July 6–15: Lokastígur, Reykjavík, Iceland:

Had Iceland been sunny and warm, rather than experiencing the worst summer in a hundred years, I might have felt short-changed. The overcast sky, wind-chill, and rain accorded with my expectations. And these conditions were a welcome contrast to the UK’s current heatwave. (Give me the cooler climes of the north any day.) I never got used to the smell of week-old egg mayo (hydrogen sulphide) every time I showered, however; Icelanders derive their hot water from geothermal springs:

The landscape was unprecedented in my experience. It was being formed and dissolved before my eyes. I felt as though I was walking upon either the primordial Earth or an altogether other planet, like Mars or Venus. The beauty was as much in the particular phenomena as the general features of the environment:

Sudden and astonishing contrasts of scene, substance, and colour were a constant. A desert, like the plains of Nevada, on the right butted an iceberg lagoon immediately to its left:

However, one of the most striking aspects of the landscape summoned the industrial scene of my childhood in South Wales. Instead of coal dust, slag, and tips, there were fields and mountains of black volcanic ash. Moss and Lichen grew where the terrain was stable. I never thought to see again these colours, surfaces, and formations:

And then there was the street food shop that sold only lamb and seafood soups, the chip shop, that sold only chips, and the Icelandic-British fish and chips stall that vended a wonderful and welcome combo on a cold and wet evening, following a long journey to and from the south-east of the island:

Over the weeks to come, these impressions will deepen and those smaller and unspectacular but equally meaningful moments will present themselves.