Been a while since we’ve had a diary on here and I’m bored to death waiting for my flight from Manchester on Sunday morning so it’s time for an Icelandic edition.
Some of you may know I had a little bit of a bust-up with a site manager at one of the biggest heavy lift companies based in the UK where I was employed as a transport/crane supervisor on offshore wind projects and had to choose between moving to Redditch or moving to Reykjavik. Decided to give Scandinavia one last try and this time it has finally worked out as I’ve ended up as a manager at Iceland’s largest mobile crane hire company. With a population of just 330,000 I figured I might never get another chance to work in such a small country and whatever happens in the future I’m glad I’ve decided to give it a shot and get out of my comfort zone at home.
We begin on a Monday morning at the yard in Hafnarfjörður on the outskirts of Reykjavik carrying out general duties and loading various crane ballast onto several trailers.
Then at lunch time a bombshell! There’s a big lifting job up North at a geo thermal power station and one of the cranes needs an extra 25t of counterweight and 4 steel outrigger pads. The regular ballast driver is reluctant to go as his wife is about to give birth and the job will take around a week to complete so I am asked to step into the breach. At first I was rather furious and considered implementing a total ■■■ ban on all employees to avoid such troublesome issues in the future but after a period of short reflection I figured a 1000km+ round trip across the most stunning country on the planet in a manual Scania V8 with accommodation and all expenses paid wasn’t that bad of a deal after all!
After hastily throwing my ■■■■ in the cab and refuelling I leave town at around 3.30pm and head for the 6km long Akranes tunnel before turning right onto Route 1 which is more affectionately known as the “Icelandic Ring Road”.
I soon pass the aluminium smelting plant at Grundartangi and my 500 km route takes me through the towns of Borganes, Blönduós, Varmahlíð, Akureyri (Iceland’s 2nd. city) and then on to my overnight stop at Húsavík, the country’s Whale watching capital.
There’s some nice scenery in these parts and after passing several UK registered camper vans I soon realise that many people pay £1000’s to visit Iceland and maybe I shouldn’t have been so uptight earlier as I’m getting paid to see the country and live one of my dreams.
Time for a 15 minute tacho break at Staðarskáli N1 service station. I would normally go quite a bit further than this and get a 45 in before Akureyri but as I was busting for a ■■■■ and rather hungry the plan changed. The food in these places is passable but as Scandinavia is the junk food capital of the World healthy options are hard to come by (with the exception of a chicken salad with mango).
Mini panic attack when coming back to the truck as I thought the front bull bar had fallen off! Turns out it was being repainted in the workshop and I hadn’t noticed it!
Disaster averted and I press on through the Icelandic mountains into Akureryi and then eventually on to Húsavík where I meet one of our crane drivers and park up outside a hotel. No nights out in the cab here unless absolutely necessary!
The next morning we make the 30km journey on a private road up the mountain to Þeistareykir geo thermal power station in the middle of nowhere and start to set-up the cranes to begin the lifting operation. With the remoteness and hissing steam everywhere I wouldn’t have been at all surprised had a Bond villain appeared out of the shadows at any moment.
Part 2 to follow soon…
