My flight was delayed yesterday, so I didn't arrive until around midnight - didn't get to my hotel until 1.30/2am. I saw the Northern Lights from the plane - not very bright at first, so I wasn't sure whether I was seeing the last of the sunset or the reflection of the plane's lights off the cloud below us but eventually they brightened and the cloud faded and it became very obvious that this great arc of pale light in the sky was definitely the Northern Lights. ...

I successfully got on a coach just before 8 this morning, slept most of the way to Heathrow, checked in, got through security without being searched and stopped at the Tin Goose for some breakfast, while watching breaking news of the helicopter crash on the screen across the other side of the café. My plane this time was Askja, a spectacular volcano in the Highlands out towards the east of Iceland. It's got a massive flooded caldera and on the edge of that is...

The final blog of the trip. I had breakfast, packed and went out into Reykjavik at dawn. It was a clear morning and felt far too warm for my usual five layers and I was very tempted to run back to the hotel to abandon my mittens and a couple of jumpers. I went down to the seafront. The snow on the way was deep and crunchy and very winter-wonderlandy. On the seafront, I stood and took more photos of Esja and the white mountains in the distance and then it struck ...