In Search of the Northern Lights - Day Two

7 March 2014

The last couple of afternoons have occupied themselves with writing my review of THE ORPHEUS DESCENT and preparing for Book Talk on Monday – and I was supposed to have a one o’clock guru appointment today to fathom more of the mysteries of my new mobile phone (including how to download the photos I took in ICELAND) but that’s been postponed until tomorrow. So I suddenly find myself with two spare hours on my hands and time to set down the next instalment of The Search for The Northern Lights. Here you go then ...

DAY 2 : TUESDAY 25 FEB 2014

And yes, it is a busy day – busy, long and rewarding.
Up at 6.30 (which is late for me) and I begin to see how difficult it’s going to be cramming everything into each day. I make tea and write up my journal while Dear Lady Wife bathes before breakfast at eight. We fill up with a full English – who knows when we might eat next?

The airport bus is a doddle – a five minute walk to the bus-stop, a ten minute wait and a fifteen minute ride to our terminal. There’s a hold-up at entry, new barriers have been installed since the terrorist attack a few years ago but once beyond them all goes smoothly.

It’s supposed to be a two and a half hour flight to Reykjavik but with a tail wind we manage it in two. The plane’s half empty and I blag a window seat next to the emergency exit over the wing (twice the leg-room). But I inadvertently choose the wrong side of the aircraft and instead of the grandeur of Iceland, all I get as we approach is a view of the sea. Still, I’ve at least been able to read a substantial portion of THE ORPHEUS DESCENT.

Keflavik Airport is situated on a flat, featureless peninsula to the south-west of the island. But it’s bright, sunny and the visibility is good. My first thought on leaving the terminal is Where are the birds? We’re next to the coast and at the very least I expect to see a row of seagulls perched on the terminal roof (Glaucous and Iceland hopefully amongst them). But sadly not. I hunt around for sparrows and starlings and draw another blank. It’s a birdless as well as featureless outlook.

This continues on the shuttle bus to the hotel and I begin to worry. Have I made a mistake in bringing my ‘scope and bins? But then everything changes. A range of snow-capped hills appears to our right, an outcrop of rock to our left surmounted by stone statues and a sign, ‘REYJÄNESBAER’ (don’t ask, I haven’t a clue). The sea comes into view and flying over it, six large black birds ...

I conclude they must be Raven. They’re not Cormorant, my Collins bird-guide tells me there are no other corvids on the island and they’re big enough to justify my diagnosis. Then I get some gulls sitting on the water, at least two pairs of duck and some geese and I’m starting to feel relaxed. I can’t tell what they are (I’m on a bus remember) but at this stage I don’t care. At least I know I’m going to get something to look at. As we enter Reykjavik I spot some starlings and a really nice surprise awaits me at FossHotel Baron. We’ve upgraded to a larger room overlooking the bay and setting my scope up at the window I get a flock of Eider Duck not far off. The males are spectacular in their black and white plumage and I can make out the green patches on the backs of their necks. Fabulous! I’m looking forward to a trip down to the seafront ... What does DLW make of all this? She’s just happy I’ve got something positive to do.

Enough birding, I hear you say – we want Northern Lights! And so do we, and so do we. We have a trip organised to look for them on our very first evening. There’s barely enough time to check in, unpack and grab a quick bowl of soup before we’re off down to the harbour for our 9 o’clock excursion.

We’re going out on a boat in the bay. The theory is we’re away from any light pollution, there’s less cloud cover and we’re mobile. But it’s cold! So we’re all bundled up in our thermals looking like Eskimos. But glory be, the sea is relatively calm, it’s not raining and it’s not blowing too hard. The stars have come out so we know the sky must be clear. What more could we want? Northern Lights!

And we get them – sort of. A pale green band (which to the untrained eye could be mistaken for a bank of cloud) stretches across the night sky in an arc from the south-west over to the north. From time to time it changes shape, almost imperceptibly. Our guide (Sven?) encourages it to brighten and dance for us. He does so by reciting verses of Icelandic poetry dedicated to The Lights like some mystic attempting to lure an animal from a fable out of its cave. The beast responds – but only to the extent that we hear it growl as it refuses to come out and play. We know it’s there but we’re not too sure what it looks like. It’s certainly not the mind-blowing psychedelic display Joanna Lumley’s DVD led us to believe we’d see before we came away. Instead of a curtain of light we get a diaphanous veil and if there is any dancing it’s a slow waltz rather than a foxtrot. We cross our frozen fingers and hope for something more but after an hour such show as we’ve had begins to fade. Somewhere behind us the lights of Reykjavik are burning bright but ours have gone out like a guttering candle. We go below and warm up with a cup of hot coffee. We’ve glimpsed our target but we’re left wanting more. We’ll try again another day.

Footnote : The Party in Room 102. We head back to ours and break open the gin we bought at the airport (I told you the girls did things in style). Analysis and debate about our day rumbles on while the level of gin in the bottle declines. Bed at 1.15am.