All good things...

So, a quarter of a year has flown by and I have officially left the Iceland bubble! Apologies in advance for the more serious tone of this post, it's a time for reflection and all...

Those final weeks were a little scary, as the end was in sight and the real world, along with all of its decisions, choices and responsibilities, was looming ever closer. We all had something to face up to, whether it was job hunting, going to university, or moving to a new city. Conveniently, or not depending on how you look at it, our penultimate week was spent in Skaftafell, where we had internet access again after almost a month of blissful ignorance in remote locations such as Thorsmork, Landmannalaugar and Nyidalur. I must admit that I found it hard at times to cope with working out in the national park all day, pulling up lupin and fixing blocked drains, and then coming back to the hut in the evenings to emails from friends making arrangements to meet up once I got home. It was like trying to exist in two universes at once. My head didn't know where it wanted to be and so I was glad to escape to Eldgja for the final week.

We had a wonderful time in Eldgja (a massive fissure that was formed in AD934, in the highlands between Landmannalaugar and Laki) working with two rangers, building wooden steps in glorious weather. We also did a lot of hiking and spent a night at a fishing hut in the middle of nowhere. It was really quite special and I think that Eldgja and the surrounding area is one of Iceland's hidden gems. Countless people stop for an hour on the bus to Landmannalaugar and take a walk to the waterfall Ofaerufoss, which is beautiful, but then they miss out on experiences such as the views from the top of Gjatindur or Sveinstindur, both short climbs that we did after work. We had a clear sky on both evenings and could see an incredible distance, as far as Myrdallsjokull to the south, Laki to the east, Vatnajokull to the north-east, Hofsjokull to the north and Hekla to the west. That's a pretty huge chunk of Iceland. I remember Carmel sitting on one of the summits and saying something along the lines of, "whenever I feel stressed during the coming weeks back home, I will close my eyes and try and come back to this place." I do find it comforting to know that Iceland, and those special places, will always be there to escape to, now that I know they are there.

Eldgja

Arriving back in London, the first thing I noticed was how well dressed people were. I found myself strangely attached to my hiking boots and fleeces. A week later I am still trying to wean myself back into trainers (my poor ankles are unsupported and have a mind of their own!) and you can forget about high heels. My make up bag sits there untouched and I have thrown away or donated countless possessions that I didn't miss and don't need. And having got used to only spending money at a petrol station shop once a week, I haven't been tempted to buy things just for the sake of buying them, which is so easy to do at home with online shopping and 24 hour supermarkets and 'convenience stores' everywhere. Convenient for whom? I have definitely come back with a fresh perspective on what is really important in life and I hope it stays with me as I venture back out into the big wide world.

A final thought: I am so proud to have been a part of the Wilderness Management team - it was a privilege to have spent time with such an easygoing, mature group of people who were unfailingly tolerant and respectful of each others' likes, dislikes, moods and habits. Holiday week, when nine of us hired a van and hit the road with only a vague plan of where to go, was a case in point: there was no tension, no arguments over what to do and when, just a couple of guidebooks and a relaxed attitude. When we were hungry, we stopped to eat, when we were tired, we found a place to camp, taking a vote on whether to wild camp or find a campsite. Sometimes we did group walks, sometimes people went off on their own, no problem. Some drove, some navigated, some sorted out hostels, some cooked, some washed up. It sounds so simple, and for once it actually was. So, thanks to all of you, and to everyone else I worked with, for such a great summer. See you all again next year...?

ICV life part three: Work

Ah yes, after sleeping and food comes work. The reason why we are here.

We normally work 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, with a hour for lunch (5 minutes lunch, 55 minutes nap) and two tea breaks during the day. This includes walking to the worksite, usually around a half hour walk, but I think the record this year was 13km! We carry our tools in with us and often hide them near the worksite, bringing them back on the Friday. Each team also has a leader with them, often a different person for each project. Leaders are experienced volunteers who can teach the appropriate skills and are briefed on the work that needs doing.

