Day Twenty-five - Tourists (Gulfoss & Geysir)

Rise and shine to rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty pertaining to the day’s itinerary, only to be confirmed by a quick word with our man in London. 

Swimming at 10.00am (or so) then lunch, then a trip, then dinner. The day looked positively eatable! And none-the-less very beautiful. The bus came to take us swimming and we arrived and went into the changing rooms which seemed to have been taken over by military dictatorships! Undressing here, towels here (NO drying in the dressing area) and a wash (without swimming costumes and “here is the soap, would you please use it”). Obviously a paranoia of social diseases. 

Having survived the treatment we actually got to have a swim!! In a great big outdoor pool which was, though, very warm, sulphurised and chlorinated. Along the sides were hotspots for the thick skinned, and on the other side, a great big kiddies pool, where great big kiddies played ball. 

Out by 1.00pm and led by Snorri to lunch – a bit of a walk, but worth every calorie! Cauliflower soup followed by … fish garnished with onion and potatoes, and lashings of salad and 1000 island, AND seconds! Followed by the closest thing to trifle since… school trifle, which was quite delicious.

A person provides scale

Then the two-hour coach journey across south-west Iceland boring landscape to waterfalls and geysers.. Well it was a jolly good waterfall.

Gulfoss Waterfalls

Liz and I - reunited after the adventure phase

The geyser, a smaller one Scrottur, not the famous one Geysir, did erupt.

Scrottur erupts....

..and recedes

.. and, since it goes off like clock-work,
we're allowed a closer look

  .. and I bought an Icelandic sweater and got rid of some travellers’ cheques.

And what a worthwhile 6 hours that was! Then we reached the restaurant and were told to sample the bright (traffic?) lights of Reykjavik for 45 minutes until dinner was ready. Well in Iceland, girls whistle boys (and girls), people like driving around, and around, and around and benches are not forthcoming.

Then we got back to dinner, hailed as a great Smorgasbord layout. The chef obviously had great delusions of being French, and the sumptuous bowl of mushy soup with brown bread and butter, was succeeded by a meagre, but none-the-less very beautiful, meal of flounder in hollandaise sauce, 3 shreds of carrot, a sprig of cauliflower and two potatoes. 

Very tasty but Val saved the day and very generously supplied 2 bottles of old nouveau! ALCOHOL!!! The meal was concluded by skyr with mil followed by a more jazzy contribution by the band, and various attempts by the likes of me and Liz, along with Woody and Nick Braithwaite, to induce some dancing – but apart from an attempt at a tango by Ray and Janet and some impromptu break-dancing by Adrian Miller, we were not totally successful. 

We were shepherded out at about 12.30am following a leader’s speech, piled onto the coach and finally back to Arsel where John brought his martini out. With Ian rather the worse for wear (but none-the-less very beautiful) from the effects of the local Brennevin, and Claire, Rog, Liz, John and myself quite well along the way, we sang, guitared, broke glasses, headbanged amongst numerous other activities to the strains of Queen and Howard Jones, about one hour after which we were ushered to bed by the rather less jolly members of the band. However we did continue with a little game of ‘grab the spoon’ in our corner until a shortage of matchsticks reduced visibility. 

A jolly last night in Iceland!!

Day Twenty-four - Back to Civilisation

The ‘lift off’ went very smoothly indeed, with a communal breakfast at about 7.00am of Alpen and milk (or paraffin if you’re Monty) with a general terrace clearance. 

The container arrived at 8.30am and human chains crammed its every corner with John West generosity, tents and Dave. 

The bus arrived at 9.40am, and by 10.00am Base Camp had been returned to its natural, and none-the-less very beautiful, state. 

The bus journey was uneventful except for a twenty-minute break to mend a trailer tyre. We arrived in Reykjavik (or rather Arsel youth centre) at 6.00pm…

The Adventurers return

... to be greeted by the thought of saunas and showers, the great indoors, warmth, mattresses… The paths of cleanliness, however, are not straight – and after ten minutes the girls’ shower voted against cold water and for third degree burns. A little mechanical alteration though having reduced both showers to torrential river temperature (see earlier) restored normality and 10 days (at least) of grime were showered, sweated and showered away.

