Iceland: Whales, soup and... penises?

Wow, my time in Iceland went pretty quick. I'm now in Canada, exploring the Atlantic provinces for a few weeks before heading inland. I spent much of my 10 days in Iceland feeling like I was just on holiday and that come the end of my stay, I'd be heading home. Obviously that's not the case and now it feels like this is finally real. Weird sensation.

Anyway, enough of that rambling. Here's what I've been up to over the past week.

The Ring Goes... North

I took a 6 hour bus around the Ring Road to get to Akureyri. This is Iceland's second biggest city after Reykjavik, although city is being generous - there's only about 18,000 people living there. It's a lovely little place though, all spread out down the side of Eyjafjordur and surrounded by mountains.

The drive itself was pretty cool too, given that the weather held out all the way there so I could actually see the scenery. It feels a bit like driving through New Zealand - the landscapes here are huge for such a small island.

FOUR HUMPBACK WHALES!

My first real day in Akureyri, I'd planned to go to the city museum and then to the Botanical Gardens in the afternoon. The gardens are the northernmost botanical gardens in the world, so that would have been good.

However...

Akureyri and the nearby town of Husavik are supposedly the best places in Iceland from which to go whale watching. So, on my way down towards the museum I stopped in at the whale watching companies, thinking to book a trip for the next day. The first place (and the cheapest) turned out to have availability for that afternoon, so I jumped on that instead.

That didn't really give me chance to go to the museum, so I headed back to the hostel, grabbed my cold weather gear and went back down to the harbour.

We spent about an hour motoring down towards the mouth of the fjord in search of whales and were rewarded with sighting 4 humpbacks over the hour or so we spent down there. Unfortunately, I'm still getting the hang of my new camera, so all of my photos are really bad. Here's the best of a bad bunch.

The highlight of the trip, though, was the moment we turned to head for port and caught sight of this.


That, is a pair of humpbacks breaching. Repeatedly. I think they did it 2 or 3 times each. Fortunately, the guide on board the boat filmed that, because I managed to miss every single breach with my camera and eventually gave up in favour of just watching this amazing spectacle.

I didn't get much done for the rest of that day... too busy buzzing about whales.

Wait, I fib. I went for a walk down the fjord. I had intended to walk down as far as the airport, because the runway sticks out into the fjord. I got as far as the end of the runway and gave up because it's actually quite a long way and the wind is very cold and I was wearing the wrong shoes and I should just stop making excuses, right?

Anyway, the fjord is very pretty and full of little families of eider ducks. The ducklings are adorable and I was very tempted to steal them all.

Here there be monsters...

My second day in Akureyri, I did make it to the city museum, which had a fascinating exhibition about the history of Iceland maps. That is, there was a room full of maps of Iceland and I was in heaven. Here there be monsters and a koala called Harold.

Then I went for lunch at the Nordic Bistro and finally tried Icelandic lamb soup. Really delicious and the bread that came with it was just as good. I'm not normally a fan of lamb, but it was so warming and just what I needed after walking back from the museum in the strong winds which blow down the fjord.

#delicious bowl of #icelandic #lamb #soup or #goulash with #fresh #bread in #akureyri, #iceland. #food #travel #rtw #roundtheworld

A photo posted by Zoë Dixon (@kiwifruitpolice) on Jun 21, 2016 at 3:09am PDT

As with all things in Iceland, not exactly cheap, but worth it.

I had intended to spend the afternoon exploring the Botanical Gardens that I'd missed out on the day before, but the wind was picking up and as I left the bistro, a huge black cloud had settled over the length of the fjord and I didn't fancy my chances of a dry afternoon so headed back to the hostel to lounge around - midnight sun isn't entirely conducive to good sleep patterns.

Sure enough, it pissed down all afternoon. I made up for the wasted time by heading back into town in the evening to catch Finding Dory at the tiny cinema. It's one of those little local places where they still put an interval in, even when it's not needed. Funny seeing the film with Icelandic subtitles and I had great fun trying to work out what all the Icelandic adverts were for.

