Iceland

Time to go...

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Our 8am alarm was brutal, but necessary. We crammed all our possessions in to our holdalls and lugged them across town to Grái Kötturin for a final taste of Iceland.

After saying goodbye to Alistair, the bus journey to the airport took us via the Blue Lagoon geothermal pool. Apparently calling it a health spa sounds too girly :) but how do you make, soaking your self in the geothermal pool, sweating in the steam room, boiling in the sauna and exfoliating with a silica mud mask, sound manly!!?

At the airport, Matt and I claimed our tax refunds, had our last blueberry skyr.is and said goodbye to Alistair for the second time (his flight was delayed for hours!). The announcement came over the tannoy and the stampede started... Home here we come!

Bus ride to Reykjavik

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:52:00 +0000

8:30am bus to Reykjavik was running late. Once it arrived, I sat and watched a double-exposure of my goofy face in the window, as infinite distance rolled by outside...

After nameless miles I hang suspended on a knife-edge doze, until we hit the outskirts of Reykjavik. Then we passed a geothermal power plant, the smell of sulphur is the type of eggy tang that your family pretends not to notice when you're in a car with them :)

We checked into the Youth Hostel, removed our beards (I also defuzzed my bonce!) and we headed out into town...

Kringlan, BSI, Sun Voyage and the Gay Pride Parade all worked up a hunger. A delicious meal at Caruso's led to Icelandic vodkas and Brennivín...

Good night!

Oh and Happy Birthday Dr Shorty :)

Day 6: Fimmvörđuháls Pass - Skógar

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:48:00 +0000

Matt was startled to discover the four new additions to the hut - somehow he managed to sleep through their grand entrance!?!

To sum up today in one word... 'Waterfalls'. For as we descended to Skógar, we passed lots of them - beautiful and all different!

When we reached Skógar, we put up our tent and tried to take stock of the journey. I think Alistair summed it up best...

"Lovely scenery, but my feet bloody hurt!"

In the evening, we raided the local shop and had a BBQ feast :)

2am Update from the Fimmvörđuháls Pass!

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Four Icelandic people have just crashed into the hut - they got lost! So now I have been evicted from my bed and the buggers are now snoring :(

Day 5: Þórsmörk - Fimmvörđuháls Pass

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:47:00 +0000

The day started with the sun blazing through the tent - an unusual experience in this trek!

Today we needed our head for heights - narrow ridges, exposed climbs, sheer cliffs and... rain! A proper day in the mountains :)

Once we reached the col between Mýrdalsjökull and Eyjafjallajökull, we had a few navigational issues... We went to the wrong hut, which came as some relief, as the hut we had first found damp and smelly!

The hut at Fimmvörđuháls was a great improvement! Small, but perfectly formed and environmentally friendly... The drinking water comes from melted snow and the washing water is collected from the roof.

We whiled away the evening by chatting to the other guests and the warden.

Day 4: Emstrur (Botnar) - Þórsmörk

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:46:00 +0000

First stop of the day was an old bridge crossing a deep ravine. "Not to be crossed if you suffer from vertigo" the board informed us... Bit late now!

After that the route was simple - just follow the Markarfljótsgljúfur... So that's what we did! We wandered through this beautiful landscape and reached our final river crossing of the day (which was a deep one!).

We then navigated our way through a forest to Þórsmörk and so to the end of the Laugavegur Trail, which is described as "a demanding, but pleasant hike through a variety of landscapes".

Day 3: Hvanngill - Emstrur (Botnar)

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:44:00 +0000

Today started slowly...

When we eventually got going, our first stop was Hvanngilskrókur - an impressive chasm that is home to Tangafoss - a picturesque waterfall. Back on the trail, we came to our first river crossing of the day, which was via a bridge! What a novelty :) The second, however, was not :( and the cold glacial waters reached the tops of our thighs. We then continued to plod across the black desert to our next hut.