Day Twenty-three - cleaning the skis

6am rise for John, Sam, Rob, Ed and Richard who are going to collect the automatic weather station from up by the nunatak. We were not happy people at 8:30am to find that they had scoffed ALL the porridge and left all their billies dirty. However I did manage to scrounge ½ tin off Ian (to whom we may be eternally grateful). The day was set aside for cleaning up and improving the ski situation. 

This involves:

1. Taking off ALL the wax – very tedious and quite yucky in the rain
2. Drying the skis off completely by bringing them into a tent with a primus and a person (Philippa or me) for about an hour
3. Varnishing them (with highly toxic stuff – to be used in ‘well ventilated places’ like tents!)
4. Leaving them to dry
5. Varnishing them (ditto)
6. Leaving them to dry (ditto)

TEDIOUS? You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!

Day Twenty-two - Back to Base Camp

Back to base camp day. 

First delivery for those who didn’t want to try proper down-hilling i.e. me, Philippa, Matt, Ed and Mike who’d already been. We left at 11am to reach a pro-glacial pick-up point at 12:00. All very well if you go in the right direction. About 2 hours later, having been most of the way down the wrong side of the glacier and prevented from going straight back across the glacier due to a massive crevasse field, with a pulke and no crampons. 

Luckily Jim was waiting with the Land Rover when we finally descended the snout, and we piled skis, rucksacks and ourselves in and on the Land Rover. 45 minutes later and the base camp was in sight!!!

HOME!!!

New was that Ski 2 had reached their objective and climbed Oraefejokull and down to the road and caught the bus about a day earlier. 

The bus for the Myvatn group had been booked for the wrong day so instead of being back Thursday evening they had only left on Friday morning and were due back later. Jim had commented to Ray that “Amundsen won again” and had been told somewhat irritably to shut up; and it hadn’t stopped raining at Myvatn.

The others arrived back at about 6pm. We stayed in our adventure groups, but Liz, Claire and I got a good natter in and I was I.C. for the evening, and I I.C.’d rather well (or so I thought!). Food was overflowing, like a massive tin of creamed rice, 5 tins of corned beef (nice fried) and baked beans in plenty. John West had been very generous.

Tent arrangements had been modified to 5 i.e. 2 per tent and I shared with Philippa. The emptiness caused me to wake up thinking that I had been abandoned on the icecap whilst they all walked off…. Luckily I don’t think anyone heard me calling for Roger.

Anyway, I’m still alive. Sustained by frequent visits to Liz and the loo (usually with Belinda in it). Having been told that the main base would cater for the glacier groups, I made dinner for us, to be asked about 9:00pm to make a meal for the aforementioned ice persons. Rog drummed up five packets of cheesecake (one packet for two people!) and I awaited the arrival of the inflatable. After one false alarm thanks to Henrey. I got the timing right and served up a passable goo of fried corned beef and tomato, and macaroni and baked beans at about 11:30pm. Philippa and Matt both put in their bit and the weary were all well satisfied (apart from a lack of a primus making a simultaneous brew impossible). Having rapidly packed my unpacked rucksack, I scrambled into bed at about midnight in preparation for the ‘six o’clock’ get started for tomorrow.

Day Twenty-one - Last day on the Ice

7:00am rise, again to brilliant sunshine, and another trip up Snofjell. I didn’t go and although people raved about the views, I think it was the best idea for my general constitution.

The bedding gets a much needed airing

After a brief lunch we left at about 2:00pm and skied toward the glacier we had started from. 

The journey was fairly pleasant (if not mostly uphill but none-the-less very beautiful) until after about 2 ½ hours we descended into the murk and, being quite tired, we were informed that we were in a fairly rigid and well defined area of doubt and uncertainty, i.e. we were lost. Martin (chief pack carrier and navigator) finally managed to locate us with the result of 8km to go. 

