Normally the day starts with a breakfast update, but there were incidents before that today. Mark woke up to something hitting his head, Martin was in the bunk above so he assumed it was his watch or something and looked around to find it. Confused that there was nothing there Martin explained that his iPod had dropped, but he'd caught the headphone and pulled it back up.
It was toast for breakfast n our apartment, devoid of an actual toaster, Mark was cooking it on the grill. However, the butter that we'd brought was of the unspreadable kind, in fact there are blocks of ice less dense. Marks solution was to briefly put it under the grill with the toast. Unfortunately the packaging set on fire (properly on fire). We didn't have any over gloves either so it was a case of using the tea cloth to rescue it! No one else opted for toast this morning.
We hit the road, heading northwest to the lakes and stopped occasionally for photos, at one spot, Mark launched the drone and was flying it back along the road when a car pulled up and told us off as he said he'd nearly crashed into it. He had a 4x4, no one was forcing him to use the road!
One of our major stops was at a volcano, it was proper snow everywhere at this altitude but we made it up the track to the car park and then hiked to the top. The lakes up there were covered in snow too and it was quite pretty. There was smoke gushing from parts which we investigated only to find that a power station had been built over the vents to harness the power. Wouldn't want to work there when it all goes wrong!
Just as we were about to leave, our Japanese tourist stalkers also wanted to leave but got stuck in the snow because they'd hired a diahatsu shito instead of a 4x4. A recovery truck had to come and pull them out so we laughed at them and then drove off only to get stuck ourselves. We used 4x4 low range made in reverse and sorted it though, then sped off as though we meant to get stuck.
Next up was some mud geysers, sounds rubbish, I know, but it was pretty cool. Lots of small holes that bubbled and spat and then a few larger mounds that vented smoke like crazy. It properly stunk of rotten eggs though which everyone blamed on Keith's bum. Surprisingly, it was also muddy too, our boots were twice the size and weight than when we'd started so we had to spend just as long cleaning our boots as we had looking around!
Onwards to the next stop which was a cave that was used in Game of Thrones, the bit where John Snow gets all funky with Ygritte. There was none of that shenanigans while we were there but we did climb down in there to look around. Keith managed to smack his head on a rock, there were no helmets or any of that nonsense. He was ok though so we opted not to leave him behind.
We moved on and stopped at a cafe near our hotel for lunch, we didn't eat though as they wanted a block of gold bullion in exchange for a sandwich. So we opted to just grab a drink and then ate left over crisp sandwiches from the boot of the car. Keeping it classy.
Our final point of interest to visit was a volcanic crater. It was huge, and to get there meant off-roading it down this pot holed track. We parked at the bottom and started to hike up the one side. About one third of the way up we passed some people coming down, they had high vis on, spiked boots, snow shoes on their back and spiked sticks. We'd basically just got out of the car and started walking so we were a little concerned. It was hard going and very steep, some scrambling was involved at one point as it was very slippy on the ice but we made it in the end.
The views from the top were great, both of the inside of the crater and the surrounding area. Going down was tough too, Keith slipped at one point and went on his arse, and Mark's foot near the edge gave way too. Martin however lept down like a mountain goat and gave us plenty of encouragement like 'come on'.
Back at the car park, Cederic wrote an amusing note in the dirt on someone's car. On the drive out of the car park and up the potholed track, some stalker tourists were coming the other way in diahatsu shitos , as we passed them, Mark accelerated hard throwing a wave of water out of the pot holes over the cars. We laughed a lot. Up ahead was another group of tourists, but stood outside their car, as we approached you've never seen anyone get in their car so quickly! We laughed more.
We checked into our accommodation which was a couple of small cabins, tiny, but practical and chilled out for a while after our busy day. Just as we entered our cabins though, the phone in Keith and Cederic's cabin rang and someone tried to sell them double glazing, you can't get away from them anywhere!
We went for food at a local bistro in town, the main course was good but we fancied dessert. We hadn't seen the waiter for about 20 mins despite there only being two other tables with customers. We gave up waiting, paid and left with the plan of getting something from the supermarket. The shop had closed an hour before though so our dessert consisted of hobnobs and custard creams.
We chilled out again waiting for it to get dark so that we could hunt the northern lights again, and at about 10:30, Cederic burst in announcing that he could see them through his camera but not with the naked eye. By the time we'd all got warm clothes on and got outsidevtyerecwasca bright white strip across the sky. We dashed to the car to get away from the light pollution and nearly ran over half a dozen Japanese tourists who were stood in the car park oblivious to the car. Cederic shoved them out of the way and off we went, however on the single lane track out of the complex, another tourist had set up his tripod blocking the road. Genius. Some words were exchanged and somehow we got through, we won't go into details here for legal reasons.
We went to the caves and saw the light in full glory, the way they moved was majestic and the guys with proper cameras got some great shots, it was hard to get a decent pic with my phone. It then started to snow so we gave up for the night and went home. It was then that we noticed that the carvthat Cederic had written in earlier was our next door neighbour!
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