By: Alastair Humphreys - I had trained hard and planned carefully. I needed this. The last few months had been claustrophobic back home. I was straining at the leash, more eager than ever to get out ‘there’, out into the wild places. To be free for a while; to simplify; to test myself. I was ready.

But, like men down the generations, the siren song of the three age-old distractions snared us first: wine, women and… whale meat.

A family had kindly invited Chris (friend and expedition partner) and me to stay before we began our journey. After a barbecue of whale meat (ethically questionable, unquestionably delicious) we then experienced Iceland’s extraordinary stamina for all-night partying. We drank and danced right through the sunlit northern night into the morning and consequently felt far too rough to begin the trek.

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