After pitching our tent and scoffing another fine meal, Matt and I took another walk to Svartikrókur - another impressive canyon that was 180m deep and made in just one week! Meanwhile Alistair stayed in the tent nursing his sore feet and brewing us a special surprise :)

Day 2: Hrafntinnusker - Hvanngill

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:43:00 +0000

The sound of rain from the inside of a tent is one of my favourite sounds... Not, however, when I know I have to get out of the tent!

The day's trek began by crossing the plateau which had many steep ups and downs. The drizzle turned to rain as the day progressed. The resulting clouds hung in the air hiding what promised to be spectacular views.

We descended from the clouds into a lush green valley and hit Grashagakvisl - our first river crossing! Strangely, I found this a pleasant experience as it cooled down my sweaty feet :)

Shortly after we reached Álftavatn and the campsite. We decided to take a short break and push on a further 5 km, through a second river crossing, to the next hut at Hvanngill.

The evening meal had just finished cooking as the heavens opened. The rain poured down for a few hours and the groundsheet of the tent began to leak. Alistair dived out of the tent and to the rescue! He dug a drainage ditch around the tent. Just as he had finished, so did the rain :)

We just had time to clean up before downpour number two happened, so, with our defences in place, we retreated to our sleeping bags.

Day 1: Landmannalaugar - Hrafntinnusker

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:41:00 +0000

6am - my watch bleeped into life. Alistair, Matt and I then began the routine that would soon become familiar. Packing everything up and moving on...

By 9am we had made both bus connections and were heading to Landmannalaugar on the number eleven bus. "Weather permitting..." the CD guide gave us the spiel, but sadly the weather was not permitting as we travelled through the lunar landscape of Southern Iceland.

The landscape soon changed to lush green fields with sheep and horses everywhere! As the road lost it's tarmac covering, I looked around the bus... So many faces from so many places. This may sound selfish of me, but I hope they're not all planning to do the trek! Otherwise we will all be destroying the thing we all seek.

The bus turned right at Mount Hekla, Iceland's best known volcano, and headed along the rough track to Landmannalaugar...

Landmannalaugar was somewhat of a disappointment - a city of tents surrounding one small thermal spring (which when we arrived, was occupied by over 20 people). We gave it a miss and set off.

First obstacle - a lava field, then we descended past a few thermal vents. The eggy smell of sulphur was hanging in the air. Shortly after, we reached the plateau and the colours changed again. Vivid greens, turquoises and obsilian sand that, if the sun catches it at the right angle, shimmers like gold.

Slowly we continued to trek through the cool refreshing mountain air until the hut came into view. The evening routine was quickly established. Pitch tent - cook food - eat - wash - bed! Just as the rain came in... :)

Grái Kötturin

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:40:00 +0000

We headed into the intimate City of Reykjavik at 10am and the place was like a ghost town! Where is everybody?

Matt and I started another day of bimbling with breakfast at Grái Kötturin - fantastic! After a few last minute purchases, we headed back to the campsite to await the arrival of the third musketeer...

Alistair promptly arrived and we headed back into Reykjavik for a final proper meal.

Once we were back at the campsite, last minute preparations were completed. Shortly after the rain arrived, as if to encourage us to bed. Requiring no further encouragement, off we went... :)

Gone fishing...

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:39:00 +0000

With the early morning sunlight beaming into the tent, there was little chance of a lie in! So we headed into town for a spot of breakfast.

Next... We booked our bus journeys to and from the trek. After bimbling around Reykjavik, we headed to the old harbour for a local delicacy... The legendary Icelandic hotdog! Once these were devoured, we took a whale watching tour. The whales "weren't being very active today", but the sea fishing was a good laugh.

We finished the day with a really tasty curry.

Oh and look what happens when you play with fish :)

Arriving in Iceland

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:38:00 +0000

Fully packed, we left the darkness of Glasgow behind and headed to the 24 hour light of Reykjavik! We slept for most of the bus journey into Reykjavik. When we arrived, we set up camp and crawled into our sleep bags for more sleep :)

The Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:35:00 +0000

The route between Landmannalaugar and Þórsmörk, known as the “laugavegurinn” , The Hot Spring Route, is one of the most popular treks in Iceland. The trail offers a wide variety of landscape. Mountains in almost every colour of the rainbow, great glaciers, roaring hot springs, big rivers and lakes. The total hiking distance is close to 79 km.

