Fellow vanners

This blog starts 5 weeks ago – the day that I arrived in Iceland. As I was sitting in my van ready to drive off the ferry I had mixed feelings of excitement and nerves. There’s a perfect Swedish word for this feeling “Resfeber”. If there’s one thing that was making me nervous it would be something going really wrong with Bertha.

I looked in my wing mirror and in the lane next to me could see a green T4 with its bonnet up, and it was British. I did what I hoped would happen to me in that situation – I got out of my van and went over and asked if I could help. I know very little about engines and the most help I could have actually practically offered would have been to lend him my Haynes manual but I went over all the same. He seemed to know what he was doing and said he thought his clutch had gone. To see someone with a similar van having problems added to my nerves a bit.
We both got off the ferry and an hour or so later in the town he came over and introduced himself properly – Ben. He was going to drive to the next town and find a garage, he reckoned it could be in there for a week.

I often wondered how he’d got on but 3 weeks on I hadn’t seen him (and his trip was due to last 3 weeks). One evening I was speaking to a Canadian man and his young son who were on a boys camping trip and he told me of a natural hot pool in the middle of a lava field which they’d come from and recommended I go there. I asked what the road was like and he asked what I was driving. “We saw a green one of them with a British guy in yesterday” he said. I was genuinely pleased to hear that Ben was back on the road.

As I drove to the hot pool through the lava field I saw a green T4 driving in my direction. When we met we stopped and had a chat, it was nice to see a familiar face even if we had only met for 10 minutes before. It’s the same when I’ve bumped into anyone for a second time on my travels. The weather was awful so I stayed at the hot pool all day and decided to spend the night there – probably having the worst weather battering I’d ever had in my van.  I woke up to see that Ben had made it back there for the night, being far braver than me to drive roads like that in the dark!
Another soak in the hot pool and I got on my way, the sun was out and there was a glacier I wanted to see.

Another week passed and at Pingvellir national park I saw a white British van parked up with bikes on but no one around.

 It was a couple of days later that I saw that van parked up again at a waterfall. I went for a walk and when I got back to the car park I saw Ben’s van again. British van convention!  We caught up on where we’d been since we last saw each other and then carried on. Now we were in the south there are less detours to make so we were on a bit of a tourist trail, stopping at the same places. Also, being this far round the country at this point in time it was fairly clear we were all getting the same ferry back to Denmark as there is only one a week. After a swim in a geothermal pool in the mountains I decided I was going to head up to a glacier to see if there was anywhere to park up for the night. I pinged Ben a message to say it was clear to park up there and an hour later he appeared, along with a bike rack full of firewood he’d collected on his travels.

Parking up next to a glacier was cool, having a campfire under the stars next to a glacier with company was even cooler.

 By the next evening I’d bumped into the other british van again, Paul and Linda. We were both having issues putting fuel in whilst being blown away in the wind and rain, we spoke very briefly but it was starting to get dark and I wanted to go and find somewhere for the night.

Mine and Ben’s paths crossed a few more times and his crossed with the white van. On the penultimate evening I noticed a hot pool and went down to investigate – I will never get tired of dips in geothermal pools. Not long after, a green van pulled in. Not long after that a white van pulled in. We had ourselves a convoy! The northern lights forecast was good for the evening so after hot pooling and dinner the 4 of us watched the lights together and then headed to bed before getting up again when the sky came alive in a way I’d never seen before.

After a lazy morning hot pooling we went on our ways, knowing we all wanted to get close to the ferry that day. I realised that I hadn’t used my bbq in Iceland so a plan was put in place – we’d all meet up for the evening, bbq and watch the lights again. Having been to the supermarket I went on a recce to try and find somewhere suitable for the 3 vans for the night before sending coordinates to the others.  They took their time – turns out they’d all been for showers first! We set up camp in a forest clearing and bbq’d and then kept it going with wood whilst watching the best northern lights showing of the trip.

 I like travelling alone but to share a couple of evenings like that with fellow van travellers was fantastic and a brilliant end to my Icelandic adventure.