24 Nov Geography Trip to Iceland
Over Easter 2011, a group of DGS teachers and Transition year students visited Iceland. The trip began with an early morning bus to Dublin airport to catch a 7.45am departure. Although everyone showed signs of fatigue, we were so excited that it didn’t matter. Ireland was in the middle of a freak spell of hot weather and our flight left it behind for the cold, windy, bleak landscape of Iceland. At 11.45am local time, our flight touched down, on what appeared to be an alien planet . There were no trees, no grass, gale force winds from every direction and the ground was brown as far as the eye could see.
As we went through Reykjavik we were being lectured on the history and local landmarks of the nation’s capital by a university lecturer, who stayed with us for most of the duration of the five-day trip. Later that evening we headed for one of Iceland’s most visited attractions, the “Blue Lagoon”. The lake size swimming pool’s average temperature is between 37 and 39 degrees so this trip was purely for relaxation. We travelled back to our hotel feeling great and everyone looking younger! We also watched a movie in a local cinema that evening and got lost on the way back to our hotel!
On Friday we were woken by what sounded like someone trying to break down our door – it turned out Mr Corbett was waking us for breakfast. Although it wasn’t ideal getting up feeling tired , it was worth crawling out of bed as we were going on the “Golden Circle” excursion, an in-depth tour of Iceland’s spectacular natural beauties. There we witnessed craters, waterfalls and even the phenomenon that is a geyser. On our way back to our hotel we stopped at Iceland’s national park and observed some magnificient sights. Our geography teachers thought they were in heaven.
The third day was a favourite for most as we went white water rafting, shopping and bowling, a wonderful trio. We had to decide between whale watching and rafting, so Mr. Corbett took myself and seventeen other students to the rafting centre. Three instructors took us in three separate boats down a rough river. The water was so cold that we were given under-armour, a wetsuit, a fleece, a jacket and an astronaut type suit to wear!
On our second last day we were taken on an excursion of Iceland, visiting waterfalls, caves, beautiful spots and finishing the tour getting up and personal with a glacier. That evening we went bowling and were then brought to our rooms in military fashion thanks to Mrs O’Reilly.
Monday the 25th was our final day abroad and we were delighted to hear that our flight had been posponed by two hours as it gave us extra time to shop and scour the streets to purchase presents to bring back. We arrived in Dublin at 7pm, tired and full of geographical knowledge. The trip would not have been possible without the hard work that Mr. Corbett put into organizing it and without the help from Mrs. Johnston, Mr. Keegan, Miss Byrne and Mrs O’Reilly.
Report written by Alexander Gleeson (4R)