.

We had a few more nights back in Sunnybrow with Lin then two nights in the rather charming and very well-named village of Cawthorne in South Yorkshire. Then it was on to Lara, Nikos and Yiannis for a magnificent solstice dinner by the stream that runs by their backyard in Ely near Cambridge. Next morning left us time for just one more glorious English garden at Anglesea Abbey which was neither an Abby nor by the sea but did boast an impressive collection of nude male bronzes and etchings which came as no surprise once we learned that the late owner was a single chap and a good friend of the equally late Queen Mother who was his regular guest.

Jan and Tony are well and still our greatest support.  They had a wonderful time cruising around the UK and Ireland just after we returned.  They looked after our house and all therein while we were away and even stayed over to keep Kev company.  And speaking of His Grace, he’s looking great.  He turns 18 in February and is still sparking on most plugs most of the time.

Peter’s been fortunate enough to have speech therapy at St Joseph’s again this year and it makes such a difference.  They are amazing people.  He’s been well in himself but I’ve had ups and downs with MRIs and CTs and lots of doctors but we now seem to be on top of most things.  I’m in awe of healthcare in Australia where I’ve had world class treatment for little or no cost.

Peter and I weren’t in any awe about having our relationship subjected to a pop poll though.  It seems you can do all manner of things to LGBTIQ people that you can’t do to wealthy white conservative men who were the driving force behind the madness but love won the day.

We wish you all the best as the year draws to a close and hope 2018 brings you happiness and health.  Our challenge to each of you is to do something nice for somebody you don’t know.

Much love

Glenn, Peter (Lyle to some), Kevin, Fluffy, Uranus, Baby Blue, Sylvia, Margaret, Hazel, Truganini, Oodgeroo, Mr & Mrs White (Goo Goo & Barabajagal) and Peggy

Return of the Native 2 - Cawthorne in Cawthorne

Rental Car Tip #1

Consider the time factor before you indulge in a luxury car. I splashed out an extra £7 a day which would have been fine had I not spent an hour going in and out of the office to find out how things like the seat height and tilt, the transmission, the sat nav worked and even how to shut the open sunroof in an English heatwave we were having. Mercedes has reinvented the whole damned lot!

The plan was to tootle through the Yorkshire Dales and end up in the South Yorkshire village of Cawthorne which we eventually did after an ongoing battle with the car’s electronic devices. Our first stop was Richmond which is my middle name and one smart looking market town that is now on the list for further investigation next visit. I'm hoping we still have one more in us.

From there it was on to Hawes which comes highly recommended by Bill Bryson. It's quaint, it's cobbled and it's highly wanderable. Green rolling hills gave way to moors not far out of Hawes as we headed south-west to the Ribbenhead Viaduct which is a glorious example 19th century railway engineering. Hiking trails are frequently dressed with crushed granite or basalt which explains the British obsession with hiking boots and poles even for short walks. I reflected upon this at length during our 3km rock-hoping ramble to the viaduct and back but it was well worth the effort. Stone and brick arches aside, the sheep were rather fetching.

Next stop was Halifax for three very good reasons:

1. We really enjoyed ‘Last Tango in Halifax’
2. We've been to Halifax, Nova Scotia and enjoyed that too
3. Nanna would say “Go to Halifax!” when she really meant “Go to hell!” so we have - twice.

Now this is where the sat nav had her way and took us on a merry old ride north-east on the A64 then due south on the M1 before she finally allowed us onto a local road for the last few km but happily enough that road was Cawthorne Road. I had imagined travelling a more scenic local route all the way but what can I say? Sometimes technology really, really shits me!

Cawthorne Accommodation Tip #1

But Sarah and Andy’s backyard studio flat smack in the middle of Cawthorne didn't impact unfavorably on my bowels in anyway, it fact it's to be highly recommended. We thoroughly enjoyed the light modern space with its rustic Yorkshire exterior, the lovely garden and the pair of very vocal rooting hedgehogs - sweet little copulatory creatures.

I first heard about Cawthorne from a woman I once taught who'd worked in the pub there while backpacking in the 70s. It was full of hard working, hard drinking, heavy smoking Yorkshiremen in those days and few of them spoke standard English but it's now a gastro pub with boutique brewed largers and ales and no less than 17 kinds of gin. That aside, they still put way too much salt in the light curry sauce that spoiled my monkfish and seared scallops. Some things never change.

Cawthorne is an extremely liveable Midsomer style of village but I've only been there in summer and autumn, it could be completely foul in winter but we had a marvellous time pottering about and I am now the proud owner of a pair of mugs that are emblazoned with:

London

New York

Paris

Cawthorne

After two very comfortable and happy nights we headed south-east to visit Lara, Nikos and Yiannis at Fordham near Cambridge. Lara is one of my Claytons nieces - the nieces you have when you don't have nieces - and the oldest daughter of my New Zealand bridesmaid, Philip. But that didn't happen without a significant amount of swearing on my part en route to the Nene Valley Railway which runs between Wansford and Peterborough. The problem was the station isn't actually in Wansford and even the locals didn't know its location.

