On August 21st, 1999, three intrepid young explorers began a journey that would take them through some of Europe’s wildest and remotest areas. Aided generously by the University of London Convocation Trust, University College London and the Friends of UCL, they spent a month exploring and photographing the volcanoes, geysers and waterfalls of Iceland. This website contains a detailed account of the expedition, and just a few of the 1500 photographs taken by the expedition members.

A trip to the edge of the Arctic

Icelandic weather is definitely a contender for the Most Miserable Climate Known To Man. It rains on about 250 days a year in Reykjavík; you can expect one cloud-free day for every 10 of the rainy [...read on...]

It’s a long way to Akureyri

We arrived in Iceland at about 1.30am. It’s not a very convenient time to arrive in a country, really, but our flight had been late taking off because of storms in Reykjavík. There were no signs of [...read on...]

Midges…

Mývatn means ‘Midge Lake’, and it’s not wrong. We arrived on a calm day, not too long after sunset, and as soon as we got off the bus, we were engulfed. During the half-mile walk between the bus [...read on...]

Krafla

Day four, mission two. Krafla volcano is not really a volcano at all, although there is a hill with that name in the area. What in fact happens at Krafla is that the ground is pulled from both sides [...read on...]

Where?

On day 5 we went to Askja. It must be said here and now that Askja is fearsomely remote. Deep in the interior of Iceland, temperatures average below freezing for 8 months of the year, and what is [...read on...]

Back at the lake

We returned to Mývatn for a day, filling our time with a walk around the east side of the lake. We passed the eerie fissure Grjotagjá, which is filled with very hot water. It’s in an underground [...read on...]

Onward and upward

And then it was time to leave Mývatn. Unfortunately, a slight misreading of the timetable led to us arriving at the bus stop two hours early. However, this slight mishap aside, the onward journey [...read on...]

Mad Viking berserker bus driver

Early the next morning, we left for Laki, a 25km long fissure, which in 1783 unleashed the largest and most devastating lava flow known to man. Over 10 months, it covered 200 square miles of land, [...read on...]

Blowing hot and cold

We left the next morning for Kirkjubæjarklaustur. We hadn’t planned to go there originally, but we had heard great things about a place called Landmannalaugar from a Dutch guy at Mývatn, who said [...read on...]

A spot of intense rigour

The first thing to do is cross the lava flow behind the hut. This took about an hour, and led us to the foot of Brenninsteinsalda, an active volcano with many steaming craters on its slopes. One in [...read on...]

Dodgy geysers

At Selfoss, we were harassed into staying at a guest house. We went to ask about the price, ready to compare it with the other place in town, but the owner rather fiercely said that hers was the [...read on...]

A spring in my step

We spent our second day at Geysir exploring the multitude of other mini-geysers and hot springs in the area. Several tiny geysers erupt constantly, throwing hot water about a foot into the air. A lot [...read on...]

The road to Hella

After this brief return to Gullfoss, we headed back to Selfoss, from where we went to Hella. This small town, apart from being the inspiration behind a million bad puns, is also the nearest town to [...read on...]

Goin’ down south

And so, on day 18, we arrived back in Reykjavík, and our full circle was complete. It was quite a sad moment, and it really felt like the holiday was over. However, we still had the Vestmannaeyjar [...read on...]

Red hill over yonder

We woke up the next day to the sound of torrential rain and high winds. This put something of a dampener on our plans, which we quickly rethought. We decided to go to the Volcano Show, which is [...read on...]

Up above the streets and houses

The next day, we went to the airport, two miles out of town, to find out about flying over Surtsey, the famous volcanic island fifteen miles to the south-west of Heimaey. We followed what appeared to [...read on...]

Quite high

Day 23, Monday September 13th, was an amazing day. After recovering from the aurora-watching of the day before, we headed over to the airport to hire a plane over Surtsey.

Surtsey is one of the [...read on...]

Homeward bound

And that, to all intents and purposes, was the end of our journey. We didn’t do much else of interest, spending our final day in Iceland wandering around Reykjavík. We got the cheapest souvenirs [...read on...]

Epilogue

And that’s the end of the account. If you’ve read the lot, then very well done to you! We hope we have managed to convey some of the wonder, excitement and awe that we felt during our time in [...read on...]

About the trip

The participants

Roger

George

John

Roger Wesson

The leader of the group: he took charge of the planning, the grant applications, the day-to-day movements on the trip, the post-trip reports, and this remarkable website. A hopeless dreamer, he hopes by the end of his days to have seen all the places mentioned in a book called the Reader’s Digest Book of Natural Wonders. He won the Explorer’s Beard contest by a considerable margin.

George Payne

George tried hard to usurp Wesson’s expeditional throne, claiming that he was the better mapreader. The sight of George wandering the streets of Heimaey with a map of Landmannalaugar in his map pocket did not inspire confidence in this claim. George came a distant second in the Explorer’s Beard contest.

John Carter

John was, on numerous occasions, the pacifying voice in the fearsome arguments that occurred regularly throughout the trip. Thanks to, or perhaps in spite of, John’s interventions, no blows were exchanged. John’s most admirable act of the trip was to donate by proxy a can of tuna to a baby puffin. He dropped out on day 3 of the Explorer’s Beard Contest.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we would like to thank the University of London Convocation Trust, University College London and the Friends of UCL. Without their very generous support, this expedition could not have taken place. The expedition members remain extremely grateful.

We are also grateful to those who helped us in the planning of the trip: the Lonely Planet Guide, the Icelandic Tourist Board, STA Travel, BSÍ, Icelandair, Omega Travel, and many many others.

Finally, all the friendly people we met along the way: everyone who sold us hot dogs, which kept morale up during some trying times; the folk at BSÍ for providing a shelter from some nasty weather; the warden at Landmannalaugar, for throwing us out of his mountain hut with a sense of humour; Anthony the baby puffin, for eating John’s tuna; and our cheap plastic bottles of bad whiskey – great friends in times of great hardship.