The Ring Goes South

(and if you're not singing the Lord of the Rings theme... shame)
Tuesday morning I got back on the bus and headed down south to Reykjavik. Fairly uneventful, save for the 5 minutes we had to stop the bus because a huge herd of Iceland's famous horses were crossing the road. They just kept coming! Beautiful animals and my photos don't do them justice.

Oh, and then there was the drunk woman who got on the bus and sat next to me for the last hour into Reykjavik. Very drunk, very loud and at one point randomly burst into tears. I didn't know what to do so I just left her to it.

I then had great fun trying to explain to the bus driver on the local bus that I wanted to get off at Rauðarárstígur. I can't pronounce Rauðarárstígur so I tried asking for the stop before Hlemmur, which it is and at least I can pronounce Hlemmur. He just thought I wanted to get off at Hlemmur. Fortunately, the ticket's the same price regardless. Phew.

It's bigger than me...

On my final full day in Iceland I took a wander to the Phallological Museum. Yes, Iceland has a museum dedicated to the penis. It is bizarre. This is a sperm whale penis. It is definitely longer than I am tall. Which is sort of terrifying.

Perhaps more terrifying is the fact that some crazy Icelander actually donated his own... bits... to the museum when he died. No photos of that. Too freaked out. Also, boar penises are curly. Like pigs' tails.

Moving swiftly on. Having weirded myself out with the museum, I decided to take a walk around the bay to Grotta, which is either the lighthouse or the island the lighthouse is on. Either way, it turned out to be quite a lot further around the bay than I'd anticipated. I did make it though, just in time to see the lighthouse vanish into a fog bank. Going...

Going...

Gone.

It's amazing how quick that fog rolled in. Fortunately it was still quite warm and at least it was dry. Due to this, I was getting thirsty and also hungry because I'd just walked 4 miles and my breakfast had gone a long way down. Lucky for me there's a whole bunch of little cafes and the like down at the harbour.

The harbour was 3 miles away.

So by the time I got there I was starving. Which meant when I crossed the road and a wave of delicious smell hit me, I headed straight into a tiny burger bar. And I mean tiny.

There I had the most deliciously greasy burger and skinny McCains chips. Yes, Iceland uses McCains chips. And while the burger was greasy, it was definitely proper meat. Yum. Not like MacDonalds, which reminds me...

Having stuffed my face and with my legs protesting that I'd just walked a lot further than I have for quite a while, I decided to head back to the hostel. And I finally found where they're keeping it.

See, the Bus Hostel in Reykjavik is the proud owner of the last Big Mac sold in Iceland. They keep it on the bar. Ta-dah!

And then I watched the Iceland-Austria match and cheered when Iceland scored a goal in the closing seconds to set up a meeting with England in the next round. Oh, the conflict - Iceland are the underdog and I love an underdog, but I'm English. Who the hell do I support? Guh.

Nothing to declare

So dawned my final day in Iceland. It began with an argument with the Delta Airlines site when I tried to book a flight from Calgary to Anchorage, just in case I was asked for an onward ticket at the airport. Got that sorted eventually, but I nearly gave up and would have risked it.

Fortunately, the rest of my day in Reykjavik went much better. I had a stroll around the city and finally had a look inside Harpa, the funky looking concert hall on the bay.

Also bought myself a little souvenir in the form of a funky little luggage tag, because I realised after the debacle at the airport on the way in that I should probably have some sort of ID on my rucksack.

Then I grabbed a delicious falafel and feta pita for lunch before heading up to Hallgrimskirkja. This is a huge church on a hill in the city centre. You can see it from all the way across the bay in Akranes. I'd been up it when I visited last year, so I wanted to see whether the view was any better with clearer skies.

Sort of. It was a pretty cloudy day in Reykjavik. After that, it was off to the airport again.

Uneventful airport times (save for a slight delay), uneventful flight in which I finally watched Deadpool (awesome film) and then about 45 minutes later than scheduled, I arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

And promptly had to go and talk to Immigration. Which would have been fine, but my brain thought it was about 1am by this point. I had to show the nice lady my online banking to prove I had the funds for my trip, tried to explain that I had no firm plans except to be in Vancouver on August 12th and that I'd booked a flight that morning to leave Canada on August 29th.

