Boarding our plane from Heathrow after another security check, shoes off, laptop out, camera out, search for traces of explosives, shoes on, run for the gate and finally on the plane to Iceland trying to jog my memory from school geography days, where the hell is Iceland? I don’t even know where it is - sounds disorganised but the build up to going away was hectic and after all, there is a certain sense of adventure when you don’t do too much research… but it does sound cold!
 

I had been employed to run an IRF (International Rafting Federation) raft guide course in Iceland. The industry is quite young but there is a surprisingly large amount of rafting going on. Reykjavik, the capital, is where the majority of locals live and also the centre of the tourist industry. Our destination was three hours drive North, closer to the North Pole as it turns out, to a Rafting company called Activity Tours.

  

Iceland is basically a volcanic island. This means that everything under the earth is hot. Iceland is famous for it’s sociable hot pots – small hot baths where locals sit in the steaming water and chat. All the central heating, hot water and even some power plants are tapped from below the ground heated by volcanic movement under the surface. So, yes, Iceland is cold, but they have this amazing natural resource, which makes it more than bearable – enjoyable in fact and summer hadn’t arrived yet. By the 4^th day the temperature had gone up to 8 - 10 deg and the North wind had stopped blowing. And of course, being so far North, Iceland lives up to it’s by-line of “the Land of Midnight Sun” – sunset started after midnight with the sun finally going down around 2am and rising again a couple of hours later! This made for great drives after dinner and relaxing evenings in the hotpot but much less sleep that usual.

   

 

You drive on the right hand side in Iceland, and when you come from SA, this can be a problem! The speed limit is 90km/hr on the highway and 50km/hr in the city. This is enforced quite often and fines are payable on the spot – with your credit card! The roads in Iceland are good but they don’t leave much room for overtaking. There is basically a circular road around the island with the centre being 4x4 only and largely covered by glaciers and permanent ice caps. There are also a lot of fjords to cross either over or under with some amazing tunnels.

We stayed in lovely wooden chalets provided by Activity Tours which accommodated 4 people with central heating, self catering kitchen, bedding and access to a central hot pot! Very important.

In Reykjavic, we stayed in the Salvation Army guest house, which we had our reservations about, but it turned out to be very central with access to all the shops and sights, clean and very well run.

There are two tributaries of the glacial river that are run by Activity Tours. The west is the very scenic class 2-3 river where they run most of their school and family groups and the East is the class 4-5 gorge which has world class scenery to match the great white water. Water is largely dependant on glacial melt but can also be affected by snowmelt and rain. This means that if you have a warm day and night - I’m talking around 10 deg instead of single figure temperatures, you will be faced with a very full river. We were to find this lesson out further into our trip!

  

 

The course aimed to teach novices to become raft guides, so there was little experience amoungst the group. The temperatures were barely zero on the first day so our practical drills were done in the local heated pool.

  

Although this was not a designated kayak trip we were able to slip in a few runs besides the commercial runs that Activity Tours offer. On our 4 days off we headed East to look at some famous waterfalls we had heard about and landed up driving back to run The Godafoss waterfall one morning before the course. Godafoss is a spectacular river wide drop that forms an amazing ampitheatre, like a downsized Niagara. Unfortunately we had had a few sunny days and nights between when we scouted and when we went out there and were faced with a very full and angry looking waterfall. We decided to warm up on a simple 9m shoot coming in on river left, which hadn’t been running last time we scouted. At that point a busload of tourists came to look at the waterfall and our stealth mission was totally blown! With the pressure of 60 onlookers, Chris, a Canadian guide, ran first and landed up over-pitching and being blasted out of his boat. He missed the throwbag and narrowly missed a swim down the next class 5 rapid. Not a good start. This water was snowmelt and was cold! I was next in my borrowed playboat, not ideal for this type of activity, and landed up half wavewheeling the drop which left the whole chute of water on my deck, which eventually blew. The ice cold water felt as if I was landing on tar. I have run larger drops before with much softer landings! Mark from the UK was next and wasn’t encouraged by the prior performances. This drop was a lot harder than we anticipated. He ran a good line but was buried under the drop for about 10 seconds and came up with a bloodied lip but still in his boat. 

   

Right, I was determined to run the river right hand drop, which was only around 7m but was where most of the water was travelling and had a huge hydraulic at the base. There was a line but it was tight. Chris was keen to make amends for his first run but Mark had called it a day. The run required a bit of nerve and a good calculated line with a lot of aggression in your boof on the lip of the drop. It was an awesome sight entering the drop with the huge bowl where the earth just disappears. My line was good and before I knew it I was at the bottom - it was an awesome feeling to be at one with the force of nature. Chris also had a good line and we headed off mildly chuffed with our achievements.

On the way there and back we passed too many run-able rivers to mention many of which had probably not been run before. This is a cold but awesome kayaking destination, which requires some more attention! Anyone interested, we are setting up a trip for next year May……………..

Andrew Kellett