Initiaiting the Icelandic Fundraising Adventure

It was July 10^th and I kissed Callum goodbye at Luton train station, laden with kit nervously boarding the train which I would depart at Gatwick, to meet a team of individuals I had never met before. All of which I was committed to spending 5 days in the freezing Icelandic wilderness with.

            I arrived shockingly early and waited in the meeting area until a man approached me, simply stating “Are you here from the Trek too?” I must have had a gobsmacked look on my face and he signalled at my hoodie, suddenly it dawned on me that I was plastered in charity logo’s and I smiled and nodded. This was my first encounter with the man who I would go on to know and adore as ‘DJ Ron’; little did I know this man would soon be the very glue that would hold the motivation of our weary and drained team together earning him his nickname. Along with Ron, came his lovable work colleague James who would become an equally key member of team motivation, we were the first three musketeers together at the airport eagerly awaiting the rest of the team to join us.

            Soon people were arriving thick and fast, I can’t remember the exact order of people to arrive but there were some shining stars from the start. Abi was from the charity and she was a ball of excitement from the moment she arrived, rounding us up and handing out our tickets and information. It suddenly dawned on me the reality of the task we were facing. Nonetheless I got queuing up and nattering away as more and more team members arrived and got all my baggage checked in. I’d lost count of how many people had appeared in the last five minutes and hadn’t begun to take people’s names at this point, however managed to strike up conversation with another lady on the trek Misch in the queue to check in. She was jetting off to a tropical paradise after the trek to recover, which I was rather envious of, as I was returning to work a few days later! I was secretly wishing I’d been clever enough and saved hard enough to book myself a holiday to recuperate. I already knew I was going to hit it off with this girl, she thought the way I wished I did.

            In the airport we went, and we sat for breakfast in a Wetherspoons, our last taste of Great Britain before we were left to fend for ourselves (or so it would feel), we dragged along some other members of the team for breakfast but were the only members of the team to partake in an early morning Prosecco. We toasted to ourselves, as all good explorers would and finished up before heading down to the gate to board.

            There was a pair of friends I met at some point in the business of the airport, who had the disastrous journey of a cancelled flight down from Glasgow and had to arrange emergency transport down, but thanks heaven they made it. Firstly, I’ll introduce Laura, she’s a Glasweigan gal, who turned out to become a good pal and a much-needed translator for my ‘tumour twin’ Dougie. Dougie was also from Glasgow, he used much more Scottish slang and I struggled often initially to understand what he was saying but we both had the same diagnosis and the more I learnt what Scottish slang words meant (courtesy of our gorgeous Laura) the more I would realise Dougie had a heart of gold, but we’ll get to that later on.

            We boarded the plane and I was by far the loudest and most excitable person on the entire flight, I’d introduced myself to almost everyone and learnt everyone’s names and part of their reasons for the trek before we’d landed. As we came into landing on Iceland there was a tiny little island off the coast, that I mistook for all of Iceland, which amused all of those sat around me, and introduced me ‘shockingly’ as the girl who spoke before she thought.

(Here's a sneak peak of me on the plane journey and the poor charity rep who endured the flight beside me!)

 It wasn’t long before we were off the plane and into the coach into Reykjavik. I had a several conversations on the journey into the city with different individuals and seat hopped around the coach until I’d tried to introduce myself to everyone. I met Lynne and Lyndsey on the coach ride who would prove to become like the aunts that everyone loved to be around over the next few days on our trek together. They also were about to teach me that no matter what altitude you climb too, that a woman can never be without her lipstick.

On to Day One of the Fundrasing Trek...