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.

The Grand Tour: New Year Down Under

Fabulous news! My friend Claire, veteran of both the New Zealand and Ireland expeditions, is planning on joining me for a couple of weeks in Australia over New Year. Also, incidentally, her birthday.

This is going to be good. Sydney's an amazing city and New Year there is just as brilliant. Well, it should be if it's anything like the last time I was there...

Also, Sydney's a good starting point for a couple of weeks in Australia. We can relax and explore the city for a couple of days before heading off to see Oz's highlights. Claire can get over the jet lag and I can enjoy having someone to share the travel fun with for a bit.

So, what should we do in Sydney? The New Year celebrations are the obvious choice and it seems like an awesome way for Claire to spend her birthday (also on New Year's Eve), but aside from that, Sydney has plenty to offer. Taronga Zoo is great and I'd really love to check out the beaches, just because it seems like the thing to do in Sydney! Bondi, anyone?

Last time I was in Sydney we only had a couple of days over the New Year, so we didn't really get chance to do all the exploring. I think the most we did was going up one of the towers on the famous Harbour Bridge. Don't think I'll be forking out to climb the bridge itself though...

There's plenty of museums, galleries and parks to check out and even the possibility of seeing whales without ever getting on a boat, courtesy of some amazing views from the coast. Oh, so many choices and still so little time - if Claire's going to see the highlights of Australia like the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru, we won't be spending that long in Sydney.

And here we hit a bit of a snag. Sydney's great. New Year there is great. Accommodation costs... not so much. The first hostel I looked at wanted to charge £100 per person to stay on New Year's Eve and it wasn't much cheaper on the days either side. Others weren't much better - anything up to £80 seems standard.

So I started trawling the hotels instead and yes, some of these would be as good or better than a hostel for about the same price. I suggested to Claire that it might be an idea to take this option instead and, given that she'll have a nearly 24 hour flight, she agreed.

That would have been that had I not then remembered Airbnb. I wasn't planning on explaining what Airbnb is, but Claire didn't seem to know, so I'll assume it's not as well known as I thought it was. Airbnb is a system where folks can rent out spare rooms or even entire homes to others. I'd expected this to be fairly expensive for Sydney over New Year, but I've found some really decent places for a relatively low price. Certainly better value than a hostel or hotel.

So yes, the places I've looked at are a bit further out of the centre, but Sydney has a decent public transport system and I'm willing to make that trade off. After all, much as I want to have an amazing New Year in Sydney, I still have a budget to stick to and I'll take savings where I can find them.

Where do you dream of spending New Year? Do you have any suggestions for visiting Sydney on a budget? Why not share in the comments below.

Hostelling: Finding a good one

After the slightly terrifying moment last week when I booked the first flight of my round-the-world Grand Tour, this week I've booked the first hostel.

It got me wondering, especially after a couple of questions from friends and colleagues, about how to find a decent hostel. So I'm going to attempt to deconstruct my hostel-finding process.

Don't worry - it's basic as anything!

1. What are you looking for in a hostel?

A party vibe? Somewhere social? Or do you just need somewhere to crash after a long day of exploration? Do you need WiFi or laundry facilities? I mention the latter because I'm amazed by how many of the hostels we used in Ireland didn't have laundry facilities. Washing socks in the sink is always an option, but it's easier to just sling everything in the machine!

2. Does it need to be central?

Related in some ways to the first point. If you're after a place you can go partying from, chances are you're going to want somewhere fairly central so you don't have to stagger too far home once you've had a few drinks.

If you're not driving yourself, you'll probably also want to consider public transport links. If you're in the city centre, this won't be too much of a problem, but take note if you're out in the sticks!

3. Comfort or basic?

We all like our creature comforts, but how much do you need? Nice big kitchen? A single bed? Private bathroom?

Or bunk beds, shared bathrooms and bring-your-own bedding. Just a note: some hostels offer beds where you bring your own sleeping bag for a cheaper price than a made up bed.

4. How much are you willing to pay?

In my case, this is the most important bit of finding a hostel. I'm operating on a pretty tight budget, so I've been trying to find the cheapest hostels I can which still look decent. Of course, cheap isn't always great, so make sure you check out what's on offer first.

5. Are you willing to share?

This is as much related to how much you're willing to pay as anything, but bear in mind that you can get much cheaper rates if you're willing to share with others. For example, I've just booked a bed in Reykjavik in a 24 bed dorm. I wouldn't normally consider staying in such a huge room, but Reykjavik is such an expensive city that I'd rather save the cash than fork out for a smaller dorm.


Right. Got an idea of the sort of hostel you're looking for? Good. Now you're armed with that information get yourself over to a site like HostelBookers or HostelWorld (my personal go-to site) and get searching for places that match your criteria. Some of these sites allow you to select a few hostels to compare, but often it's just as easy to sort by your most important criteria (price, rating etc) and do it that way. Make sure to check out the available facilities - you can't take it as a given that there'll be, for example, laundry facilities - and also have a scan through the reviews.

