Happy new year!

Welcome 2013!

May this be a year full of happiness and joy for you all!

We had an amazing new years eve, one we’ll probably never forget. Our plan was to visit my inlaws for their annual new years eve feast, they live in a small town just up north, about 40 min drive on a good day. Monday was not a good day, it was pounding snow and rather windy. The roads were already blocked the night before because of it but we thought it would be open by morning. The snow plowing team in north Iceland is extremely well equipped, with heavy blowers and very large machines. However, by noon there was announcement that they tried to open the road but were forced to retreat because the roads would just fill up again instantly, the snowfall and winds were just too heavy. So by noon on Dec 31 we realized that it would probably be just the four of us but we hadn’t prepared anything for dinner, we found a steak of a reindeer (sorry Rudolf) in the freezer and decided to try and defrost it, just to be sure we also headed to the store and found some turkey breasts.

As we were in the store, my husband got a call from his dad, saying that a rescue squat guy, who is also his buddy, told him that we should just take off and go but be quick, he had passed through a few times on his superjeep and he would help us out if we got into any trouble.

When the road administration sais roads are blocked, they really are and nobody should even try taking on a journey on a blocked road.

But this is just the moment things got interesting. The superjeeps are known to be able to go through everything. So we hurried to the checkout, bought the turkeybreast anyway, just to be on the safe side. Hurried home, packed some things to spend the night, left the meat to thaw in the cooler, locked the doors and drove away on our Santa Fe. Highly optimistic.

We left at 15:00, the sun was about to go down again so it was almost twilight, which is not good when you’re driving in windy snow.

We got through 75% of the way, often very critically but still, further than we had thought, in half an hour. All of a sudden, in front of us was a car stuck in the snowpiles. There was no way of getting around him, his car was even bigger than ours so we wouldn’t get far anyway.

That was moment we knew we had to call for help. Around an hour later, and when it was almost totally dark outside and two other cars were behind us, the guy from the rescue squat came to assist. We transferred our stuff to his car, took the kids and left our car behind, safely on the side of the road. There was a couple from another car who joined us aswell.

The superjeep seemed to float on top of everything. The tires are huge, 44″ in size with airpressure control so it didn’t actually matter whether he was exactly on the road or not.

So about three hours after departure we arrived at our inlaws, very happy for arriving safely. The new years eve feast went very well, everybody had a good time and the boys, who knew they were allowed to stay up for as long as they wanted, went to bed at about 3am exhausted after the adventure of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

On new years day when the weather had calmed down,  and was actually very beautiful, no wind, a bit cloudy and about -2°c / 28°F, the roads were opened and we went outside for a walk while my husband went to fetch the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we drove back we realised just how much had piled up on the roads, even around here this amount of snow in such a short timespan is quite amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

Non sponsored: If you are interest in super jeep tours, you should check this out.