It probably didn't take as long as I think it did, but I was getting seriously concerned they weren't going to let me stay as long as I needed. And I could feel myself going pink, guilt complex kicking in. Maybe I had done something wrong? What other proof did they need? What the hell was I going to do if they didn't let me have my 2 and a half months?

Yeah. That wasn't a great way to arrive.

Fortunately, after much babbling about my very vague plans ("how're you getting around?" -"umm... I'm going to take buses and trains. I think... I'm told they're all right. Umm... I don't drive."), the nice lady finally stamped my passport and let me in.

Phew.

Then I just had to wait another hour to get the shuttle into the city. Lovely friendly chap gave me directions, just in case the driver couldn't drop me outside the hostel. And then I drank a huge cup of tea because OH MY GOD I NEEDED THE CAFFEINE.

And so, I am now in Canada for 2 and a half months. Ish. More adventure awaits.

Anyone else had fun with Immigration before? Do share!

Iceland: Waterfalls, volcanoes and rain

OH MY GOD THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.

Ahem. Anyway. In magical events this week, my Grand Tour which has been in the planning for the best part of 18 months (if not longer) has finally begun. I've spent the last few days in the beautiful city of Rekjavik. Well, actually, I've only really been in Reykjavik to sleep. Here's a quick recap of what I've been up to so far.

My trip started with the usual farting about with trains and then a lovely afternoon in London with Claire who gifted me this little chap

His name is Harold. He is now my mascot.

From London, I had to head to Gatwick to catch a flight the next day. All went well until I arrived in Reykjavik on Monday morning. See, EasyJet have these new-fangled bag drop machines so you don't even get to talk to someone when you dump your bag. All well and good, but when I arrived in Reykjavik my bag was nowhere to be seen. An hour and a half later, I thought, fuck it, I'm going to go and complain to the baggage people. Which took me past the oversized baggage area (which is just a dumping ground next to the carousels) and lo and behold, there was my bag. Fuming.

Aside from that, my first day in Reykjavik was lovely, if a little marred by sleep deprivation. I took a walk along the bay front.

And then, because I was still feeling a bit grouchy, I treated myself to fish and chips instead of cooking. Lovely little restaurant near the harbour provided me with ling, crispy potatoes and a mango flavoured dip. Different, but pretty good. Sorry, Grimsby!

The Golden Circle

My first real day in Iceland began much too early for my liking. Don't ask me why, but I clearly thought it was a great idea to book a tour that started at 7am when I'd had very little sleep and a very long day the day before.

That said, my trip to the Golden Circle was great fun. There were only 2 other people on the tour - everyone else was presumeably sensible enough to decide against such an early start - so we had the minibus to ourselves. Also, as I noticed at our first stop, setting off so early meant we got most of the sites to ourselves as well.

Said first stop was Fridheimar, a farm which grows tomatoes, mostly. I should maybe point out that I actually did the Golden Circle tour 18 months ago, so the idea of Icelanders growing tomatoes year round is no longer new to me, but it's interesting nonetheless. Also, a box of bees, which they get shipped from Holland every week to keep the tomatoes pollinated. Woo for bees.

From there, we headed to Gullfoss. I was especially looking forward to this because 18 months ago, the waterfall was mostly frozen over. Not so this time.

All of the pretties. There isn't much else to say about Gullfoss, so let's move on to the next stop, which was Geysir, the geyser from which all other geysers get their name. Geysir itself doesn't go off much any more, but its younger neighbour Strokkur does.

I should have quit while I was ahead with geyser photographs. Because just after I took that one, I decided to have another go. And the wind caught the plume just at the wrong moment. And poured it over me. Pretty sure I spent the rest of the day smelling of rotten eggs.

From there, we drove down to Thingvellir National Park, where Iceland's parliament, the Althingi, used to meet for about 700 years. Beautiful place.

