THE long road to Grimsey is not a straight line.
It begins in Reykjavík, but before it reaches Dalvík and the cold waters of the Arctic Circle, it swings south and east, as though Iceland insists on showing its theatre first.
For Andrew Tan, a Singapore-based Malaysian photography enthusiast, and his two companions, that detour was irresistible.
Their true mission lay in the puffin colonies of Grimsey Island, but the road south offered wonders that demanded pause.
Reynisfjara’s black sand and basalt cliffs draw visitors year-round, where mist drifts around the Reynisdrangar sea stacks offshore.
They drove out of the capital under a pale morning sky, the car heavy with tripods and telephoto lenses, the windows streaked with drizzle.
Iceland greeted them in moods: one moment a curtain of rain, the next a shaft of light gilding the mossy slopes.
Within hours, they stood behind Seljalandsfoss, its water falling in long silver ropes, spray dampening their clothes as if baptising them for the miles ahead.
Skogafoss came next, thundering down with such force that even the ground seemed to quiver.
Clumsy in flight yet graceful at sea, puffins descend into their summer colonies where thousands gather to breed.
At Reynisfjara, the black sand beach stretched to the horizon, its volcanic grains glistening like ground obsidian.
Out at sea, basalt stacks rose in jagged columns, the kind of architecture no human would dare to design.
Still, the road tugged them east, towards Jokulsarlon, where icebergs drifted with stately indifference, luminous as cathedral glass, some glowing an improbable blue.
Farther on, Vestrahorn reared up – a dragon’s back of dark rock against the shifting sky.
A solitary red-roofed church stands stark against Iceland’s moody volcanic ridges, a familiar landmark on the South Coast.
Every stop was a temptation, every turn a trap for the photographer’s eye. The country whispered: linger here, forget the north, forget the birds.
But Iceland cannot be finished; it can only be left.
So they circled back towards Reykjavík, the loop complete, and began the true march north.
Here, the land changed character.
The Ring Road unfurled in long arcs through valleys where sheep dotted the slopes like white stones.
Seljalandsfoss, one of Iceland’s most recognisable waterfalls, cascades beside a quiet farmhouse beneath brooding skies.
Villages came and went – Borgarnes, Blönduós, Varmahlíð – names that hung in the air like incantations. Hours became landscapes and landscapes became hours.
By the time they reached Akureyri, folded against its fjord, the air had sharpened into something more Arctic than Atlantic.
Whale-watching boats slid out of the harbour with tourist chatter, but the Malaysians stayed only long enough to stretch their legs before pressing on.
At Gooafoss, torrents of white water roared over basalt in two wide wings – the “waterfall of the gods”, reminding them who presided here.
Dalvík came at last, small and weathered, a fishing town where the road seemed to end out of breath.
The jagged peaks of Vestrahorn mirrored in a black-sand lagoon, one of Iceland’s most dramatic coastal vistas.
Then the sea took over. They boarded a boat, more workhorse than ferry, its hull scarred by years of hauling fish and freight.
The crossing was three hours of trial and reward: waves that pitched the deck like a toy, wind that slapped faces raw, and sudden breaks when the sea gleamed like hammered steel.
Andrew stood with his camera stowed, breathing in the salt air. He thought not of glaciers or waterfalls now, but only of a small seabird with a beak full of fish.
Grimsey is where Iceland ends and the Arctic Circle begins, a narrow island of turf and cliff where puffins gather by the tens of thousands.
Cycling Iceland’s Ring Road offers vast horizons, shifting weather, and the steady rhythm of a volcanic journey.
The cliffs seethed with their calls. They arrowed in from the sea, wings buzzing, their stubby bodies almost laughable until you see their precision.
July is their season of urgency: each dive into the frigid Atlantic brings back sand eels, herring or capelin, stacked crosswise in those improbable beaks. A dozen at a time, all for the single chick hidden in its burrow.
Andrew set up his camera against the shifting light. Clouds scudded, shadows raced, the wind tugged at his jacket. He waited.
The birds were tireless, and the hours passed in silence broken only by the staccato bursts of shutters. Patience was part of the ritual.
And then, a puffin rose from the sea, wings a blur, beak shining with silver catch, eyes bright with purpose. Against the grey ocean, the fish gleamed like wires of light.
Wings beating furiously, a puffin makes a wobbly landing near its burrow on Iceland’s grassy headlands.
Andrew pressed the shutter.
That night, in a modest guesthouse with walls creaking in the wind, the picture glowed on his screen: the puffin triumphant, beak crowded with fish, eye fixed and fierce.
For the bird, it was instinct; for the photographer, it was a pilgrimage completed.
The long road to Grimsey had delivered its reward – waterfalls and black sands, gods of stone and water, storms and silence – all folded into a single frame at the edge of the world.