The Highlands of Iceland - The Famous Kjölur Road (2:2)

WORK/PROJECT: SEEDS volunteers will be working on several projects, mostly construction and renovation related tasks, preparing the area for the winter, after the busy summer season; helping a group of locals developing the area with tourism services, pushing forward alternative ways of income; running a series of huts in this isolated area, offering services to travellers in the summer.

The tasks will include landscaping around houses in the area as well as some painting. Volunteers will also help revegetate some areas around and help clear some old fences. Volunteers will be maintaining hiking paths, clearing litter along the paths and in the valley. As the landscape is raw, the work is physically demanding but also rewarding. Some of these tasks may have been fully accomplished by the group coming in the spring so volunteers may take on new different tasks in coordination with out hosts and depending on weather conditions.

ACCOMMODATION: Volunteers will be hosted in a local mountain hut; sleeping in shared rooms on mattresses on the floor; please bring your own sleeping bag. The facilities are very basic and volunteers are expected to show consideration for their companions.

Volunteers will receive food ingredients and be in charge of cooking and cleaning. Please do not forget some traditional food from your home country for the international evening.

LOCATION: The Icelandic highlands, or “the interior”, are a true pearl to all nature lovers and outdoor people. It is accessible on 4WD cars and most routes involve crossing un-bridged rivers.

If you really want to get away from it all, the interior of Iceland is like nothing you have ever experienced. The mountainous centre of the island, with its rocky deserts, craggy mountain peaks, ice caps, volcanoes, hidden valleys and hot springs, is an awesome and untouched wilderness.

The interior was almost totally inaccessible until recently. However outlaws managed to hide out for years at a time in the highlands, rustling sheep and keeping away from law-abiding citizens. Travellers going between the north and south of Iceland sometimes had to cross the highlands. To get to the assembly of Alþingi (parliament) each summer, delegates had to ride from every corner of the country to Þingvellir in the southwest.

Journeys across the interior were never undertaken lightly; such travel was risky and lives were often lost. Today the interior is crossed by two mountain roads, via Kjölur and Sprengisandur, which are only open in summer, after the snow has thawed in spring.

Volunteers will be staying close to the glacier Hofsjökull and near to the rivers Hvítá and Þjórsá. The mountains in the area that reach up to 1500 m were formed during a volcanic eruption in the later part of the ice age. The area is still dynamic and great geothermal activity takes place in the surroundings. The environment is very diverse, both in shape and colour. The mountains are weathered and have very little continuous growth, as the forces of nature, like glaciers, water flow, ice bursts etc. have been fast working in these mountain highlands.

LANGUAGE: English will be the language of the camp; high proficiency is not required.

TERMINAL: Closest international Airport: Keflavík/Reykjavík (KEF). Bus station: Central Reykjavík (BSÍ).

EXTRAS / SPECIAL REMARKS: Participation fee EUR 250 (Euros). Please note that these fees are to be paid to SEEDS on arrival in either Euros or Icelandic krónas.

The fee includes the domestic transportation from Reykjavík to the camp site and back (on the first and last day of the camp). Departure time will be at 7:00 in the morning.

Remote and very isolated site located in natural areas of extreme beauty.  Volunteers need to be prepared for physical and demanding work, free time activities are mostly hiking and trekking in the area as there is no transportation available or possibility to organise transport to different sites.

Bring warm winter clothes as the project takes place outside and the weather can be very cold.

Age: 18+