The work we do is extremely varied and generally requested by a local park ranger. Chas, the volunteer coordinator/big boss, will visit the site to assess the work and in some of our more regular haunts such as Skaftafell, Landmannalaugar and Mývatn, the jobs are planned out before the volunteer season begins. In other cases, a ranger may simply call Chas and request some extra pairs of hands for the following week. Other work is reactive - a boardwalk breaks, or a path floods and requires urgent repair. Some common projects:

Step building

Steep sections of hiking trails are prone to erosion over time. They can become dangerous to walk on, and tourists will avoid tricky sections by going around them, damaging vegetation and creating visible 'desire lines' that others will then follow. A good solution is to dig steps into the slope, using rocks or timber, depending on the location and what can be found nearby. The steps should be comfortable to walk on - not too steep or shallow, close together or far apart. Most importantly of all, they should be stable!

Rustic timber steps in Thórsmörk - before and after

Landscaping/pitching

Sometimes paths become unclear and people start walking all over the place. All you need is a few big tour groups and suddenly it all looks very messy. In wooded areas, this can be rectified by weaving (literally threading long branches through sticks hammered into the ground) to cover up the areas you want to protect, and making the correct route more user friendly by adding the odd step, removing trip hazards and so on. In rocky areas, this involves taking any nasty looking or loose stones off the path and digging lots of ugly, pointy ones in everywhere else. Some people will still be determined to walk on them of course, but most will look for the easiest route.

A newly landscaped path - a sight to behold

Drainage

Hiking trails cannot survive without adequate drainage dug alongside and across them. I haven't built any drains myself, but I'm told that a good stone drain is an intricate job that can take several days' work to get right.

Boardwalks and bridges

The best way to keep people from sinking into marshy ground, or falling into streams.

General trail maintenance

Blocking off desire lines, chopping back overgrowing vegetation, clearing blocked drains, widening/narrowing the path, removing trip hazards and so on.

The key to all trail work, I think, is to make it look as natural as possible. It should blend in with the surrounding landscape (no metal staircases and guardrails please!) Wherever we can, which is most places, we use natural building materials - stones for steps and drains dug up from 50m away, timber for steps and small boardwalks felled from the surrounding forest that same morning. How satisfying!

Waymarking

A fun job - hike a trail, usually to somewhere pretty, and hammer in sticks along the way so that others can find it after you, and don't go wandering off trampling on the moss.

Waymarking - a grand day out

Lupinating

The technical term for killing lupin in places where it is not wanted.

A day in the life of a ranger

In some locations, the local ranger/s will take you out with them in their car to help out with tasks that need some extra manpower. Four of us recently spent a great week in Nyídalur, in the remote highlands, with two rangers. We spent a lot of time raking over tyre tracks left by off-road drivers, which would have been a huge job for just the two of them, as well as waymarking roads and trails, and diverting the flow of streams that had flooded the road.

Damn off-road drivers - takes seconds to damage, days to repair

It's always great to spend time with Icelanders, and the park rangers tend to be a pretty special bunch who are extremely passionate about their work. It is always a worry with volunteer work that you are creating projects for the sake of keeping busy or in order to be seen to be doing something, so it's really encouraging to hear the rangers talk about the importance of the work we do and to know that we are genuinely helping them out and making a lasting impact.

ICV life part two: Food

One of the biggest surprises of the summer for me has definitely been the quality and quantity of the food provided - and the delicious meals we have managed to scrape together from basic ingredients! I have learned so many new recipes, have cooked for large groups of people for the first time, and generally eat far better than I do at home.

Typically, when a team moves to a new project site, they take a pre-packed set of 'dry' food boxes with them to last the week, and enough fresh food for a few days. The fresh is usually resupplied at some point during the week, either driven in by a member of the support team, or sent up on a public bus. A basic set of boxes for a week would look something like this:

Pasta
Rice
Lentils
Kidney beans
Chick peas
Tinned tomatos
Tinned fruit
Tinned fish
Various herbs, spices, condiments
Muesli/cereal
Porridge oats
Flour
Sugar
Biscuits and cakes (14 packets to be precise)
Dried fruit
Crackers
Peanut butter
Honey
Jam
Chocolate spread
Bread, wraps, pita
Skyr (an Icelandic speciality - like a delicious creamy yoghurt)
Cheese
Cream cheese
Sandwich meat
Eggs
Butter
Fruit and veg
Milk
Juice
Tea and coffee
Hot chocolate
Some fresh meat/fish

...plus any extras thrown in by the nice person doing the shop. I will never forget the week we got six grapefruits, four types of brie and two aubergines. Thank you Phil :) Oh, and occasionally someone shows up with a leg of lamb and a bag of charcoal and everyone rejoices.

