Haslingden school pupils experience beauty of Iceland

Fifty-two geography students from Haslingden High School and Sixth Form got the chance to see volcanic eruptions from Mt Hagafell and Stori-Skogfell, just north of Grindavik on the island just outside the Arctic Circle.

They even were lucky enough to see the Northern Lights from their hotel on the final night of the trip.

The eruption changed the planned itinerary and instead of visiting the famous Blue Lagoon which had been closed, they instead went to the Secret Lagoon, another naturally heated outside geothermal pool.

Ben Curran, 15, said: “It was like going into a jacuzzi. I found it very relaxing going from the cold outside and completely submerging in a heated pool.”

Jude Marsden, 16, described how they stayed in three different hotels and took a road trip around the southern coast of Iceland.

He said: “We went to Reykjavik, the capital city.

"The population of the whole of Iceland is only around the same as Manchester, and Reykjavik looked empty and there was a lot of building work going on.

“In our free time, Franco Tonioli paid for us to ride some electric scooters which were for hire, a bit like bikes in London.

“We went down the Rainbow Street, but they ran out of charge and an alarm went off. We had to push them all the way back.”

Students in Iceland (Image: Haslingden High)

They also got to visit Hallgrímskirkja, a huge Lutheran church in Reykjavik.

Wearing crampons, the students, mostly from Years 10 and 11 and several Year 12 pupils, also followed a guide and scaled a glacier.

Ben said: “We drank water from the glacier and it was so fresh.”

They were shown a video of Justin Beiber’s ‘I’ll Show You’, which was filmed at the stunning Fjadrargljufur Canyon. The students then got to walk where it was filmed.

Jude said: “One minute it was snowing and the next it was sunny”.

“They say if you don’t like the weather in Iceland, just wait five minutes because it will change.”

The trip could not have ended better for the group, as when they looked out from their hotel balcony, the students witnessed the aurora borealis. – the northern lights - lighting up the night sky.