Last month I went to Glasgow for the weekend. Poor impulse control following a week in which I was tired and my foot hurt and I went chasing a friendly face. I went looking for somewhere to stay and as per usual, despite my loathing for them, I went for booking.com and found an apartment … More My Glasgow apartment
I already own a half-decent pair of walking boots. They’re not great but they’ve mostly been good enough for my purposes the last year or two. Their only major fault is that the insole slides up after about five miles and the edge rubs my toes and that hurts a lot but that’s easily corrected by … More What I thought of my new walking boots
Over the last three weeks or so I’ve been publishing my diaries from the Laugavegur Trail. You may have read them. Give or take a bit of clearing up, they’re pretty much exactly as I wrote them, sitting in a tent of an evening. If you read my Day One diary, you might know that … More What went wrong on Monday?
It’s our last day in Þórsmörk. Today we’re going home. On our last morning we got up late. François had said that depending on the weather and how we felt, we could pack up camp for the last time before or after breakfast. The wind had dropped by morning but it was still pretty drizzly. I … More Laugavegur Trail Day Six: Going Home
We’ve finished the Laugavegur Trail. Now we have two days at Þórsmörk. Not having to pack up and get the tents down was quite the novelty at Þórsmörk. We didn’t get to start any later, though. The weather was going to stop us getting anywhere near Fimmvörðuháls and Magni and Modi but François still wanted to head up … More Laugavegur Trail Day Five: Þórsmörk
Yesterday I rejoined the group to walk to Emstrur and now we’re finishing the Laugavegur trail, reaching Þórsmörk. I’ve got another two days after this but this is the last day of the actual trail. From Emstrur we could virtually see our destination – over the hills and below Eyjafjallajökull. The first bit was a bit up … More Laugavegur Trail Day Four: Emstrur to Þórsmörk
It’s day three. I’m back on the Laugavegur trail today after spending yesterday on the road. I was very surprised to wake up and find it was 7am. François would be in the kitchen, getting the coffee on already. I sorted everything I own into two vague piles – things I need today and things … More Laugavegur Trail Day Three: Alftavatn to Emstrur
You’ve read my Day One diary (in which there was a blizzard and exhaustion and near-death) and now we move onto Day Two – featuring me going in the support car rather than walking. Breakfast started with lots of fresh fruit and coffee and moved onto François’ special-recipe porridge, with added fruit and brown sugar … More Laugavegur Trail day two: Hrafntinnusker to Álftavatn
This is pretty much word for word my diary from the Laugavegur trail. It turns out it’s occasionally quite difficult to read my writing. Plans changed before they even started. Heavy snow at Hrafntinnusker meant we couldn’t camp there. Day 1 therefore was to be at Landmannalaugar. I got up at 5.30am to pack my … More Laugavegur Trail Day one: Landmannalaugar to Hrafntinnusker
Back in the dark ages, when I was a fresh young graduate still looking for permanent work (2007/8), I volunteered at my local Tourist Information Centre. I was not a travel blogger then, nor even a traveller. I had a vague idea that a gap year was a desirable thing but I had neither the … More Volunteering at the Tourist Information Centre
I Am A Polar Bear 