The straightest way between two points
in a snow crevasse field on skis

Whoopee. 

Onward we went with each long slow ridge producing another after it. Then someone announced that the ski-lift and our hut had been identified about 4km ahead. Then we hit the crevasse field. 

Luckily none of the snow bridges fell through. And we all managed to keep our balance on the ridges which separated the massive ones (about 10m wide!!) and we arrived at the top of the slope down to the hut. 

Well, I’ve never been a great one from downhill skiing and having gone about 50m picking up speed at an alarming rate my courage (courage? What courage?) left me and I did quite an impressive A over T. Roger was very helpful and picked me up and gave me instructions to snow plough or traverse (although crevasses made that dodgy – geddit?). I fell down again whilst turning, but 15m downhill made a momentous and best decision for two weeks. I un-skied and walked. Life was much easier. I arrived last at the hut – freed from skis for as long as I wanted! 

To be greeted by yummy Alpen flapjack (Roger P.) and hot chocolate (ditto). The Grimsvatn group came down a day earlier having been driven back by awful weather and deep snow (even Scott took skis!) – and a retaining party awaited our arrival, amused by downhill skiing and playing with snow-cats. 

We pitched our tent on a lump of frost-shattered product. Rob and Sam decided to do x-country down-hilling, since the ski lift was going to be switched on, and didn’t return until about 1am having visited the group that were sampling the delights of snow-holing. 

I slept very well that night.

Day Twenty - the Sun comes out

The wind had calmed and one could almost say it was a beautiful day. We skied back up the ridge (that we had come down two days previously). I felt terrible – in that I didn’t feel I could stand up without falling down, which isn’t a good way to ski! However we packed up and set off. We skied quite hard with a short break for lunch in the brilliant sunshine. Rog carried my fly since I was having difficulty again with my waist strap (bl**dy Karrimor). 

My stuff
(looks like some moisture got in the camera...)

At about 4pm we stopped and were informed that we were at Snofjell! (the nunatak at the top of Heinebjergsjokull)

 The leaders offered a whistle-stop tour up to the top. Sam and Rog went up with Mart and Nick.

John and Rob sat and sunbathed (like the active people they are).

And Philippa, Val and I went further up the ridge for ½ hour. From there we saw right across the icecap from Oraefjokull.

Philippa and Val (I was taking the picture)

The view was quite magnificent with a beautifully clear sky, and cloud enveloping round the lower glacier valleys. We went down in about half the time, although the snow was still very slushy on the lower part and didn’t (combined with the high-tec plank design of the skis, induce a high rate of knots. As the sun began setting the temperature got very much colder, and a brew was made as we awaited the arrival of the others and our dinner.

They arrived back a little later than expected but a ten minute watch-out confirmed us of their continuing life. The sunset was beautiful, and an orange glow settled on the horizon of the ice cap all night, with tall the ski-bindings and metal fittings giving off a fluorescent glow in the blue-ish snow. 

We were asked to inform the others if any of us saw the Northern Lights during the night. Mart called us out at about 11.30pm but the effect was merely a thin moving band of nebulous white across a small portion of the sky/ Well, I HAVE seen them!

I got the shivers really badly that night and my face was burning terribly. John had some calamine which I gratefully borrowed (having rustled around outside with Roger’s rucksack looking for his for about 10 minutes) which helped me sleep a lot better.

Our Leaders Martin and Val taking a well-earned rest

Day Nineteen - Divine Intervention?

Another day in bed due to the gales and very limited visibility which would be essential if we were to continue with our original changed plan.

Toward the evening I decided that a hymn evening might persuade the powers that be that a weather change would be a jolly good thing and we rendered forth with the likes of “I vow to thee” and “Jerusalem” and “Oh little town” etc. . 

I also rather hoped that we wouldn’t be going back via Heinebjergsjokull. Well waiting and seeing and getting jolly cold outside was all we could do. The leaders had decided that we would move whatever….