Here is the plan...

Day 1: Landmannalaugar - Hrafntinnusker
Distance: 12 km
Estimated walking time: 4-5 hours

Day 2: Hrafntinnusker - Álftavatn
Distance: 12 km
Estimated walking time: 4-5 hours

Day 3: Álftavatn - Emstrur (Botnar)
Distance: 15 km
Estimated walking time: 6-7 hrs

Day 4: Emstrur (Botnar) - Þórsmörk
Distance: 15 km
Estimated walking time: 6-7 hrs

Day 5: Þórsmörk - Skogar
Distance: 26 km
Estimated walking time: 10 hours

If the weather is good, we will divide the leg by staying overnight in the Fimmvorduhals Pass. This will allow us to make a detour to the top of South Iceland's highest mountain, Eyjafjallajökull. The next day we will continue down to Skogar to catch the bus back to Reykjavik.

Bonfire Night!!

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 17:47:00 +0000

Three months after we have completed our crossing of the Vatnajökull icecap, Grimsvötn has exploded again!

That must mean we escaped death by scarcely seconds.... geologically speaking :)

Chaos!

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Sun, 15 Aug 2004 22:09:00 +0000

We arrived at the airport to find total and utter chaos! The system is simple... You check in at any desk and all the flights leave at roughly the same time.

We managed to play the dumb foreigner card to push in the queue. We successfully argued that we should not have to pay for our 60kg of excess baggage since neither Alistair nor myself are overweight - cannot believe it worked!

The flight for me was fine, however Alistair had to sit next to a fat snoring man :)

Ems met us when we landed in Glasgow and the drive home went without a hitch.

Adventure over - time to relax and start planning the next one...

Anyone for Curry!?

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Sat, 14 Aug 2004 21:00:00 +0000

Late start today due to the 'brew'. We did eventually manage to drag our butts to the fleamarket down by the harbour - what a wierd, wonderful and slightly tacky place :)

En-route back to the campsite we found this bizarre viking ship.

After cleaning up and packing, we went for a meal at the World's most northern Indian restaurant. It was very nice, but not very spicy.

Bed early tonight, as we have an early start tomorrow!

Unlucky for some...

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 20:49:00 +0000

Another day to waste, so first we headed to the zoo! Next on our agenda was more bimbling around town. We managed to locate Hallgrimskirkja (the church whose design is based on Svartifoss).

In the evening Alistair and I went on the most expensive bar crawl of our lives... The pubs allow you to buy beer with your credit card - not a good thing. I'm dreading getting my statement :(

On a more positive note, I managed to acquire three Icelandic pint glasses :) Well, the beer was that expensive - I figured the glass came for free!?

Another lazy day...

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 21:35:00 +0000

The heat in the tent was unbearable this morning, so we were up early and headed into town.

We filled the day with bimbling round town, taking in a photographic exhibition about Iceland (with a scale model of the Vatnajökull Icecap) and eating more hotdogs :)

Happy Birthday Mum!

Bus Ride to Reykjavik

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 18:38:00 +0000

Minor disaster first thing this morning - there was no Blueberry Skyr.is left :(

The strawberry flavour is just as good tho :)

Spent the majority of today on a bloody HOT bus to Reykjavik.

Once we arrived and set up camp - we went to the pool to get properly clean. You should have seen how much dead skin I was able to scrub off!!

Before bed we had time to sample another Icelandic tradition - Hotdogs Mmmmmmmmm :)

Lazy days

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 17:59:00 +0000

The sun was burning through the tent this morning and when we crawled out - nothing but blue skies. We quickly decided today was going to be a gear drying day :)

First job for the day - FOOD!

After that we just spread out all our stuff and lay in the sun...

To build up an appetite for tea, we wandered up to Svartifoss. An impressive waterfall that is flanked by columnar basalt. This waterfall (so the story goes) inspired the facade of the Hallgrimskirkja - a funky looking church in Reykjavik.