Unfortunately, just after I took that photograph, I took this one.

And realised there was something seriously wrong with my camera, which after that shot just took pictures of funny coloured lines and splotches. This meant I spent much of the drive back to Reykjavik frantically trying to connect to the minibus WiFi to work out what was wrong and then had to traipse around the city to find a camera shop.

Which I did. And discovered that, as I feared, the camera was beyond help. So I bought a new one. At Icelandic prices, that's money I'd rather not have spent, but I can't be doing without a camera. Ugh.

My day was significantly improved by the lovely Icelandic chap who'd been in the camera shop at the same time and caught up with me as I was leaving. He gave me some suggestions for cool places to photograph, complete with directions and suggestions of the best times to be there to exploit Iceland's weird summer light. I'll say this - so far, I've found the Icelanders to be very friendly people.

South Shore Adventure

In the second of my early starts (although not as early as the day before) I headed off on another trip, this time to Iceland's beautiful south coast. Yet more hours stuck on a bus were more than made up for by the wonderful sights. Take Solheimajokull for a start.

It's a glacier. Coming off a volcano. Hence the black colour, I presume - from the ash? And then there's the tiny town of Vik and it's amazing black sand beach. I made the nistake of getting a bit too close to the sea and ended up with soggy boots. Fortunately said boots are waterproof so at least my feet were dry.

Vik was the furthest point of the trip from Reykjavik, so from there we headed back the way we came, stopping first at Reynisfjara, also a black sand beach. It also has these wonderful basalt columns - a bit like the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.

While we were at the beach a lovely Canadian lady collared me after overhearing me mention going to Canada and proceeded to give me some suggestions on where to visit. Apparently I am capable of having conversations with strangers!

Then on to the little village of Skogar and its folk museum. Very interesting and I would have liked to have spent a bit more time there. Lots of information about traditional life in Iceland, including these funky two-thumbed mittens the fishermen used to wear.

They have two thumbs because their hands would get warm rowing and they could just flip them round to the cool side. Or something like that... Or maybe the thumbs wore out quick? It was something to do with rowing at any rate.

They also had a tub of bezoars, so if anyone gets poisoned, Skogar is the place to go.

Then just around the corner is beautiful Skogarfoss. It's a single drop waterfall and I couldn't resist the temptation to get as close as possible without getting soaked.

Which was going great until the wind changed and all the spray came in my direction. Oops. But hey, it was an experience.

I also got a bit drippy at the next stop, which was another waterfall called Seljalandsfoss. This one was especially cool, because you can actually walk behind the waterfall. Unfortunately, behind the waterfall is also spray-central, but at least this time I was wearing my waterproof. Clever me.

And from there, home. Well, back to the hostel.

Wonders of Snaefellsnes

Day three proper in Iceland dawned horribly early again. Fortunately, the tour I took turned out to be another minibus one with a lovely guide up to the Snaefellsnes peninsula. First stop proper was at Ytri Tunga where we attempted to do some seal-spotting. Unfortunately, the rain had set in and there were no seals to be found, although we did get divebombed by a couple of angry arctic terns.

Then the tiny settlement, if you can call it that, of Budir where there's a lava field and a pretty old church. And more rain, if you must know.

With the rain showing no sign of letting up, we hurried off to our next stop at Arnarstapi where we took a walk along the cliff top to admire the basalt formations. And get rained on some more. And shrieked at by more terns. I will admit that at this point my attempts to stay positive were beginning to falter.

Oh, and there's a troll on the hill.

Fortunately for my flagging morale, the next stop was lunch. I've been trying not to buy meals in Iceland because it's so very expensive, but at this point I didn't give a damn any more, so treated myself (ha) to a bowl of mushroom soup which came to 1500 krona. In case you're wondering, that's bloody expensive for a bowl of soup.

However, the soup was delicious and came with lovely fresh bread and really, it was just what I needed. That and a chat with the Irish chap on the tour who later kept me updated with the England-Wales Euro score. Nice chap.

After lunch, the stops became shorter - quick little photo stops along the north coast of the peninsula. The first of these was inside a volcano. Well... a pseudo-volcano.