Pilar in the food store in Reykjavík

Cooking and washing up duties are shared amongst the team members, with some unlucky soul getting up early each day to make porridge/wallpaper paste and coffee. We are seriously thinking of compiling a recipe book of the tasty dishes we have come up with using limited ingredients and equipment. It's amazing what you can do with two gas burners and some tinned tomatoes. 'Experimental' might be the right word. Favourites include:

Rustic mash

Boiled potatoes with skins on, mashed a bit, with butter, garlic and rosemary. Yum.

Weird vegetable shit with egg

Occasionally we get sent a packet of what were once frozen vegetable patties, but have inevitiably disintegrated into a crumbly mess in transit. Simply fry it all up with an egg or two cracked in and serve as a side dish - or in a sandwich.

Kedgeree

Fry whatever veggies you can find, add rice and egg. Fish optional.

Spanish omelette

Potatoes, onions and leftover veg. Surprisingly filling, as are savoury pancakes...

Generic red shit

Take some canned tomatoes, add onion, garlic and whatever else is lying around (sausages are popular). Add to pasta, rice, couscous, potatoes... or throw in chickpeas and lentils and make it into a big old stew.

Generic white shit

Butter, flour and milk = white sauce. Add cheese to make a cheesy white sauce. Add a packet of dried soup powder and veggie stock to make generic cheesy white shit pasta sauce.

Consu's salad wraps

Why use bread for sandwiches when you could simply take two large lettuce leaves and add the filling of your choice?

Crumble

If you have access to an oven, this is by far the best way to use up tinned fruit.

Dessert sandwiches

Take two wholemeal milkykex biscuits, and stick together with the help of peanut butter and chocolate spread. Mmm.

The Skyr aisle

Also, as a vegetarian, I have an advantage, as we rarely have the facilities to store fresh meat for long. Most of our meals are therefore meat free. And the frozen veggie sausages and burgers in Iceland are surprisingly good!

ICV life part one: Accommodation

So, enough of all the wonderful nature and scenery for now - what is life actually like as an Iceland Conservation Volunteer?

Well, firstly, where you eat and sleep is pretty important. Home and its comforts can take many forms...

Five *****

Your own hut, complete with bunkbeds and cooking facilities. If said hut also has electricity and/or hot water, consider yourself very fortunate indeed. The ultmate luxury? A washing machine, closely followed by wi-fi.

Four ****

Your own sleeping space, but in a shared hut - expect a large bus load of french tourists to arrive just as you are about to start cooking dinner.

Nyídalur - 4 ****

Three ***

Camping outside, but with access to cooking facilities and toilets in a shared hut.

Básar at Thórsmörk - 3 *** (almost gets an extra star for having a garlic crusher in the kitchen)

Two **

Camping outside, with a mess tent to cook and socialise in. Access to toilets and sinks at the campsite.

Hólar - 2 **

One *

Camping, a mess tent, a stream, and a selection of bushes.

We have experienced all of the above over the summer, and it is funny how electricity and hot running water feel a bit excessive these days - there is something quite wonderful about collecting water from a stream, and huddling together in a mess tent in the evenings, playing cards and telling stories to pass the time, enjoying each others' company away from all the distractions of the modern world. And believe it or not, after a week in a hut, however cosy it may be, you start to miss your tent. Really.

Nuts and bolts

Pilar and I have now left the Wilderness Management team for the time being and are spending three weeks based in Reykjavik helping out with project support. This essentially involves taking care of food supplies for the teams: unpacking deliveries to our workshop/store room, packing up numerous sets of dry food boxes and doing big supermarket runs for fresh items, then helping to deliver all the food, plus any extra equipment and bits and pieces to the eight teams scattered across Iceland. This means we are now the proud custodians of a big silver Skoda, which is very exciting, although we have spent most of the week trying to get rid of the odd cabbagey hire car smell which came with it!

