Iceland: A land of ice and fire

Hiking above the clouds on Kalfatindar, Westfjords. Photo / Getty Images

Daniel Scott takes the road less travelled and discovers Iceland's lonely, lovely heart

Many visitors to Iceland do little more than skim its eruptive surface, spending a few days in the capital, Reykjavik, and ticking off sights from the so-called Golden Circle, along with thousands of other tourists.

But to make the most of Europe's least densely populated country, you should hire a four-wheel drive. In 10 days of touring you can get so far from the madding crowd as to forget it exists, driving long, open roads winding through valleys, around sheer-sided fjords and into snow-speckled mountains.

From Reykjavik, it takes two hours to reach Snaefellsjokull National Park, in West Iceland, where Jules Verne began his novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth. As you survey the Snaefell glacier looming 1446m above, you can already sense the peculiar drama of the Icelandic countryside. It's an impression confirmed when you descend, on a guided tour, into Vatnshellir lava cave, formed by volcanic eruptions 8000 years ago.

On the peninsula's north coast is the Beserkers lava field, a rubbly wasteland of gnarly black rocks and yellow sulphurous deposits. In their midst is a large metal shark, signposting a farm that specialises in an unusual Icelandic delicacy, hakari.

Hakari is the putrified meat from the Greenland shark, an up-to 7-metre giant found in deep North Atlantic waters.

"In the 1700s shark liver oil was Iceland's biggest export," explains farmer Jon Jildibrandsson, "and was used for lighting in London and Hamburg. But for 200 years we just threw the meat away," he continues, "because it was toxic. The putrefaction process broke down the toxins and made it edible. It's one of Iceland's oldest customs and still a delicacy."

There are more appealing dining options in the nearby harbourside town of Stykkisholmur. At Narfeyrarstofa restaurant, a fish soup bursting with local mussels is the highlight. A daily "Viking Sushi" cruise delivers raw scallop and urchin trawled straight from the ocean floor, with wasabi and soy sauce for added flavour.

Taking the car ferry from Stykkisholmur to Brjanslaekur, puts you on the southern shores of the Wetfjords region in three hours. It is a remote wonderland of jutting peninsulas, moody mountains, waterfalls and fjords and is criss-crossed by dirt roads rising into the clouds.

Boats in the harbourside town of Stykkisholmur. Photo / Ingolf

At Latrabjarg, Europe's most westerly point save for the Azores, the cliffs rear up to 441m and are home to a million nesting birds. A cliff-top walk brings you within touching distance of dozens of puffins.

Further north, on a spit reaching into a mountain-surrounded fjord, the small town of Isafjordur provides a base for exploring the Westfjords. There are kayak trips in the nearby fjord, among herds of seal, and treks on the Hornstrandir nature reserve, where the Arctic fox, Iceland's only indigenous land mammal, is often seen. Hiking 14km from coast to coast on Hornstandir takes you past snow drifts, down a deep valley to beaches backed by ice covered in sand and across a numbingly-cold river to some summer shacks, where the ferry picks you up.

But if space and unkempt natural beauty are the Westfjords' hallmark, then it is the planet's combustive energy that is writ large in North Iceland. It is most evident around Lake Myvatn, to the east, where thousands of years of fierce eruptions have shaped a landscape defined by flat-topped mountains — created by sub-glacial volcanoes — giant magma fields and pseudo-craters.

You don't need to imagine the phenomenal geothermal power that created these landforms. You can witness it at nearby Hvrerir, strolling among seething mudpots, fumaroles belching steam and mustard-coloured cauldrons that seem intent on sucking you into the earth.

Divers can get even closer to some of North Iceland's most dynamic features with the Strytan Dive Centre.

In Eyjafjord, which stretches between two peninsulas north of Akureyri, Iceland's second city, one dry-suit dive leads down 35m to a soaring volcanic pillar discharging hot freshwater from the earth's core. Another dive takes in the extraordinary Nesgia fissure, 5m deep and hemmed in by the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Diving here, in cobalt-blue fresh water with seemingly endless visibility, as curtains of algae waft on either side, is the most mesmeric experience in a country full of natural highs.

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Getting there: Emirates, operating with codeshare partner Iceland Air, flies to Reykjavik, via Stockholm.