Day 5: Sarah Ryan

Today was an amazing day. We woke up too early for everyone's liking (7:30) and then headed off on the bus to the Westman Islands. The ferry journey was very rough and most people felt ill but otherwise the crossing was quite short. When we got to the island we hiked up to Heimaey. Heimaey is an active volcano which erupted in 1973 and covered a third of the town in lava. Causing the main source of money, fishing, lots of damage. When we got to the top there was an amazing panoramic view of the islands and also the mainland. Some of the crater was still warm to the touch, it was truly spectacular. After we came down the steep slopes we went to an interesting museum about what happened in 1973. Inside there were excavations of some of the houses that were covered in the lava along with all the items inside, some of which still intact. It was here we spent a couple of hours going around the museum with an audio description of what happened, watching a documentary and eating lunch. After the museum visit all the teachers treated us to a hot chocolate and we were allowed to wander around the town before the ferry back to the mainland. When we got back to the bus we set off on our Icelandic twenty minute journey. This was in fact two and a half hours long which was spent singing and sleeping. When we got to the hotel we had our meal and then said our thanks to our guide Dave and the teachers and all headed off to get a good night's sleep before the ridiculously early start in the morning.