It has been good to experience what goes on behind the scenes of a programme which now has over 60 volunteers to feed, water and ferry between sites; and changeover days, when the teams move to different project locations, are particular logistical challenges/nightmares. Getting the cars and drivers where they need to be, with enough spare seats, plus space for luggage, the right food boxes and the right equipment, the right sets of keys even... the amount to think about is mind boggling. On Saturday, for example, three cars were involved in ferrying four new team members plus Pilar and I into our project site in Thorsmork, then bringing us both out again along with ten people from another team - and as the road to Thorsmork involves river crossings, the smallest car had to wait behind around an hour away. But somehow it all worked, and a few hours later we had two cars plus food for twenty heading east to Skaftafell, and the third heading west back to Reykjavik. Simples!

Some days, between food deliveries, there is little we can do in the workshop. However, we have been given a side project to keep us entertained at Gullfoss, a large waterfall and tour bus magnet a couple of hours out of Reykjavik. We have been heading up there in the early evenings, once the tourist traffic has started to die down, to replace a wooden staircase leading to the visitors centre. We are able to get through around six steps per evening and the view from the office window is terrific! The work itself is good fun and we have had some entertaining comments from tourists who have been somewhat shocked to find themselves climbing over two women lying under a staircase, nuts, bolts and spanners in hand!

The staircase at Gullfoss

The view from our work site

The waterfall in all its glory

The best part of project support, though, apart from playing extreme Supermarket Sweep on a daily basis, is undoubtedly the driving. I probably won´t be saying that in a months time, but this week, in addition to the off-road drive into Thorsmork, we were lucky enough to be sent up to Skorradalur to take supplies to half of the Wilderness Management team and spend a day working with them. It was an absolutely stunning drive around Hvalfjordur in beautiful weather: a vast fjord complete with snow capped mountains in the distance and colourful farm houses dotted around its banks, followed by a gravel road over the hills with a view of the bright blue lake in Skorradalur down below.

Before coming to Iceland I read a book called the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, in which he suggests that people do not wish to be millionaires, they just want the lifestyle that they associate with being rich, be it foreign travel, time to indulge in hobbies, or driving fast cars. He argues that these luxuries can be achieved without having millions in the bank, and that struck a chord with me today - there are people out there who would pay a small fortune to be able to drive all over Iceland, taking in all the sights, and even more to be able to go off the beaten track as we have done so often during our first month here alone. We are so incredibly lucky!

Dear lupin, you are not welcome here

I am slowly coming to the realisation that Wilderness Management really means Wilderness Destruction. First the trees last week, and now we have turned our attentions to lupin:

It may look very pretty, but this lupin is an invasive species, hailing from Alaska. It was introduced to Iceland on purpose, as it can grow just about anywhere and helps to regenerate soil in damaged areas. However, it can easily spread out of control and threaten native plants, which is what is happening here in Skaftafell National Park. We can't possibly get rid of all of it, so our job is to create a lupin-free 'buffer zone' in the Morsadalur (valley of the Morsa river, which drains the Morsa glacier), with the aim of containing it across on the west bank.

Morsadalur

This week we have been experimenting with different methods of recording the location and extent of the lupin, as well as ways of killing it. Surveying for lupin involves spreading out in a line across 100m and combing the landscape for plants - as though we are searching a crime scene for evidence. We use GPS units to record the location each time we come across one, and note down details such as how many there are, whether they are in flower, and whether they have developed seed pods. Then we pull the little devils out! Slowly but surely, we are building up a picture of the spread of lupin across the buffer zone, which will be plotted on a map and compared with previous and future years. With time, we will be able to see whether our mission to destroy is working...

Today we carried out some interesting tests on the actual removal method itself, working in 10m squared quadrants. We recorded the location of each quadrant by GPS, then set about killing the lupin in different ways: digging up the roots, scything it down, trampling on it, cutting it back in a sheep pen in the hope that they will eat it. Next year's team will no doubt be surveying the results!

The only good lupin is a dead lupin.

Apart from honing our lupin killing instincts, we've had some time to enjoy the national park too. It is set in a beautiful location, nestled between tongues of the great Vatnajokull glacier, the largest ice cap in Europe. The mountains and glacial valleys are beautiful, and there are numerous hiking trails, most of which seem to lead to waterfalls. We have our section of the campsite to ourselves, and even better, we have a section of the park rangers' hut all to ourselves too, including a decent sized kitchen and living room. It feels a bit like Big Brother at times, 11 people who have only just met living in the same house, dividing ourselves into cooking and cleaning teams, going out to do a task every day, composing shopping lists and trying to entertain ourselves in the evenings, but in a good way! The atmosphere within the group is great and we have cooked some pretty amazing meals. Everyone has a great attitude towards the work we are doing and the challenging conditions at times, and I think we are all here for much the same reasons. Just a lovely bunch of people, really!

