Splendid isolation
This is a study in rural idyllic isolation. We are at Budir, an abandoned 18th century fishing village on the shores of the western fjords of Iceland. On the drive here sheep were common and a risk - the skittish lambs always responded to the panic of a car by running to their mother, even if they were hidden on the opposite side of the road. People, on the other hand, were so rare that warning signs were given as if they were reindeer, prone to wander onto the road in the next 5km.
There are long flat lava plains between us and the mountains, a setting so remote that it was used by Jules Verne as the location where the entrance was discovered in "Journey to the Centre of the Earth". The silence is deafening as you sit on the black rock at the shore, the only sign of human footprint being the subtle ruins of the turf houses. My ears are struggling to pick up the noise they assume must be there, and generate random white noise. The relaxation is complete.