Got a hostel in mind now? That's great. Now, you could just go ahead and book through one of the aforementioned sites. Before you do that, though, pop onto Google (other search engines are available!) and do a quick search on hostels in your destination. There's still lots out there that aren't on the main booking sites and there's some pretty good deals out there.

Whether you end up sticking with your original option or picking a new one based on that second search, now is your time to book it. Check if the hostel has a website that you can book through and check the prices available there if you can. Often it's cheaper to book direct with the hostel than to book through a site like HostelWorld. For example, on a trip to Ireland last year we got a great deal on our stay at the Malinbeg Hostel in Donegal by booking direct with them.

See, finding a good hostel is easy. Just know what you're looking for and take note of what each hostel can give you. Reviews can also give you some good information but I'd also take the best and worst ones with a pinch of salt - the former because folks gloss over the weaker points and the latter because those who have a problem are wont to shout the loudest.

Not sure if hostelling is for you? You'd be surprised - take a look at this post for some pointers: Hostelling - Is it for you?

What tips do you have to find a good hostel? Any hostels you'd recommend? Why not share in the comments below.

Hostelling: Is it for you?

I spent my lunch break today trying to find relatively cheap accommodation in Iceland for the first leg of the Grand Tour. Outside Reykjavik, hostels seem to be few and far between and also much more expensive than other places I've been.

It got me thinking, though, about hostelling in general and whether everyone's cut out for it. So here's my list of clues that hostelling might be a good choice for you.

1. Sharing a room isn't a bother

Sharing a dorm with half a dozen or more complete strangers is the norm in hostels. OK, so you could pay a few quid more and get a private room, but that's not really the point of hostels, is it? If you're fussy about personal space or freaked out by sharing with strangers then you might want to stick with hotels.

If you're not, well done! First hurdle overcome.

2. Patience is a virtue when needing a shower

Let's face it, queuing for a bathroom is no one's idea of fun, but it's a fact of life in hostels. If you absolutely must have a shower every day, try to get in there outside of "rush hour". If you're like me, you can cope with a shower every other day with a good wash in between. Cuts down on the queuing.

If you can't bear the thought of sharing a bathroom, bag a private room but you'll have to pay more. If you're with a group, best get a hotel.

3. Cooking is fun

Hostels are self catering. Obviously. And I'm guessing that if you're staying in a hostel, you're trying to keep costs down, which means few meals out. Which means cooking for yourself. So, you'd best like cooking or at least be able to cook something other than beans on toast.

As with bathrooms, try to hit the kitchen outside of peak hours, especially if it's small. I stayed in a hostel in New Zealand that had such a tiny kitchen for the size of the place that I didn't actually eat the one night I was there because I couldn't get anywhere near the cooker. Don't make the same mistake. Scope the place online if you can before you book.

4. Noise? What noise?

When hostelling, you just have to accept that sometimes you're going to have roommates who clatter in at 3am and wake everyone up. Sometimes it might even be you. If you can't cope with the occasional disturbance, you might want to reconsider. You could try investing in some earplugs if you still intend to stay in hostels but don't want to get woken up.

5. Respect

Perhaps the most important thing when staying in hostels (and life in general). You're never going to cope if you don't respect your fellow guests. So yes, one of your roommates rolled in drunk and woke everyone up. Shit happens. Kitchen too busy? Don't snark at the people using it - it's not necessarily their fault. Maybe nip out for a takeaway instead? Queue for the shower several miles long? Screw it. Grab some deodorant, have a quick wash at the sink and get out there - chances are, no one will notice if it's just one day.

Just because a hostel is cheaper, doesn't mean you can't have an amazing experience there. Take the lovely Malin Beg Hostel for instance.

This was the cheapest night of my trip to Ireland. It's stuck out on a headland in Donegal, miles from anywhere. And it's beautiful. So far out we had this beach nearly to ourselves.

So give it a go. Hostelling is an experience. If you don't enjoy it, so be it. But I think you'd be surprised what you get out of it. Maybe hostelling is for you after all.

 What tips would you give to someone considering hostelling for the first time? Please share in the comments below.

Ireland: Can't back out now...

The flights are booked.

Well, actually, the flights were booked nearly 2 weeks ago, but I sort of forgot to mention that. Oops.

Anyhoos, flights are booked. Dates are therefore fixed and there is now no going back. Instead, onwards!

Onwards to the booking of other things, beginning last night with hostels. I say hostels... the first one we booked was a Travelodge in Derry. Because obviously. Basically, it's the same sort of price between the 3 of us to get a Travelodge for the night as it is to book a hostel dorm. So we figured, hey, make the most of it.

