At last, it’s the last video in the series. It’s now late November and I did this trip in July/August! This was one I particularly dithered over – is it worth doing a day nine or should I skip it or should I just combine days 8 & 9? I made separate videos but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed there was very little point in the one where I arrive at the airport at 5.30am and then fly home, so it’s welded onto the end of this one.
Next week, the February 2023 Winter in Reykjavik series starts – at the time of writing this (scheduled in advance, as usual), I’ve done the first episode so I have high hopes that the rest will follow on time.
What happened off-screen this time?
- Well, when I’m looking for Seljavallalaug (with no phone or camera and a GoPro that’s only just going to last the dip!), I’m actually being followed by a French family who have a vague idea that the pool is somewhere in the mountain, so I’ve got a bit more to go on than just “that sign implies people park here for a reason”.
- That kid yelled and screamed and got in the way and blatantly couldn’t swim and generally made filming difficult. I know, I’m filming in public, I should expect that, but I haven’t had difficulty like that the previous seven days.
- Seljavallalaug is actually really deep at the far end. I couldn’t feel the bottom and as I couldn’t see it either, I didn’t fancy doing a dive to see if I could feel it. I don’t like deep water. I like to pretend it’s not there so I probably would have panicked if I’d attempted to dive and still not found it.
- I searched the south coast for another packet of chive-flavoured star-shaped crisps. There are so many stops you don’t see, in supermarkets and roadhouses and me just getting more and more frustrated.
- I stopped for lunch at Hella, having failed yet again to find crisps. The car is starting to feel quite claustrophobic by now.
- I would have liked to meander along the south coast of Reykjanes a bit more slowly, maybe stop occasionally, but the rain was horrendous. By then I was hungry, tired and didn’t seem to be getting any closer to my destination.
- You don’t want to know how many trips it took between the car and my hotel room to bring everything in to pack it properly. Luckily, it’s one of those hotels where the room doors are just on the front, so I could park literally outside my front door.
- I maybe don’t want to admit this but rather than tidy up as I went along, I used the back seat of my car as a bin, knowing that on my last evening I’d have to dispose of it all. Turned out there was no disposal place near the hotel so I had to make a stop at a petrol station with a big communal bin at 4.30am on my very last day.
- The satnav misdirected me home from Gatwick – I didn’t plan to spend two hours sitting in traffic on the M25 because they’re rebuilding junction 10 but there I was.
On with the video!