You have to admit, it does look quite... volcano-ish. And it did form because of all the volcanism. And sod it, I just want to say I've been inside a volcano. So there.

Then we stopped at another lovely black sand beach, complete with surrounding lava field at Djupalonssandur. I had a bit of a moment on the beach when I realised the bits of old wreck lying about on the sand were from a Grimsby trawler. If anyone knows anything about a trawler called Epine, can you let me know?

And then I fell asleep and we stopped at Kirkjufell, which is a funny pointy mountain. My new camera, which had been behaving up until this point, decided it didn't like the light conditions so I've only got a couple of sort-of-decent photos from here.

From there, a quick stop to use the facilities at Grundafjordur and another at a place I couldn't pronounce (and can't even guess at) to see some more basalt columns. As Xavier, our guide, liked to keep pointing out - "this is not in the programme."

And then home. I think I might have fallen asleep again. During the drop offs, Xavier informed me that my hostel appears to own the last Big Mac sold in Iceland before MacDonalds pulled out. I'll have to see if I can find it.

In Cod We Trust

Or so went the saying at the Maritime Museum when I visited earlier today. They have an exhibition on at the moment about the cod wars, which my hometown was rather involved in. So I got to playing the game of "how many references to Grimsby can I find?"

Turns out to be quite a few. Overall, a great little exhibition, if understandably Iceland-biased. I spent the hour after that watching a great documentary about fishing in Iceland in the late 1800s, and then enjoyed the rest of the museum. Some funky little bits.

Basically, I've had a great start to my trip, even with the few little mishaps. Aside from yesterday, the weather's been great too, which I wasn't expecting. And, importantly, I've managed to have conversations with people. They might have been short and mostly someone else instigated them, but I don't care.

Tomorrow I have yet another early start because I've got to catch a bus up to Akureyri on the north coast where I'll be staying for the next few days before heading back to Reykjavik on Tuesday in time to catch my flight to Canada on Thursday.

So far, so good.

100 Days, 100 Things: Days 81-100

Wow. At the time this post is published, I should be in Iceland. It seems both ages and no time at all since I started planning this and it still doesn't quite seem real. I managed to freak myself out towards the end of last week wondering if maybe I was just imagining the whole thing and come Monday it'd be back to work as normal. Don't ask - I was half asleep at the time.

Anyway, here are the last 20 of my 100 sometimes interesting, but more often mundane things.

81. Tuesday 24th May - envelope stuffing
Yes. That's how thrilling my day got. I spent the day stuffing envelopes with our apprentice. Fun fun fun.

82. Wednesday 25th May - venison sausages
Because once again, food is the most interesting thing in my life. Seriously, though, venison sausages are delicious.

83. Thursday 26th May - invigilating
Which lead to me being overly amused that it's a decade since I took my GCSEs. Aww. Also, I finally managed to offload the Chomp bar that's been sitting on my desk for the last seven months onto Molly. FINALLY.

84. Friday 27th May - ESTA
Following the successful application for my Canadian eTA last week, I tackled the USA's equivalent. It asked me whether I was planning on engaging in terrorism and I was oh so tempted to click yes just to see what happened. Don't worry, I resisted the temptation.

85. Saturday 28th May - Shakespeare overload
My sister and I took a weekend trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, home of the Bard. Two plays in a day - Cymbeline and Hamlet, plus the first time I've eaten Thai food at a restaurant. Very nice. Also, Stratford is pretty.

86. Sunday 29th May - sunshine
Second day of our trip to Stratford mostly consisted of me buying a few bits for my trip (mosquito net, finally!) and then enjoying the sunshine outside the theatre. Amy got sunburned.

87. Monday 30th May - surprise surprise...
Family farewell lunch which my dad had intended to be a surprise until my mum, not knowing this, accidentally gave the game away. Nice though, especially the amazing cake from Patisserie Valerie.