I finally flung the Merc into the station car park just as a rather splendid green engine steamed out towards either Pixley or Hooterville, which ever is the short run to the terminal end of the track. But all was not lost - apart from my camera which I left on a table at the ticket office but it came back again and so did the train which we boarded for the longer return trip to Peterborough. It was the most ordinary of the four steam train journeys we did this time but a mid-week Heritage rail excursion is guaranteed to make anyone under the age of 70 feel like a teenager compared to the other passengers and for that it was well worth all the swearing.

We had a brilliant outdoor Northern Summer Solstice celebration with the Jamieson-Nikiforakis family by the Snail which is a shallow but reasonably wide stream at the foot of their garden. The wine was rather special and Nikos’ saganaki prawns were a real treat.

Cambridge Accommodation Tip #1

The best £96 you could possibly spend on accommodation in the entire UK is at Trinity Hall, Fordham near Cambridge. We had the superior room in a glorious Victorian home where even our en suite is the size of a bedroom and in fact used to be one. Trinity Hall is the home of Sue and John Taylor and is John’s family home.  It is also a working farm on the village edge. Sue absolutely spoilt us with breakfast which was by far the very best of our whole six weeks of travel. The huge vase of sweet peas on the perfectly set dinning table pushed Trinity Hall from 2 to 3 Cawthorne Stars which is a rating scale similar that which the French tyre company plagiarised.

http://www.trinfast.co.uk/

We concluded our travels in the gardens of Anglesea Abbey which is neither an Abbey nor by the sea but a rather large and house that was formerly owned but a couple of brothers with an English mother and an American father who bought a peerage. It was originally a priory but Henry VIII took care of that and then gave the estate to one of his mates - as he did.

The brothers agreed that the first to marry would surrender the house to the other. Given that the brother who remained had an extensive collection of nude male sculptures and portraits it think it was a done deal, on his part at least. Add to that the fact that the Queen Mother was a regular house guest during the racing season and there is little doubt that we’re talking queer peer here. And yes, I have touched the toilet the Queen Mum used - my third verified flush with royalty having already used two that were sat upon by HM the Queen herself.

Return of the Native 2 - Iceland 3

We realised the Sorento had a sat nav right about the time we left Þingvellir for Reykjavik which was handy but we still had trouble finding the hotel because the travel agent anglicised the spelling of the street name and it could have been and one of three or none at all. Björk (as we called her) did her very best though and took us to each in turn until we finally located the Centerhotel Klopp.

Downtown Reykjavik isn't busy, which is rather fortunate. We scored a park right near the hotel and fed the meter for a day and a bit since there are no restriction on how long you can stay just as long as you pay.

Reykjavik Tucker Tip #1

Go to Gló. There are four of them to choose from in Reykjavik and they specialise in vegan, vegetarian and raw food with one token meat dish for carnivores. It was so good we went to the one on Laugavegur not once but two nights in a row. It's in the heart of the tourist area, just one short block from our hotel and the food is wonderful. It's also very reasonably priced and the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly.

You can get around the tourist and cultural heart of Reykjavik on foot without any trouble and unlike London, people tend to keep to one side of the footpaths rather than bouncing back and forth all over the place. Do, however, be wary of daredevil young men on bicycles and terribly drunk youths who take a shine to you because you're wearing shorts or you remind them of their grandfather. I attracted one such inebriated young chap whilst we were minding our own business on the tourist strip one evening. He was a big hulking Viking type but otherwise seemingly harmless and I did wonder how anyone in Iceland could afford to get as staggeringly drunk as he was.

Iceland Alcohol Tip #1

Use your time in Iceland to detox because grog is ridiculously expensive. It is only available in bars and restaurants at exorbitant prices, especially the wine, or at state owned liquor stores of which there are only 12 in the entire capital. It can be an extremely long drive to get a takeaway once you’re outside Reykjavik and I didn't see a single one during our travels.

If detoxing is not on your agenda then take in some duty free, they have a quite generous allowance but don't buy it inbound at Keflavik International Airport. The duty free there is literally double the outbound price in Manchester.

We commenced our Reykjavik experience with a visit to church. No, I haven’t recovered from being recovered, it's a church with a view. The Hallgrímskirkja is one of the tallest structures in Iceland with an elevator to the top of its spire which functions as a viewing platform. The cathedral sized church was designed in the 1930s and construction went on in stages until the 1960s with restorations being undertaken as I write. It's a fine building both inside and out with a facade that is evocative of the basalt columns you see in many places around Iceland.

