Walls of Orange Lava

The 03: 15 taxi took us on a tour of central London on the way to Heathrow, the cost of fuel must now mean directness instead of saving time is the major consideration for cab drivers.

The flight arrived in Reykjavik 5 mins early and I noticed it must be a little windy as the wind sock was horizontal. From landing we managed to get out of the airport, collect the car and be on our way in exactly an hour.

First thing on my changed itinerary was to visit the Fagradalsfjall volcano which from the 3rd of August had started erupting and was spewing out impressive amounts of lava, I was so excited. The wind sock at the airport hadn't lied, BBC weather was saying the wind was 41mph for the rest of the morning. So into the teeth of the wind, across an exposed terrain, we headed off on a 4 mile hike, climbing about 300m along the way. The wind and terrain meant it took 2hrs to reach the volcano, tired but expectant we got over the final ridge only to find the volcano putting it's feet up and having a fag. Instead of a wall of bright orange lava being pumped into the air it was just pumping out white smoke, I was so disappointed.

Despite being tired, the wind blew us back to the car 20 mins quicker than it had taken to get there. Now I just had a 140 mile drive to tonight's accommodation in Kirkjufell. Fortunately, the roads were good, the traffic was light and it only took 3hrs 15 mins to get there. Tired from a very long day, I had fish and chips in a local cafe, the cod was amazing, so light, moist and flavoursome, no wonder they fought so hard against us in the 1970s to keep it.

Weather: 11 degrees, sunny internals, bloody windy.

Mileage: 164 miles Keflavik to Kirkjufell.Read more