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Iceland 2018 - Getting Back

Posted by Mark Richardson on Sep 01, 2018

I arrived at the end of the trek two days ahead of schedule at 16.10 on Monday 10th September expecting to have missed the Noon bus to Reykjavik. I went over to the bus stop anyway and discovered the only bus that day was at 16.25, in 15minutes time! The timetable had changed this very day, moving from the summer timetable to the winter one - great, I hopped on.

 

If I wasn't doing this trip solo I would have had three days to do some of the tourist trips out of Reykjavik, but sightseeing on your own isn't much fun so I decided to travel home early - the cost to re-arrange my flight was way less than accommodation for an extra three nights. I turned my mobile phone on, it had 15% charge left, I managed to re-arrange my flight, airport transfer and car collection at Manchester airport all within half an hour and getting my phone down to 5%.

 

The bus ride to Reykjavik took two hours and dropped me at the bus station, which is in the suburbs - so I had to get a taxi to my hotel, I arrived about 7pm. After a quick clean up I walked into the city centre for a meal.

 

The airport pickup was 5.00am for an 8.00am flight back to the UK, which arrived at 11.45am. I collected the car and got home at 3pm.

  
Mark Richardson
 

Mark was the founder of Ultralight Outdoor Gear back in 2006 and has completed long distance backpacking routes in some of the remotest parts of the world. His favourite hikes have been Torres del Paine (full circuit), the John Muir trail and the Markha Valley trail (Ladakh, India). Although semi-retired Mark has not lost any enthusiasm for minimalist backpacking and is tackling Scotland’s Munros choosing multi-day backpacking routes over the more usual guide book excursions.

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