Through a Golf Window
Iceland has some long straight roads, and lots of very big trucks. But there are many more roads that are not straight, nor blacktopped.
I had just driven over about 30 Km of gravel roads, which was a strange and quite scary thing to do. I had a fairly new VW Golf (last time I was in Iceland in June they gave me a little Japanese 4WD, which I wondered about, not having to drive off-road. Now I know why), and I must say that I was glad it was a rental.
Driving at speed on unsurfaced roads is a new experience for me. After a few miles you start to experience a mild sort of Top Gear euphoria, as it becomes clear that - yes - you are driving at speed on a road that's just gravel, and there are no engineered safety features at all. Then you hit a blind summit, and its scary. then you meet another car (driven by a local who is doing 90kph and completely unaware of your existence), and its scary.
Then you drift into a hairpin bent and start to slide on the loose gravel at the side of the road,
That's scary. Very Scary. You are then quite glad to to drive onto the nice straight blacktop, but pull in when you see a very large truck in your rear view mirror.
It's all still a bit scary.
