Driving up to the erupting volcano is no walk in the park and
involves traversing the mighty Mýrdalsjökull Glacier on 4x4 Super Jeeps.
The weather was very difficult on the glacier, but did not stop the Top Gear crew from crossing the glacier and attempting to drive onto the hot lava field. They had made some modifications to the jeeps to make them more “volcano proof“ in a Top Gear kind of way. The tires were water-cooled and there was a special shield on top of car to protect it from ash fall. Top Gear was only able to place the tires slightly onto of the still hot lava before it blew.
The route Top Gear took across the Mýrdalsjökull Glacier and down to the Fimmvörðuháls col where the Iceland eruption is taking place is mostly the same as Iceland Rovers does on the popular eruption tours “
Volcano View Bus and Super Jeep Tour”, “
Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Eruption on Snowmobile” and “
Eruption via Mýrdalsjökull Glacier 4x4 Tour”.
Our super jeep tours to the volcano thread the same route across the Mýrdalsjökull Glacier as the Top Gear TV show did and to a spot very close to the eruption. The main difference is that since we don’t have water-cooled tires we do not attempt to drive on top of the lava.