Thursday

After the fourth early wake up call in four days and the disappointment of again not seeing the Northern Lights the night before, it was time for the last day to explore the beautiful country of Iceland. Mr Quick, of all people, failed to oblige to the bronco 5 rule and our all for 1, 1 for all rule meant he had to be left behind much to his disappointment.

Stepping out the hotel, we were greeted by a harsh cold wet wind for the first time this week (reminding us of home). We said cold and tired as we got on the bus to Sophia (our guide) because rather ironically it sounds an awful lot like Good Morning in Icelandic.

Our first trip was just round the corner to the thermal springs including the aptly named (Serial) Killer Spring-named after cooking two people who fell into it, (Really) Rubbish Spring-where everybody used to dump there rubbish and it spewed it back out all over the town of Hveregardi for miles around, and the Big Blue Spring-because it´s a big blue spring! We cooked eggs in the boiling water of the Killer Spring whilst we were guided around by someone who we only knew as ´librarian woman´. As you can see from the picture it was still fairly dark outside.

We pushed on with an incredibly long (and sleepy) drive to the very south of Iceland where we went to the beach named Dyrholaey. The waves were fairly big and disappointingly it was deemed a bit too dangerous to satisfy our teenage boy urges by Mr. Francis to throw rocks at stuff.

The other side of a small town called Vik, there was another beach which we called Killer beach, being far more dangerous than the previous beach due to the Killer cliffs. the Killer waves and especially the Killer sand (aka quicksand).

After another long sleep, it was getting late and we had a vote whether to go to the Geothermic power station or back to the hotel. Mr. Francis was impressed yet slightly disappointed when the majority ruled to do more Geography, brave the weather one last time and visit the power station. After a fantastic tour and inspirational speech by the power station guide (yeah right) we returned home after another arduous and tiresome day to the red hot swimming pool for a bit of rest and relaxation. During tea we were reunited with Mr. Quick who had also had another very tiring day... in bed!

Alex Rushforth, Andrew Fu, Toby Balen and Chris Lo