88. Tuesday 31st May - tech support
My grandad is finally attempting to join the internet age. Unfortunately for him, his router isn't behaving and my mum volunteered me to have a look at it. My usual ability to fix basic tech things failed completely, but I'm going to blame the old line he has instead of my inability to work out what was wrong with the damn thing...

89. Wednesday 1st June - lunch with Wendy
Wendy effectively managed me in my previous office and since she's away at the moment, we thought we'd best meet up before I left. That is all... see how my life is thrilling right now?

90. Thursday 2nd June - minor freak out time!
Today I realised that I will be in Canada in three weeks' time. Oh good god. I also discovered my phone is not unlocked. Fuck.

91. Friday 3rd June - "smells like weed"
Molly tried my oolong tea. I love oolong. It's lovely, but it does have a slightly unusual taste and smell. As demonstrated by Molly casually stating, in the middle of the office, that it smells like weed. I hadn't really noticed the similarity before but thinking about it... maybe.

92. Saturday 4th June - even more Shakespeare
Toddled over to Manchester to see my mum and catch yet another play - this time King Lear. Very good. In other shocking news, I bought clothes. Not just any clothes. I bought shorts. It is a well-established fact that my legs are not just white, they are blindingly pale, so this may turn out to be a bad decision.

93. Sunday 5th June - Nandos and puppies
I'd never understood the appeal of Nandos but I've been a few times now and I think I'm falling in love. Yummy chicken. The afternoon was spent lounging in the sun, attempting to get some sort of colour onto my aforementioned blinding legs and watching the dogs pretending to be hot dog sausages because it was just so warm.

94. Monday 6th June - umm...
It looks like nothing interesting happened on this day. Second to last day at work? Uh... nothing booked. Nothing interesting cooked... yup. Supremely normal day.

95. Tuesday 7th June - last day
My final day at work, most of which was spent either in a minibus or at work's Skegness site invigilating another GCSE exam. 3 and a bit years I worked there and that's the first time I've been to the Skegness site. Hm.

96. Wednesday 8th June - WASH ALL THE THINGS!
Yeah... I probably didn't need to wash everything, but I did. Because... oh, I don't know. The washing frenzy was followed by a lovely evening with the folks from my previous office, eating tapas and then toddling on down to the pub for a pint and a quiz.

97. Thursday 9th June - towel of doom
Ah yes. The fabled towel of doom has made a reappearance in my life. It looks like it's had a body wrapped in it, courtesy of 3 years of red hair dye stains. I found 3 bottles of the aforementioned dye in the top of my wardrobe and figured, what the hell, I'm going to dye my hair again. Took all three bottles because either a) I missed quite a bit or b) the dye's that old it wasn't taking properly, but I think it's sorted now...

98. Friday 10th June - I drank how much?
Actually, I didn't drink that much. I went out with the most recent set of work colleagues and had a couple of pints of cider (not a problem). Unfortunately, I also had a JD & coke and a shot of sambuca and that was enough to make my stomach hate me.

99. Saturday 11th June - WHERE TRAIN?!
Even with the slight hangover from the above night out, I managed to drag myself out of bed early on Saturday morning to go and see Flying Scotsman with my dad. Unfortunately for us, the timings given last week turned out to be no longer accurate and as we were walking up to the track we saw steam billow up above the houses. No glimpse of the fabled Scotsman. Most pissed off. Somewhat made up for this with cheap but yummy breakfast at Tesco's cafe...

In other news, my phone is now unlocked. I think. Huzzah.

100. Sunday 12th June - DON'T PANIC!
AAAAAAARGH. Actually, I haven't done much panicking. Which is nice. Dad had to drive me to Doncaster, but aside from that my trains all ran on time and I got to spend a lovely afternoon in London with Claire. Claire, who has gifted me this lovely little koala called Harold, crocheted by her own fair hands.

Someone pinch me?

Oh good god. What am I doing?

The Grand Tour: Packing List Time!

I packed yesterday. Somehow. Still not sure how I managed it. Here's all the stuff that I planned on taking.

And here's my finished packing.

Out of that first image, here's the few pieces I decided not to take.