Interestingly enough, the architect responsible for Hallgrímskirkja, Guðjón Samúelsson, also designed the Roman Catholic Cathedral a decade earlier and the similarities are striking, particularly the particular style of vaulted ceiling and the faux granite columns. The cathedral is smaller and being Roman Catholic it’s more elaborate than the Lutheran church but they are undeniably two peas from the same pod.

Our final destination in Iceland was the Blue Lagoon which is a flash thermal spa. We began with lunch in their smart restaurant where you can dine in your Premium Package terry towelling dressing gown and thongs but we remained clothed. Then it was off to the “You must shower naked before you enter the Blue Lagoon” highly complicated and convoluted change rooms. Some 20 minutes later we finally made it into the warm, mineral-rich water that I can still feel on my thick grey chest hair which even I must admit is past its best-by date and due for a serious clip.

We thoroughly enjoyed our final night in Iceland staying at the Northern Light Inn near the Blue Lagoon. It was spacious and friendly and it has the best beds in all of Iceland which was a crying shame because we had to get out of them at 4.00am to catch our flight back to Manchester.

We had a wonderful time but I wasn't sad to leave Iceland’s 24 hour summer light behind. It is extremely disorienting if you come from a place like Sydney where there is distinct day and night. Lin lives in the north-east of England where the summer sun finally sets at around 11.00pm so was good with Iceland but I'm ready for a 15 minute Australian twilight then darkness - with stars!

Return of the Native 2 - Iceland 2

Iceland Must-Do Tip #1

A Zodiac ride around Jökulsárlón Glacial Lagoon at the head of Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier which comes from a massive but shrinking Vatnajökull ice field in south-eastern Iceland is worth whatever it costs and they have lots of extra zeros on the krona to stop you from working that out easily. The glacier is retreating at an alarming rate but of course there is no climate change or at least none that humans are responsible for and the likes of Tony Abbott and the Bum Trumpet will tell you that for nothing and do so quite LOUDLY!

The lagoon came into existence during the 1930s when the glacier retreated from the sea.  It's rather large today and growing rapidly as the glacier continues to shrink. But I'll be dead before climate change gets too much worse and since I have no children or grandchildren I’ve decided to adopt the prevailing laissez faire attitude and just not give an airborne act of copulation.

The scenery began to change at the glaciers as we continued on in our clockwise semi-circular trek around the island. The western end of Vatnajökull marks the transition from steep coastal mountains and deep fjords to broad, flat and fairly arid coastal plains that are dissected by gushing streams of snow melt. The aridity gradually gives way to fields of silage that is harvested to feed the sheep, cows and horses which are all stabled in barns over winter - or at least the ones that aren't sent to the knackery in autumn. You can buy pony meat in the supermarkets - equine lamb.

Peter and I ventured out on our own for dinner in the black sand coastal town of Vik. Flash hotel tucker is quite nice and extremely well presented but it's also extremely pricey - Rockpool pricey! A local restaurant was half the cost, albeit with half the space, but it had everything that was on the hotel menu and then 20 or so other things.

Puffin Tip #1

A good puffin-spotting location is around the south-eastern town of Vik but don't set your heart on it. If you seek out their flight paths you can watch them buzz overhead like hell-for-leather flying penguins but if you want is a close up and personal then best hook up with a tour operator.

The coastal plain widened and became greener after Vik and I started to wonder if there may be an Icelandic word for verdant after all but I suspect that green is about as far as it goes.

Waterfalls, or foss, tumble from the sharp uplift above the coastal plain every few kilometres, some of them quite spectacular, none of them unremarkable. There is even one you can walk behind provided you don't mind getting terribly wet. The roads improve at this point since it is within day-tripper distance from Reykjavik. Farms present as more affluent and often have clusters of smart little tourist cabins which would provide a considerable boost to income through summer.

Geyser Tip #1

If you're after proper sulphur-belching, mud-bubbling, truly spurty geysers best visit New Zealand.

There are a lot more tourists closer to Reykjavik, and I mean tourists, not travellers although you do happily encounter the latter from time to time. Between this point of the journey and the Blue Lagoon spa on our final day I had a shocking urge to slap anyone with a shrill American accent. It used to be old codgers in caps emblazoned with the names of US Navy ships but these days the young ones are far worse, much more penetrating and numbingly dumb!

I have a passion for democracy, genuine democracy not the Trumped up redneck xenophobic populism that is currently sweeping the world, so I've long been intrigued by a place known as Þingvellir (Thingvellir).

In fact, it has fascinated me ever since I first learned about it in Jimmy Dolan's amazing Viking Era course at UNE in 1977. Þingvellir - literally "Parliament Plains" - was the site of the first Alþing (Althing) or Parliament in 930. Chieftain and farmers from all over Iceland gathered at Lögberg (the Law Rock) each year to make and recite the law, pass judgements, make common decisions and settle disputes.

