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Maverik

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Well me and my new missus headed to the land of fire and ice for our wee "honeymoon" break, said good lady mooted the idea of getting my own truck sent over to play with, I put my foot down with regard to what hire vehicle we would have... suffice to say she wasn't a disappointment, but I'm glad to be back in my 90 with the wheel on the correct side of the vehicle!

We started off with a "super jeep" tour up to a glacier - (unfortunately I couldn't control what we went in...) - ours was the red Toyota, what a laugh, but not a huge amount to see as it was blizzard white out most of the time! The big thunderbird trucks where taking the "common" tourists up ;) - awesome vehicles.

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After that we then picked up our vehicle for the week.... big wide studded snow tyres, was a scream...

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All in all a superb trip, but I'd HIGHLY recommend you go in the summer where there is plenty of sun and longggggg days, as much as the winter driving was pretty challenging and quite fun, winter in Iceland ain't for the faint hearted.

And the amazing thing was the missus even enjoyed the truck! and I quote "I think it was a good idea we got a Defender"...

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Got a question about roads as someone's been researching Iceland: All the internal roads (F roads?) the guidance is they're only for 4x4's and may include river crossings, which raises the question of how many river crossings, how deep, and is there any way to tell in advance which routes have them & which don't?

The ambulance can wade up to a point but then you end up with a drowned eberspacher & wet carpets :ph34r:

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7 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Got a question about roads as someone's been researching Iceland: All the internal roads (F roads?) the guidance is they're only for 4x4's and may include river crossings, which raises the question of how many river crossings, how deep, and is there any way to tell in advance which routes have them & which don't?

The ambulance can wade up to a point but then you end up with a drowned eberspacher & wet carpets :ph34r:

I've been to the beautiful Island 3 times in the Summer, with quite some years apart, lastly was in 2010 on an Offroad bike. And there's quite a difference in the water level depending on how the winter/spring was. But one day in 2010 when we drove to lanmannalauge we crossed over 150 watercrossings large and small, and those of us that drove bikes where absolutely drenched to our bones! But good times it definitely was! Just a bit hard to dry your clothes in 2degrees C and a heavy fog :D So was kind of cold to climb back into :D 

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In a Defender none of them is any problem, when I get home I'll have a look through my archive and fit a couple of Pictures, it was Deep enough to kill the bikes a couple of times, but the Landys we followed had no problems. I think the deepest I was in just above my waist when I had to drag the poor Yamaha to land :D The challenge is in the current, which can move you several meters sideways, that's quite scary, and also the huge Boulders at the bottom will roll underneath you making it even more interesting ;) An experience you will never forget though :) But I take it you Brits are quite used to Deep Water with all your fords :) 

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Okay it turned into more than just a couple of pictures :D (Hope you don't mind Maverik?)

First some of the deeper crossings, no problem for a Landy as you can see:

 

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Here you can clearly see how the current is trying to push you downstream so you have to counter steer, but this in turn splashes the water right into you helmet! :D 

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Edited by Soren Frimodt
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5 minutes ago, landroversforever said:

You can go off people Sören :banned:

:lol: beautiful shots, particularly the last one!!

My Brother and I have always been fortunate to have parents who spent every bit of their hard-earned and all their time on us, We've done heeps of stuff together, all mostly centered around our mutual love for various vehicles. So in 2010 we decided it was our turn to give them a trip they wouldn't forget, so my Mom got stuffed in the Unimog together with my Brother, and my Dad on an offroad bike cus we both have a Dakar dream lurking in the back of our minds :D Actually the very first day on Iceland he drowned his Yamaha by tipping it into an ice-cold glazier-runoff, I of course rushed out to help him, so the next day we got into our drenched clothes, changed the water oil in his engine in temps just above freezing with a heavy gust coming from the glazier! Thems were the days :D 

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I think Iceland in the summer is a very very very different place to Iceland in winter...

Regarding roads in Iceland, from the limited experience of our last trip, most of the road are pretty new that connect up all the wee villages around the periphery of the island, it doesn't take much to go off the main roads and you're straight onto gravel tracks, some better than others.

Here are a few photos of rovers I was perving on... the almost perpetual dark kinda plays havoc with taking good photos I'm afraid...

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LR's over there are a bit of a rarity and they seem to be the reserve of the "posher" folk, did see a few standard ones on farm etc, but they all looked in really good nic compared to what you see up here, I think there's a firm called Iceland Rovers that do all the converted stuff as you see above, it was interesting though, as I was chatting with a few guys that owned and did the "super jeep" thing they said they often used LR suspension parts on other Japanese trucks to allow them to get the required lift for the big tyres etc...

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1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Reb - Sweden is nowhere near as scenic as Norway. I'm sure it has other marvellous features but road-trip wise I'd head for Norway.

Thanks for that - i will do a search, but was it you who posted about Scandinavian travels fairly recently?

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