Topic: Record
14th to 30th July 2014.
We went on one of those plane things again and went to Iceland again. We were up graded from the seats by the door to comfort class! So we got to sit in a darkened room in the airport and on the plane J-W could have the normal food without having to pay for it! Also the seat was one of a pair not of a three, do you think the airline knows some of the seats have left.
Landed about 3pm, so got to the camp site about 5pm. The coach was quite full. At the camp site it was a bit confusing as where we had camped last time is now under paving and a new building they were still moving into. Also there was a second new loo block.
Found some Danish Scouts on site. Also on Wednesday night J-W found 4 French Leaders who were also going to be IST at the Jamboree.
We went to the open air musesum again, the engine and vehicle sheds were being altered so they were shut! There were diffent short term displays in the buildings. No Scout display this time. We walked two different routes to get to the museum. J-W got a bit wet. J-W forgot to ask for milk with the Tea! He got given a selection, so tried the green tea.
We also went around some of the bits or Reykjavik again, and some new bits on the other day.
Got up earily on Thursday to get cleared away before 06:30 and onto the bus to the bus station. We may have been able to get the free transfer bus, but we were not sure. The buses are strange as there is one fixed fare and the bus has a display which tells you when you are getting near the next stop and what it is! So you ring the bell when it changes. Also you get off in the middle of the bus. Along with the french 4 we went into the Bus station to find a whole load of others in different Scout Uniforms. The Bus was one from the north and it was very late turning up. BSI is the bus station and BIS is what the Iceland Scouts are known as. The rep from BIS got on the phone. The driver seemed to have gone to the BIS headquarters which is on the other side of town.
We went the long way to Akureyri up the middle, via the scout camp site and a few places where we got wet and cold. Ok at one place we got hit by a Geysir, so hot, wet, and suplhur smelling. We stopped on the highlands route for photo stops and at some hot springs for tea. We final got to Hamrar near Akureyri at midnight, and it is lighter at the north end of the island that down south.
J-W was in the Past Zone doing metal work, pioneering, rabbit catching and sword fighting! During the build he put up lots of different tents, the mordern ones were some of the worst and hardest. One of the older ones ripped around the pole and eyelets. We had 6 sets of sides but only 2 sets of tops and poles to make the three main tents everything linked to. We were in charge of putting up the sacking fence. Hardy (Swedish wood carver) made a needle out of wood to speed things up. We got covered in metal dust the day J-W put clean trousers on! As he was cutting aluminium blanks using an angle crinder. It did mean we had enough for the rest of camp. We were mainly open in the afternoons, so we were loaned out in the mornings or evenings.
The scouts were catching rabbits, we started with four and sent 9 back to the zoo. The Vikings named them, left glove, right glove, hat, and some other names. The two cows were named Beef-burger and T-bone Steak by J-W!
On the metal working base J-W made up a demo piece which I ended up wearing, so I was important!
We found a number of the IST from last time, including the one person from Assie. He had some scouts with him this time. One crashed on the bikes and broke their arm. We had a wander around the town a couple of times. J-W had an hour walk each way the time we all went in. We got followed by some horses at one point.
On the last Sunday we stripped the whole site and got every thing onto pallets or into containers. So we had Monday off for going to Akureyri.
The sky was funny as it would go all weird colours in the evening, but was ok next morning.
Another funny thing, was that the people who made the flags got it wrong. They took the 100 flags and sewed them to the 100 banners, so the flags were the wrong way round on one side. The really weird bit is that J-W did not manage to take a single photo of the wrong side of the flags. He also did not photo the small viking tents I liked!
We did the shorter route back on Tuesday. It is longer but quicker. It was really cloudy and wet for most of the trip. But back at Reykjavik the mountains were finally visable for the first time this trip. We camped with a whole load of the other IST at the camp site, but just for the one night as we had to go home on the Wednesday. The pick up coach was a bit late, and a polish girl was a bit worried about we would miss the coach to the air port. We chatted with her on the trip to the airport about how much more travel we would need to do after landing. She would not be getting home ot about 3am.
We were meant to have left at 4pm, we were still in the airport then. We had to get onto a bus to go out to our plane out on the far side of the airport. We were 50 minutes late, so we missed the 21:15 bus at Heathrow and got the 22:15, so we did not get back to Woking until almost 11 which is after the last bus from Guildford, so J-W had to breakout his phone and get a lift.
16 nights away. 204 nights away in total. Next badge please!
Updated: Sunday, 26 May 2024 10:23 AM BST
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