Because, really, when am I going to need a sort-of-smart jacket, another 3 notebooks (there's already 4 little ones distributed through my bags), so many pens, yet another jumper and 4 extra pairs of socks (just in case).

The big bag is 65l, so it's not huge - only weighs about 11kg, so it's also well under my luggage allowance for my first flight. The smaller bag is 25l and can fit everything in it that I'd need for an overnight trip, plus most of my electronics and my camera and associated oddments.

I'm most impressed with myself. I made myself a packing list and I've near enough stuck to it. Some bits have come off it, some bits have been added but I think I've ended up packing about the same amount as I originally intended. For those interested in the whole packing light thing, here's what's in my bags.

In the 65l rucksack:

• Sleeping things:

• Compact sleeping bag
• Mosquito net
• Earplugs

• Clothing:

• Enough underwear for 2 weeks
• Swimsuit
• Plimsolls
• 3 t-shirts
• 3 vest tops
• 1 thermal shirt
• 1 long sleeved shirt
• Walking trousers
• Shorts
• Maxi skirt
• Micro-fleece

• Health & toiletries

• First aid kit
• ~2 months supply of anti-malarials (Doxycycline)
• Diarrhoea management kit
• Sun cream
• DEET
• Water purification tablets
• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Shampoo
• Body wash
• Deodorant
• Moisturiser
• Nail clippers
• Travel wash
• Travel towel
• Flannel
• Lip balm

• Electronics:

• Assorted charging cables for phone, iPod, tablet and camera
• Travel adaptors - one worldwide, one for South Africa & Namibia

• Other odds & sods:

• 2 small notebooks for keeping accounts and journal things
• Torch & headtorch
• Laundry bag (because, ew, smelly clothes)
• Shoulder bag 

In the 25l bag:

• Waterproof jacket
• Phone, iPod & earphones, tablet & keyboard
• Camera, tripod & lenses
• Woolly hat
• Gloves & arm-warmers (I get cold wrists...)
• Scarf
• Sunglasses
• Water bottle
• 2 more notebooks and a few pens
• Spork (a gift from my sister)
• Small box for food or assorted random bits
• Painkillers
• Stickers (because hostel kitchens never have enough to label your food)
• Wallet full of important travel documents

I don't think that's bad going, really. As far as I can tell, it covers everything I'm likely to need and anything that's missing I can pick up along the way. Even if I end up needing more anti-malarials, I'll be able to find somewhere to pick them up. As it is, it feels a bit like I've become the walking pharmacy I so dreaded before I went to New Zealand. And yet, somehow, my bags still weigh significantly less than most people would take on the typical holiday. Go me and my amazing packing skills!

Any tips on packing light? Do share!

Around the World In: Films

Ever watched a film and thought "I wish I could go there"? Yeah, so have I. And since I'm in the middle of having a final re-watch of the epic Lord of the Rings, I thought I'd pull together some of my favourite films for sparking travel daydreams.

1. The Lord of the Rings

OK, so we all know Middle-earth isn't a real place, but the locations used in Peter Jackson's films are a glorious showcase of New Zealand's natural beauty. Mount Doom, the Shire, Rohan and Gondor all exist in New Zealand and when I get back over there at the end of the year I intend to visit as many of them as possible. And grab myself another pint of cider in the Green Dragon...

2. Up

One of Pixar's greatest creations, Up is full of amazing scenery, mostly based on beautiful places in South America. The plateaux? Venezuela's tepui, including Mount Roraima. The forests? How can you not see the Amazon in that? And the waterfall plunging off the top of the plateau? Angel Falls, also in Venezuela.

3. Madagascar

The clue's in the name. So yes, it's full of talking animals and there's never that much made of the surroundings, but wouldn't you just love to visit that forest and see lemurs in the wild?

4. Harry Potter

All right, so few of the places in the HP films actually exist (or do they...?), but courtesy of them being set in Britain, you can still get your geekery on. Fancy hunting down Platform 9 & 3/4 at Kings Cross Station? Go ahead. You can also visit Hogwarts at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland and further afield in Ireland, you can see where Dumbledore took Harry to retrieve the locket horcrux. Conveniently located at the Cliffs of Moher, by the way.

