We’re home and the stats are in.
In the 16 days since I left The Hague I’ve clocked up 4,272km through the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Iceland – 2,099km of those on the European mainland (including 12 doubling back to the hotel room in Germany because I’d forgotten to hand in the key).
I’ve spent 53 hours at the wheel of my car and 96 hours on board a ferry, plus an hour and a half on a whale watching boat, four hours being driven round southern Iceland by a tour guide and not enough time reading books in hot tubs (because there was still cooking, shopping and washing to be done).
I saw one humpback whale, a handful of porpoises, countless whimbrels, two ptarmigans, several Arctic terns (a few too close for comfort), a clutch of oystercatchers, at least one redshank (I think: it’s not really my speciality) and more puffins than you could shake a stick at (not that I’m advocating shaking sticks at puffins in any way).
We are still spreading the last scraps of Smyrill butter from Bonus on our sandwiches. The orange and apple juice were finished this morning. And there’s about a third of a wedge of Goðdalir cheese (firm and nutty, like a mild Jarlsberg). Once that’s gone we will only have a few tangible connections with Iceland left: a couple of bottles of beer, some souvenir T-shirts, hats and coasters. But we’ll always have the memories.