We're also looking at a lovely place out on the edge of Donegal near the highest sea cliffs in Europe. This is super cool, obviously. That one's Claire's job to book. No idea why. Just is.

We've also booked hostels near Sligo and Tralee. Standard criteria for our hostel selection is as follows:

• Free parking (or at least parking nearby)
• Free tea (because, tea)
• Free interwebz
• Small rooms where possible - I don't think we've booked anything over a 4 bed dorm yet. Which means the inevitable making the fourth person feel really awkward...

We're not too fussy. I hope.

Really, I suppose, we should have started the hostel booking fun at Dublin. That's where we're flying into. Should maybe sort that out...

Also trying to sort out car hire. New Zealand lulled us into a false sense of security with it's whole "if you're over 21 we'll let you have a car" attitude. Ireland is not quite so keen on young drivers. Most of the companies will only hire to over 25s and those that do hire to under 25s have a tendency to charge ridiculously high additional fees. Not good. Claire'll be all of about 3 months short of her 25th.

Looks like she might have found one that won't charge us stupid extra fees, though. Hurrah and all that.

This post is evidently going nowhere, so why don't you hop on over to the nice shiny new page I've set up with our current planned route? This one 'ere.

"Unless one of you particularly wants to get into bed with me..."

Two part booking/planning session today. Looks like we've got the car hire booked, which also covers the ferry crossing between North and South Island. Hurray! Claire decided we need a sat-nav. Anyone would think she didn't trust my navigation skills...

On the subject of navigation, my New Zealand road atlas has also arrived, so obviously instead of helping Claire and Amy to find suitable hostels, I spent the first part of the booking session sticking tabs in the atlas at all the pages we could possibly need. I like maps - it had to be done.

In the later booking session, we got a few more hostels booked, plus "The Trilogy Experience" - which basically means we get to go to Hobbiton, the Maori experience of Te Puia and Te Po and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. So now we've got most of the major expensive things booked. All the fun.

We seem to have mastered the art of finding hostels with 3 bed rooms so we can get a room to ourselves. Hurray. Of course, this might still mean bunk beds, sofa beds and possible sharing of double beds, but who cares? Extra privacy!

Tomorrow, we're heading up to Whitby to test our navigating skills. Or rather, how well I can explain to Claire which way she needs to go. Should be interesting. We also want to find a "Welcome to Whitby" type sign so we can grab a photo of it. There's a Whitby just outside Wellington in New Zealand and well, it kind of has to be done.

And of course, I only remember as I'm about to post this that Beak the mascot failed to make an appearance. Oh dear. She'll just have to come to Whitby with us tomorrow.

Shawn the Prawn and his delicious little friends...

Our first planning session in months is underway. Well, I say underway. This is Amy and Claire doing useful stuff:

They're looking up useful things like hostels and things to do at the many, many places we're going to visit. This is what I was doing:

Because all of our planning sessions need to be soundtracked by the brilliance that is Howard Shore. And then it all just degenerated into silliness. Beak the Kiwi got a mind of her own (or rather, Claire gave up doing serious bits):

And then I found the most excellent thing ever when trying to find things to do in Taupo while Claire's throwing herself out of a plane. (Have I mentioned about Claire throwing herself out of a plane? I'm going to wait at the bottom and take pictures of her screaming). It is called the Huka Prawn Park. We are amused:

"If learning about a day in the life of Shawn the Prawn doesn't fire your imagination, dine on some of Shawn's delicious little friends in the adjacent riverside restaurant." Gotta love this Rough Guide.

And then we adjourned for lunch. Which lasted about 3 hours. Then the fun of booking began. So far we've managed to get the hostels and most of the activity/additional things booked for the first week. So the first few days look like this:

• 28th July - Arrive at Christchurch. Be jet-lag zombies.
• 29th July - Slob around Christchurch. Continue to be jet-lag zombies.
• 30th July - Catch the TranzAlpine Scenic train from Christchurch across the Southern Alps to Greymouth. Pick up the car, then do some sightseeing - up north to the Pancake Rocks and then south to spend the night at Franz Josef.
• 31st July - Trip to Fox Glacier. It will be epic. And cold, probably. Very, very cold.
• 1st August - Drive down to Queenstown. Spend the afternoon wandering around the town and admiring the cold, cold views.
• 2nd August - Take a day trip down to Milford Sound (not booked yet). Try not to squee at all the pretties.
• 3rd August - Drive east over to Dunedin. There's not a lot there, so it'll be a nice relaxed day.
• 4th August - Drive north up to Kaikoura. Various stops on the way, including the Moeraki Boulders, which are awesome. It's a 6.5 hour drive, so Amy and Claire will no doubt collapse when we get there.

My debit card doesn't know what's hit it and we've only just done the first week! All the excitement.