Or, you know, you could just check out the studio tour just outside London.

5. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

This film was probably the first time I saw Petra. An ancient city in Jordan carved out of the rock, Petra features as the final home of the fabled Holy Grail. The rock has an oddly pink hue and it just looks beautiful. You can see why it's such a big tourist draw.

Have you ever watched a film and wanted to visit the settings? Let me know in the comments!

The Grand Tour: The Final Countdown

Wow. Just 10 days from now I'll be getting on a plane to Iceland to start my round-the-world trip. Time to get the last few bits of preparation sorted.

Visas

Technically, I don't need to apply for a visa proper until I get towards the Australian leg of my trip. I say technically because while I don't have visas to apply for yet, I have had to apply for an eTA for Canada and an ESTA for the USA. The perks of being a British citizen! Surprisingly, both applications were pretty straightforward although I had to laugh at some of the questions on the US one.

"Are you coming to the USA with the intent to engage in terrorism, espionage or genocide?"

... because, yes, of course, if I was planning on doing any of those things, I would declare them on my ESTA application in the interests of honesty. Umm...

Vaccinations

A few weeks ago I got stuck full of needles. Hep B, Hep A, Typhoid, Yellow Fever... nice. Fortunately, I managed not to have any serious reactions to any of them and they came in a lot cheaper than I had expected. I'd rather have to pay a bit and face my dislike of needles than catch some sort of nasty while I'm away.

I also have a nearly two month supply of anti-malarials. Also much cheaper than anticipated and again, I'd rather have them and not need them than not have them and catch malaria.

On a similar note, my mum has kindly donated her diarrheoa management kit, so I'm fully stocked on rehydration sachets and the like.

Basically, I'm turning into the walking chemist I so disdained before I went to New Zealand...

Communication

In addition to the aforementioned diarrheoa kit (isn't diarrheoa a funny word?), my mum has also given me her old tablet, so I can keep up with the sporadic blogging and more importantly I can book hostels and flights and all the other things I'll need to book while I'm away.

My mobile phone is also going with me. I plan on using local SIMs in it if I'm in a country for more than a couple of weeks (looking at you, Canada). Good plan, yes? Should save me some money, yes?

Yeah...

Naively/stupidly, having read all the bumpf I could find online about whether Virgin Mobile lock their handsets, I came to the conclusion that my phone was more than likely unlocked and I could just pootle over to Canada and slot a nice cheap Canadian SIM in it. No worries.

Which means I left it until yesterday and 11 days until departure to actually test this theory. Take a guess at what happened when I put my sister's SIM into my phone?

Ooops.

This should be pretty easy to sort out, thinks yesterday's me. I'll just go to the shop in town and ask them to unlock it. They say, no, you have to ring customer services and kindly put me on to them. Customer services man goes "uh..." a bit and does some tapping on his keyboard for good measure and then tells me that while the number belongs to me, the phone is still registered to my parents' account and that therefore they'll have to ring Virgin to get my phone unlocked.

My parents. Have to ring Virgin. To get MY PHONE unlocked.

This is ridiculous. Whoever came up with this system is a fucking genius.

So I might just be without a phone for the first couple of weeks in Canada. I'm sure I'll cope - I barely use the thing anyway aside from for tinterwebz.

Other bits and bobs

I have currency. Hurray. Actually, I'm planning on using my cards as much as possible, but there's always going to be times I need physical cash. So I've got a small stash of Icelandic krona and Canadian dollars to keep me going. I fear the dollars will mostly be spent on Tim Hortons... you'll probably hear more about that in a future post.

Shopping has been done. I am now the proud owner of a very compact mosquito net, travel wash (yeah) and a new pair of shoes which I am frantically trying to wear in so they don't eat my feet while I'm away. Woop.

Anything else? Had a farewell lunch with the family. Plans are in place for work leaving do (both current and former offices). And then... well, then next Sunday I get on a train to London and from there...

Adventure awaits.