Dates, are a funny dark coloured fruit! Dates, 12th July to 30th July 2012.

Location, a place called Iceland, which had more rocks than ice, so it may need to change its' name.

So J-W loaded up his Jamboree bags from last  year with a lot of kit we do not normally take on Jamboree trips, like cookers and thermals!

We got on a bus around 9am and went to a shop in Guildford to get the money we would need in Iceland.  This should have been quick as there were only two people ahead of us.  But the first persons money was not behaving and it took them 5 goes to count it. They were going to about 5000 in 5's 10's and 20's!

Got a train to Woking, at Guildford Station, got asked where we were going by a girl who saw J-W's Jamboree Bag, as she had been at the Jamboree last year. At Woking only had a 5 minute wait for the coach to leave.  Got checked in at Heathrow just before 11, after riding the escalters which are lazy and only go along. At the boarding gate, J-W spoke to a lady who had lots of badges on a rucksack.  Turns out she was also a Scout Leader from the USA, who was going back via Iceland, to go on her summer camp.

So the airport in Iceland is a lot smaller than Heathrow, and we went up and down and around past where we got off the plane.  The coach took about 30 minutes to load up and go and drove on the wrong side of the road, which is ok as all the other vechiles were doing the same.  J-W said Iceland would be colder than in Surrey, but it was sunny and hot!  We got dropped off by the coach at the Reykavik Camp Site.  We got the tent up and then went to a supermarket nearby around 7pm, which was 6pm due to the clocks in Iceland being slower than our clocks here.  J-W had fun playing guess the flavour, as Icelandic does not just use different spellings, it uses a lot of extra letters as well.

J-W was in luck as the camp site has a kitchen area with 4 electric hot plates, so he did not need to buy fuel for his stove.  The hot water here comes from the ground! They have to cool it down, and it still comes out of the tap very very hot.  Also as J-W found when in the shower, the hot water smells of sulphur.  The other strange thing is the sun here does not set until 11pm and then it hids just below the edge, so it does not get dark. When we got up around 7am, the sun had already been up for about 5 hours or so.  Do you think it gets tired being up so long?

So this capital city is not really that much bigger than Guildford.There are more bike paths and the cars give way to walkers at the speed humps and crossings.  We walked all around, so got a bit dusty.  There is a black ashy dust around most roads and footpaths.

We visited the national scout centre and a museum of old buildings on the first day.  They used to just pile up rocks and turf to make buildings.  Found some scouting displays in the museum.  We did a number of other museums, a trip on a boat to see Whales, and a climb up a Glacier.  This was fun as J-W had to wear these spiky things on the bottom of his boots  and he had an ice axe.  The axe was  a bit big for me, but was good for sitting on so I did not get wet.  The glacier was a bit dirty, as it had ash all over it.  We got to see at sea a couple of Minky Whales, and a number of different birds including Puffins, which did not! We were on the boat for about 3.5 hours and it was quite cold in the wind.  Some of the other people put on this all in one padded suits, which looked a bit funny.

Whilst we were on the camp site we meet a group of dutch Rover Scouts who had been hiking across Iceland.  Turns out another couple of people we saw for a couple of days were also leaders going to the Jamboree, we only found out as they turned up at the collection point just after us on the day we went to the Jamboree site.  We had also meet a couple of groups of other scouts whilst walking around near the camp site, as the collection point ws a local school, where a lot of the overseas scouts were staying.

The coach had first loaed up in central Reykavik and then came out to the school.  There was a large group of Swedish Leaders and then some groups of USA and Canadian Leaders.  Out of the 50 or so foriegn Service Crew, there were at least 6 UK Scouts and 1 Guide Leader.  There was even one Sea Scout all the way from Korea, who had come back now for his third or fouth Icelandic jamboree. 

The Jamboree site was about an hour away in land at a lake called Ulfljotsvatn.  Parts of the road in were down the fairway of hole 7 on a golf course and also was on dirt roads.

The camp site was a great place to grow Midges, J-W gave up in the ennd and just eatthem when they got stuck on the candyfloss at the Rover Scout and IST party.  We palyed a game where you had to hit nails into a block of wood, after spinning the hammer round.  We played with a UK Guider and Swedish Scouters and a couple of the canadian and USA leaders.  The camp site is on a hill, and we were camped by the lake at the bottom, and where J-W had to work and eat was at the top of the hill.

J-W was working on the climbing tower, but spent most of the time, just watching kids abseiling!  Which seemed to just mean he stood still holding a rope.  We did go to a real mountain one day.  J-W tried leaving me on site in the tent, but I hid in the bottom of his bag.  He had put on lots of layers as it had been windy, but the side of the mountian we were on was in direct sun, but out of the wind.  We also went with all the IST up onto a giant 700 metre high ice cube in a lorry, 40 at a time.  You could see some islands which were over 80 miles away off the south coast.

Some of the Scottish Scouts and Guides got on site late on on the first day, so we had helped them get food sorted.  One of the Scottish Guide Leaders slipped whilst carrying a gas bottle back to their pitch on the first night, and broke her arm!  Her unit was staying on a couple of days afterwards, but she was at the aorport when we went home.  As was a group of the Canadian Guides, who were writing up their diary at the gate for their flight when we went to our gate.  They were a bit surpised to see us.  J-W told them it was part of the IST's job to make sure everyone made it onto their flights!

Was strange getting off the plane at Heathrow, as there was bits for the olpymic games everywhere, and the sun remembered how to go dark before 9pm!  The temperature also dropped a bit when it got dark 

Nights away = 18!  Total now 169.