Day 30 - bye Iceland

I left the van for a final pitstop of the night last night, to find I was surrounded by about a hundred people.  They were looking skyward, and indeed, Lady Aurora was visiting, and 3 buses had turned up with tourists to see it.  The moon was full and it was cloudy, so conditions weren’t great, but I got my camera out and took some snaps.  All horribly cluttered with tourists.  But hey, at least I got to see an Icelandic aurora two nights running, even if the photos won’t be worth having.

The camp manager must have read my blog, because when I went to drop off my rubbish this morning, I noticed the “kitchen”had been cleaned and all the rubbish cleared away.  One of the tourists that used the toilets last night was complaining about how disgusting they were, so likely that got passed up the chain.

I completed packing, I was slightly over my 23kg allowance coming here and have since bought some stuff, yak traks, gifts etc so I had bought and paid for a 2nd bag, planning to leave my huge orange oversized monstrosity at Heathrow rather then traipsing it all the way into London.  I will post some bulky stuff home so I should be able to cram everything into my 30kg Singapore allowance. 

I made one last donut run to Netto, and then returned the van to Camp Easy.  Starting kms for the rental was 133580 and we returned it with 138613 – a total of 5033kms.  I think it’s fair to say we “did” Iceland 😊

5033 km travelled

Gonna miss Netto and their donuts


They inspected the van and gave it the green tick, in fact the woman said it was “very good”.  I shudder to think the state some people return them in.  It was filthy on the outside, dirt everywhere, and despite sweeping it out before I returned it, there was still a tonne of sand and dirt inside.

While I was waiting for the vehicle inspection, there was a pretty good earthquake, the ground jolted suddenly and the building rattled for a few seconds.  It was a magnitude 4.5 at a depth of only 5.9km about 34k’s away. Lava is now 4km below the surface apparently so it looks likely another eruption is imminent.  Sigh.  Excellent timing.



Camp Easy dropped me at the airport and I checked in my two bags, and headed through security.  Plenty of time for some last minute airport shopping before I trekked to the departure gate.  Time to board and we were all herded into a waiting room for the bus to take us out to the plane.  It’s been a while since I was at an international airport where the planes are service by buses. It was the same for arrival and for a number of other flights I observed.

Rows 21 upwards board from the back, and 1 up to 20 from the front.  As I was heading to my seat in row 20 from the front, being able to follow instructions, there was a woman trying to shove her way from the back to her seat further forward than row 20.  She started to push me, expecting me to make way, but with a line of people behind me, I was having none of it.  I said she would have to wait and let me past first.  I’m old and crabby and have no time for stupidity and rudeness these days, not that I had much before – lol.

The flight was uneventful and we landed slightly early at Heathrow.  Then there was a long long wait for bags, skipped through customs and left my bag with Excess Luggage.  Heading down the escalators to the Elizabeth Line, and a class trip from my flight was just in front of me.  One of the teachers was trying to corral everyone, and I passed on my admiration for taking on a trip like this.  They were returning from 5 days in Iceland, a bunch of about 30 x 12-13yr olds.  What a nightmare.  He agreed it was like herding cats.

Even though I didn’t have a lot to schlepp into London, it was still a long trek through long corridors to the Elizabeth Line and my train into Tottenham Court Rd.  I finally made it to the hotel by 9:30pm.  Initially I thought this shoebox was even smaller than the last, but I think it’s just that the configuration is different.

I showered, and hit the hay, enjoying having a toilet within a few metres, that didn’t require a trek through minus degree temps.

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