Through the Vikings, Cnut in particular, this very first parliament became the origin of the Westminster System of government which operates in Australia today. The Congressional System and most other forms of Western government also owe their origins to the Alþing at Þingvellir. I was overawed to stand before the Law Rock and look out across the plain, the birthplace of actual democracy - forget about the Greeks, they just gave us the vocabulary and souvlaki.

Return of the Native 2 - Iceland 1

Lin, Peter and I had a wet drive from County Durham to the Manchester Airport Inn but sang 'We're All Going On a Summer Holiday' nevertheless. When we arrived in the early afternoon the temperature was 16', exactly the same as it was in wintery Sydney, except it was nighttime there. Lin's cousin Margaret took the train up from London to meet us and next morning we all hopped into a cab and headed to the airport for our flight to Iceland.

We left England's green and pleasant fields well behind because looking down from the air on Iceland it's barren, Sharon. It was better once on the ground but I doubt there is a word for verdant in the Icelandic language. There are lupins galore, this being the season, and lots of lava flows in the east. The one hour bus ride between the international and domestic airports took me back to Savai'i in Samoa without the coconut palms, heat or humidity.

That bus ride with a change en route had us on the edges of our seats because the plane in was late and we had a tight onward connection but we made it onto the 40 seater for the 50 minute flight to Egilsstaðir in the easternmost part of Iceland where we began our Iceland adventure.

Egilsstaðir is the main service centre for the east which doesn't mean it's big, there are only a couple of thousand residents. The airport stayed open late to set us up with our very comfortable and rather roomy Kia Sorento. In fact the Europcar chap was the one who locked the building as we left for the 2km drive to the flashest the hotel I've ever stayed in. I tend to judge holiday accommodation by its potential for conversation into aged care facilities and I would happily spend my terminal years at the Gistihúsið Lake Hotel, although probably not in Iceland.

Don't get me wrong here, Iceland is amazing but it's currently summer and if I had just one word to describe the place that word would be 'bleak'. It's a fantastic to visit but I certainly wouldn't want to live here. Much of the landscape is alpine without the altitude and trees are very scarce although an arboretum has been established on the shores of the loch-like Lagarfljót which we looked out on from our first hotel. It's so loch-like it has its very own Loch Ness Monster, a kind of gigantic worm, or so legend has it.

After circumambulating Lagarfljót, and attempting to climb up to one of Iceland's many waterfalls, we headed over the snow covered tabletop mountains to the coastal town of Seyðisfjörður where Peter found himself locked inside the toilet at the visitors' centre when the lights were suddenly turned off and the whole place shut down for the day. Lin had to chase after the proprietor who was by then headed off across the car park towards home, wherever that was.

Unless you travel by boat there is only one way in and out of so back we went to Egilsstaðir then onto our next overnight stay in Fáskrúðsfjörður. The drive was was a taste of the Canadian Rockies, not quite as grand but it certainly brought back memories. And the Fosshotel which is right on the fjord is truly the stuff of memories. The the Gistihúsið Lake Hotel rapidly faded to second position as the Fosshotel became my newest and flashest ever overnight stay. Our beautifully finished rooms opened out onto decks over the water where eider ducks splashed about and preened themselves for hours on end. The restaurant wasn't cheap but it was outstanding with the best langoustines yet.

Breakfast was superb and checkout at noon. I didn't want to leave either the table or the room but we had places to go and things to see.

We headed back through the 6km long Fáskrúðsfjarðargöng Tunnel to the town of Reyðarfjörðurt that we'd passed by the previous day. This is where Lin's father was stationed in WWII during Britain's friendly invasion of Iceland which staved off a far less friendly one by Germany and kept the shipping lanes to North America open right throughout the war. Lin was keen to visit and the small military museum there is a storehouse of history. We also had a bit of fun communicating with the three elderly women running the place, none of whom spoke English but we liked them because they let us all in as 67+ seniors.

Now how many of you have driven through the Fáskrúðsfjarðargöng Tunnel even once? Well I'm very happy to boast that I've now done it not once, not twice, but three times and I'm mightily impressed with Icelandic engineering ability.

On we went through another tunnel then in and out of fjords and past stratified, uplifted and tilted mountainsides that truly had me wishing I'd studied geology. The scree at the foot of them was sometimes hundreds of metres in height, enough basalt to reballast every railway line on Earth.

Night 3 was at another Flosshotel near Höfn which was fine but we were spoiled absolutely rotten on our previous two nights. We did have distant views of the gigantic Vatnajökull Icecap though, or at least we did once the rain and mist had cleared, but half the disjointed bathroom was in the main part of the room which was a bit odd, especially given that it looked like a kitchen. An architect and an interior designer clearly cooked that idea up over a long and very boozy lunch.

I managed to put aside my fascination with 24 hour sunshine and close the block out curtains that night. So much light does not bode at all well for sleep.