Finally, I can't talk about Skaftafell without mentioning the ubiquitous ash that fell two weeks ago. It is still very much present - the glacier tongues are soot coloured for a start, and the entire place is covered by what feels like a fine layer of sand. It gets absolutely everywhere and when the wind whips up, which is often, you get a good dusting, including in the eyes! It's been difficult at times, especially down in the valley when we are constantly getting sandblasted, but we are all coping OK. It makes those hot showers at the end of the day so much more satisfying... and who needs fancy exfoliants and scrubs when you have volcanic ash?!

Ash cloud's gonna get ya...

So, one more day together as a group and then the evictions start (only kidding). We will be split up for a while, though. The team is being divided into two, and I am leaving this weekend with Pilar for three weeks of project support work, which can involve anything from packing up food boxes in Reykjavik to driving to project locations and helping new groups to set up camp. I'm excited for the variety but sad to be leaving the team when everything is going so well. I'll be back in July, though. The lupin can run but it can't hide!

What does the inside of the earth smell like...?

Thursday and Friday were written off as travel days, but turned out to be rather special. After bidding a fond farewell to our forest home in Hólar, we drove down to lake Mývatn and after setting up camp, went for a late afternoon walk around Leirhnjukul, or 'clay mountain', part of the Krafla caldera in north-east Iceland. This is an active volcanic area which erupted almost continuously for nine years between 1975 and 1984 in what was known as the 'Krafla fires'. To be able to walk amongst the aftermath (on an excellent boardwalk constructed by previous ICV volunteers!) was a real privilege. Steam rose from craters, mud pots bubbled all around us and we climbed over the young, lumpy lava which reminded me of caviar spread across the mountains. The top of the trail offered an incredible view across the scarred landscape. I felt so lucky to be there. We then finished the day off with a soak in the natural Mývatn steam baths, and when we got back to camp we found an amazing Icelandic feast waiting for us in the mess tent, lots of delicious breads, cheeses and pates. What a day.




On Friday morning, we stopped to have a look at the geothermal area at nearby Hverir, one of the largest hot spring areas in Iceland. The landscape was so raw and uninviting, steaming, hissing and bubbling away with no regard for us humans who for some reason think that we are the masters of this planet! Mud pots splattered menacingly and fumaroles spurted endless quantities of steam out of the ground - it took my breath away, both figuratively and literally, because the smell was almost unbearable - like caustic rotten eggs! I stood and thought about how that smell was coming from deep inside the earth, far below my feet, from a place that we are unlikely to ever photograph, let alone see with our own eyes. This was about as close as it gets.
I would love to return to Mývatn at some point, as there is just so much to see there. The landscape is like a cross between how you would expect Mars and the moon to look, and it really stirs up the explorer in you. Then of course there is Lake Mývatn itself - a unique ecosystem due to its rather effective under floor heating system. It's a paradise for birds, especially ducks, as parts of the lake are warm enough to avoid freezing over in winter, and they have plentiful midges to eat (Mývatn translates as midge lake, thankfully they don't bite!).

We are now settled in at Skaftafell and the ash from the recent eruption is still very much in evidence. The park is surrounded by glacier tongues, which are black and sooty instead of their usual blue-white, and the dust is everywhere, like fine sand. The good news though is that we have a hut for cooking and relaxing in, which we gave a thorough spring clean this morning. The sun is shining and it's all quite homely! Tomorrow we hope to go out on a guided walk of one of the glaciers, then next week we will get cracking with lupin surveying and removal in the valley. More on that soon!

Tweet tweet!

No, not that kind of tweeting... yesterday, day 13, was a momentous occasion, as I finally spotted my first oystercatcher!!

Iceland is a fantastic place for birdwatching, what with all the coasts, cliffs, fjords and marshes, and general lack of trees for our feathered friends to hide in. There aren't all that many species here either (I think I read somewhere that there are around 75) so it's easier to remember the ones you have already spotted after a while. I appreciate that this will be very boring for everyone reading this, but I have decided to get a list going on this blog that I will add to each time I spot something new...

