DRIVE UP A GLACIER IN ICELAND

WANT to do something seriously cool? Fly to Iceland for a couple of days and hire a Bigfoot Defender from Ice Rovers in Reykjavik, the capital city. Then take a day trip to the Langjokull glacier and drive up it. What is a Bigfoot Defender? One with lots of rubber, ours had massive 37-inch tyres and you literally had to climb up onto the beefy side-steps just to get into it! Be warned, driving a Bigfoot is not like driving a normal Defender, they float like a hovercraft and they are pretty big, of course. Try not to drift into oncoming traffic.

Getting to the second-biggest glacier in Iceland is an extremely scenic drive. Take the 550 in a northerly direction and make your way up the highest mountain pass in all of Iceland. They call this unsurfaced road the Kaldidalur Corridor and it will also take you along the edge of several other glaciers.

While the Lonely Planet guide book says don’t attempt to drive up Langjokull yourself, if you do have some 4x4 skills it can be done. We did it in the summer, it was still covered in snow and ice but we had blue skies and I suspect it will be very different in the middle of winter. The first tip we are going to give you is to deflate the tyres to at least 0.5 bar or else you will get stuck. Don’t be scared to give it some beans during the steeper and more technical bits. Also don’t stop until you get to the top or else you might not get going again. Final tip, once at the top do stop and don’t try and drive over the other side. Take the same track down again. If you have the time do take in some of the incredible sites on the Golden Circle route on the way back to the capital. It’s like off-roading on another planet. To hire a Bigfoot, see icerovers.is.