We arrived back at the campsite to find that our spot had been invaded by the French! There were loadsa them - Alistair was well pissed off and tried to burning down their food tent with his MSR :)

Back on the tourist trail...

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 22:18:00 +0000

First thing we did was buy our ticket to freedom :)

The bus did not depart straight away, so we had a ratch around some caves and craters that otherwise we would have just plodded straight past.

The bus departed and off we headed to civilisation and more importantly coca-cola and chocolate!!

After a few stops at some beautiful places and a bit of dicking about with a wheel (nightmare!) we arrived to find that today (of all days!) the shop shut 2 hours early :(

On the brightside we scraped enough change together to get a bottle of coke from a machine :)

To end the day, we had our tea and finished off the whisky whilst watching the northern lights - not a bad way to end the day really :)

Alistair's Account

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 20:38:00 +0000

3 months ago - sitting in a warm living room - browsing the internet, playing at arctic explorers seemed like a good idea.

The howling wind, horizontal rain and hammering hail that greeted us at our starting point wasn't quite the start I'd envisaged! Even the hut guardian didn't seem highly enamoured with our plan and suggested delaying our departure [I wasn't told of this bit! Lee] as he took the contact details for our next of kin!

With wild trepadation thugh we took that first step and the adventure began.

Following a GPS for mile after mile in minimal visibility and dodging rain storms hadn't been part of the masterplan, but it did make those times when we did have views all the more special.

The main thing I have learnt is that the adventure isn't over until you step back onto the bus - never underestimate the last 15km!

Expedition Epilogue

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 19:29:00 +0000

On the bus I had some time to think about what we had achieved...

When Alistair first suggested the trip, I thought that sounds like an adventure! Skiing across the white snow with the sun shining down on us... errrrr... well it didn't quite work out like that!

The weather made our trip a lot more difficult than I have expected, but I guess that's the nature of the beast.

We looked after ourselves well and I am confident that, if needed, we could have gone on longer.

I guess I went on this adventure to find my limits and, at times, I was definitely pushed to mine.

I lose my temper far too easily, which is something I shall have to remedy.

I feel proud of what we have accomplished and I look forward to our next adventure :)

Total Distance = 137.7 km

Total Time = 10 days 19 hours 25 minutes

Expedition Day 11 - Happy Birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 19:05:00 +0000

Start @ 11:12

Weather - Fine
Wind - None!

I woke up Alistair at 9am this morning with a burst of Happy Birthday! He looked well chuffed with the little (and slightly squashed) birthday cake I had dragged across the icecap :)

We are determined that today is going to be our last day as explorers! This has to be the longest 15km of my life...

Heads down, we set off and, surprisingly, it was a lot easier than I had expected. After rounding the last corner, I saw Alistair... and then the bus!

I have never been so pleased to see a bus.

After a short break, we loaded our stuff onto the bus. That's it - we are now officially tourists :)

Finish @ 12:30

Distance = 4 km

Expedition Day 10

noreply@blogger.com (Guitey) — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 18:47:00 +0000

Start @ 12:36

Weather - Fine with the odd patches of rain.
Wind - none!

Alistair woke up at 11ish and was keen to get under way. Given the beautiful spot we had found to camp on, I was a little reluctant, but we had a bus to catch!

I started out pulling my pulk (well it was trashed after yesterday), but the terrain soon got too tricky for that. So after I had repacked and rejigged my stuff, I had to catch up Alistair.

I walked and walked with only his footprints and an occasional arrow for comfort.

I met up with Alistair at a fork in the road. We had no clue which way to go, as the map was not very detailed and only showed one path! We dumped our pulks and did a reccy... Eventually we decided on the left fork.

After a while we realised two things:

1. We were not going to catch the bus today.
2. The left fork was the wrong choice!

We got ourselves back onto the right track and found another beautiful spot to camp on. For the first time in whole trip we were able to cook, eat and sit comfortably outside of the tent without getting wet or too cold! It kinda made missing the bus worthwhile :)

Finish @ 16:54

Distance = 6 km (Not including the slight detour!)