- Oystercatcher :)
- Black headed gull
- Common tern
- Common gull
- Great skua
- Fulmar
- Little gull
- Arctic tern
- Common snipe (and snipe babies)
- Black tailed godwit
- Golden plover
- Ptarmigan
- Redwing (and fledgling redwing)
- Common redpoll
- Blackbird
- White wagtail
- Wood pigeon
- Harlequin duck
- Mallard
- Wigeon
- Tufted duck
- Common eider duck
- Greater scaup
- Horned grebe
- Red necked phalarope
- Greylag goose

Hólar!

Iceland isn't known for its forests, so it seems funny that all of our practical work so far has involved trees in some way shape or form!

We escaped the ash cloud in Reykjavik on Tuesday, and after a ten hour drive through some stunning scenery, arrived at the tiny village of Ásbyrgi in Jökulsárglúfur national park in north-east Iceland. Ásbyrgi is famous for its massive horseshoe shaped canyon, carved out by glacial floods over thousands of years, and our job was to get their campsite ready for the summer. This mostly involved dragging away large sections of overgrowing trees as the park ranger cut them down, loading them onto a trailer and then unloading them and sorting them by size at the other end. The branches were pretty enormous and I would love to know how many kilos we shifted over the two days!


Since then we have relocated to a village called Hólar in central north Iceland, which is home to a small university (only a few hundred students) that specialises in equestrianism, aquaculture, and rural tourism. The rest of our team arrived on Friday, so we now number 19 at the campsite, and we are two days into our practical training week. Yesterday we went out into the pine forest nearby in small teams and learnt how to fell trees (before you wonder what conservationists are doing cutting trees down, they were densely packed together and thinning them out will do them some good!). We then sawed up the logs into equal lengths and used these today to repair damaged sections of the hiking trails around Hólar, building steps in steep sections, and bridges across streams. It's been hard work, but good fun at the same time and there is something really quite special about realising that the piece of material you need is too short, and simply popping into the forest to fell a tree and saw yourself a new piece. No chance of jumping in the car and doing an emergency B&Q run around these parts!


So, so far, so good. We will continue with our training for the rest of the week, finishing our trail projects and going out and about in the mountains to learn about using GPS and surveying work. After that we will head down to Skaftafell in the south as the ash situation is looking better, and will split up into smaller teams to tackle various projects that need doing. There are lots of great people in the team and we are having a good laugh, despite the rather chilly weather (we can practically see the arctic circle from here after all!) and a few people, myself included, getting colds and coughs. Working and living outside takes some getting used to, but my spirits are high and I'm looking forward to the rest of the week!

A right pain in the ash

I made it to Iceland in the nick of time - less than an hour after my flight touched down in Keflavík, the Grímsvötn volcano erupted in south-east Iceland, covering the area around the Vatnajökull glacier with ash and grounding all international flights. This has repercussions for our volunteer programme, as our base camp in Skaftafell has been evacuated and it doesn't look like we´ll be going there any time soon!

The ash has also reached Reykjavík - it looked like a large thundercloud rolling in from the east last night (see pics below). Today we had planned to climb Mount Esja to the north of the city to assess the state of its hiking trails and test out a new surveying system, but just as we were about to set off, we received a call from the air monitoring people to tell us that the air quality was not safe at the top. Hopefully we will be able to go up later in the week. In the meantime we now have a free day, and given that the hostel we are staying in has dozens of back-issues of National Geographic dating back to the 1960s, I think I'll manage to entertain myself just fine!

Yesterday, though, was a glorious sunny day. I met up with Eva, a fellow volunteer who stayed in the same hostel as me for the first night, and we set off to explore the city. We went to the top of the famous Hallgrímskirkja for panoramic views of Reykjavík and beyond (see pic below of the toy houses!). We then decided on a whim decided to go to the Perlan exhibition centre to see what was there. It turned out to be hosting a travel and tourism show for the weekend, so we pottered around picking up leaflets and trying various free food samples, then by utter coincidence, Eva bumped into a friend of hers from a previous trip to Iceland, who had travelled all the way down from the north-west of the country! Jón then took us for lunch and we had a good chat about the Westfjörds region, where he runs a guesthouse and fishing excursions for tourists in a small village of 150 people. It sounds gorgeous and we promised to try and visit during our holiday week.

