Day One Iceland Trekking
DAY ONE - OFF WE GO!
The coach ride to our
drop off location would put the adrenaline I’ve felt on the scariest
rollercoasters in my life to shame. We were on the smallest twisting lanes at
height, with a blustery wind rocking our minibus filled with 22 fundraising
trekkers side to side. The Icelandic nationals were calm and relaxed but you
could smell the fear amongst us brits. The scenery around us was breath taking,
well at least it was beautiful, we barely had any breath from the fear of the
swaying ascent we were making up into the snowy mountains. While we were all
nervously rocking in our seats, our insightful Icelandic guides stood upright
and surprisingly still at the front of the coach, informing us of health and
safety tips for our trip, and key information about how to bury our faeces in
little holes. In that moment I saw the same look on every single member of the
teams face as I looked around, we all realised that we would be urinated and
defecating in the wilderness, with NO NATURAL TREES in a team of 21 other
strangers. Looked like they wouldn’t be strangers for long...
First stop, we all got
off the coach at a deep canyon for a quick toilet break and to have something
to eat, and this was where we got our first heartfelt reminder of our purpose
here. Every single person who had arrived on this trip was walking for a
reason. You would be out of your mind to agree to sign up for a walk over 5
days with no luxuries in a foreign land with a bunch of strangers for no
reason, but that struck home, when a beautiful-souled lady (who will remain
unnamed for this part of the blog) broke down at the side of the canyon. The
beauty of the scenery and the silence of the land had taken all of us back to
why we were there in our own ways I think, I was there partially for myself,
and having recently lost the friend I had met through social media who had
guided me through a lot of my journey felt myself a little lost personally had
taken a wander down to the deepest edge of the canyon I felt brave too, alone
in thought, and turned around choked up to see a beautiful face streamed in
tears. She was of course, already being comforted by strangers who had all been
affected by this what can only be described as ghastly and devastating disease
themselves. Without a thought I was on the top of the hill at the canyon again
and there was three of us, all sat looking at the view, arms around each other.
We didn’t need to say a word because the comfort of knowing other people had
all been affected by the same pain was enough, and somehow as a group, in this
first 45 minute stop we had all bonded over a few moments of silence, some
tears and some grief. We didn’t need to sit and tell our stories like we were
at show and tell because we all knew that we were here because we didn’t want
these damn tumours to ruin any more lives. I knew from just looking at some of
the beautiful people on this trek that there was pain in their eyes that I wish
no one would ever have to see again. There were people on this trek who had
young children who should never have to worry a future where people have to
suffer the way we have seen suffering from these tumours or suffered ourselves.
Everyone was on this trek to change the world, as far away from the world as we
knew it.
We were stood on land
that I can only describe as feeling like soggy cornflakes to walk on, it almost
bounced back when you walked, and yet it was like lava rock at the same time,
we had all volunteered to come and trek across a giant volcanic island in
hindsight, but as we drank our Icelandic hot chocolate and boarded back onto
that coach for our last leg of the coach ride to our drop off point, little did
we know that we were about to start a crazy and painful adventure as the
‘Icelandic Brainy Bunch’…
THE STARTING POINT:
Ah, its not too bad. We
started walking as a group on a sandy terrain to start with and it seemed like
a simple job for the first 1km. Safe to say we were all laughing and joking and
simply messing around and bonding as a group. I honestly don’t think any of us, except
Lloyd, who in hindsight we should have realised had super distance knowledge
(turns out he is super inspirational marathon runner man – this guy came back
from Iceland and has run several marathons since and I simply gave up and ate
cake for like a year.) realised how far we had to walk that day, every sign we
took a selfie underneath and simply jumped and messed around, until roughly
2.5km in, when the sand started to get harder to walk upon and the winds picked
up, in the distance we could see we were walking into a minor sandstorm. This obviously felt hellish, but we got through the next 2.5km and even trekked through someones camp due
to Ron. This is where he earned his nickname, where a man became a legend…
Some
people may say this is a just an old wives tale, but all 21 one of us still
live to tell the tale;
The winds were high and motivation was low, we were
struggling as a group, Lloyd was powering on and giving us motivation from up
front with Kate and Jaz. I was down back and dragging Beth down with me, poor
Dougie (and naturally Laura translating with him were held back too) and the
rest of the pack were in the middle. All our legs were growing tired from
starting too strong and a strange terrain that you just couldn’t prepare for on
English soil. Suddenly out of nowhere, Ron reaches into his back and wacks out
a speaker, and out of nowhere, The Jackson 5, Can you Feel It starts playing. And
like magic …
SUDDENLY WE COULD ALL FEEL
IT.
Can you feel it, became
the group anthem. It carried us for kilometres until we reached the next camp
we had to walk through where someone from the back shouted, and I distinctly
remember a cheeky Scottish accent, so that’ll be Dougie, shouting something like
“Got any other songs” and it was all mixed up, so suddenly as a group we were
bouncing through the serene natural setting of the Icelandic highlands to ‘The
Prodigy’. And in these moments, The Legend that is DJ Ron was born. Motivation
was at an all-time high, nothing could stop us, we kept advancing and we were
making great progress! I even found time to stop and pose on a rock as The
Little Mermaid, my friendship with Laura was coming on leaps and bounds, and we
were all on top of the world (almost literally) until we reached a road block.
Well, a river crossing.
Trousers rolled up, shoes
off, and we started the walk. OH… HELL … ON … EARTH… HOW… DO … THEY… MAKE… IT…
THIS…. COLD… AHH…. HELP…. I couldn’t feel my legs or toes, even the boys looked
like they were squealing like piglets inside with the freezing glacial rivers
rushing across their feet making across these rivers. We all quickly dried off
and tried to warm up and the other side, rapidly redressing and being very
sneakily rewarded with a chocolate digestive by our Icelandic guides. I didn’t
realise any natural water was made in that temperature. It wasn’t until I’d
come to Iceland that I realised how lucky we are back in England with the
temperature of our water!
Misch an absolute diamond
for me for the final part of the day, just when I thought my legs couldn’t
carry me over the final part of the hill, we were nattering and she kept me
fully distracted until base camp arrived. The view of the campsite was
beautiful, however the idea that me and Beth together having to make our tent,
(both lovely and fabulous but I wouldn’t want us in a zombie apocalypse to be
fair) was petrifying. I think the guide had spotted this also as he talked us
through how to put it up when explaining these tents to the rest of the group!
Once we’d got our tents up we put up the communal tent and settled for our
evening. A group of us was sharing stories about people we had lost in the food
tent and suddenly I found myself needing a moment.
We all separated and
headed off to bed. My first night sharing with Beth was eventful, we were
literally stuffed in so tight that our sleeping bags were touching. Beth fell
asleep annoyingly fast and was out for the count, I have no idea how the rough
floor beneath her no worry. It also turns out the girl can sleep through
anything however.
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