Ten volunteers have arrived so far and we are expecting around ten more by the end of the week. Our training starts at the weekend and has been relocated from ash-covered Skaftafell to Hólar, a small town in the north of the country. Those of us that are already here should be heading up there within the next couple of days to start setting things up. Hopefully! We'll see which way the wind blows...

Getting in the mood...

BBC4's recent Iceland season couldn't have been better timed. Here are two of the highlights, still available on BBC iPlayer until Sunday 22nd:

Julia Bradbury's Icelandic Walk:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0110grr/Julia_Bradburys_Icelandic_Walk/
Julia Bradbury hikes the famous Laugavegurinn trail in Iceland, which just so happens to pass right by the Eyjafjallajökull glacier and its eponymous volcano, which erupted last spring and caused air traffic chaos on both sides of the atlantic. I am really keen to hike at least part of this route while I am in Iceland, and given that previous ICV volunteers have worked on the trail, I may just get the chance to...

Storyville: Last days of the Arctic
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0110ghk/Storyville_20102011_Last_Days_of_the_Arctic_Capturing_the_Faces_of_the_North/
A moving documentary following a photographer who has spent the past twenty years travelling to remote parts of Iceland and Greenland, documenting the traditional ways of life in the north that are fast disappearing due to climate change and modern technology. Stunning scenery and photography.

So, why is it you're going to Iceland again...?

It's not every day that you announce that you are quitting a perfectly good job to go and live in a tent in Iceland for three months. So I thought a good way to kick this blog off would be to explain the method to my madness!

I had originally planned to spend this summer in Montreal, mostly sunning myself in pavement cafés, practicing my québécois and perhaps taking a few evening courses in preparation for starting a Masters in September. Unfortunately though, the visa gods had other ideas. I was ready to move on from my office job and so I began researching a Plan B. Ideally, this plan would involve some travel to areas of outstanding natural beauty, where I could indulge my passion for running around in the mountains.

I started by looking through bookmarks saved on my computer (probably from a dull grey weekend in February) and came across the website for Iceland Conservation Volunteers: http://english.ust.is/of-interest/ConservationVolunteers/ I remembered saving this last summer when I was thinking of doing a two-week 'voluntourism' holiday. Then I noticed that they also offer longer term projects from May to August. Interesting!

According the ICV website, their 'Wilderness Management' programme involves travelling all over Iceland to collect and analyse data, mostly on invasive plant species, to help conserve the country's fragile environment. Volunteers also carry out various practical tasks, such as building and repairing hiking trails, and installing signposts and viewing platforms near the many natural tourist attractions. Given that I am hoping to pursue a career in environmental management, this sounded to me like the perfect way to gain experience in the field and explore a stunning country while I'm at it.

The more I read about Iceland, the more I am convinced that I have made the right decision. For a start, it is described as a 'geographer's paradise,' the stuff of school textbooks the world over. Iceland is, in essence, one big volcano, sitting on the Mid-Atlantic ridge and straddling both the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, which continue to pull apart by around 2.5cm per year. As they separate, magma from the earth's mantle is forced to the surface and eventually cools to form a new land mass. This process is still very much ongoing, and the island of Surtsey off the south coast of Iceland was formed from a volcanic eruption under the sea as recently as the 1960s.

All of this volcanic activity, coupled with Iceland's location just below the Arctic Circle, has resulted in a dramatic landscape: countless fjords carved out during the Ice Age, geysers and hot springs, lava fields and deserts, mountains and glaciers. It also happens to be one of the cleanest countries in the world: the vast majority of Iceland's energy comes from hydroelectric and geothermal sources, so much so that the Kyoto Protocol has actually allowed them to increase their emissions by 10%!

Finally, I love to travel; nothing makes me feel more stimulated and alive. I believe that we should all take the opportunity to see as much of this beautiful planet as we can during our lifetimes, but without ruining it for both future generations and the other flora and fauna we share it with. This is why sustainable tourism is so important, and I can't wait to play my part in the Environment Agency's work over the summer. I know I will learn so much.

I hope to be able to share my experiences with you all too, although internet access may be somewhat sporadic! Wish me luck as I head off into the land of fire and ice....