Brieodalsvik

For a change, no waterfalls today. Excluding, of course, the ever-ending unnamed streams that cascade down the side of the cliffs whichever way you turn.

Today was glacier day, and we started by visiting Vatnajokull National Park. The Vatnajokull Ice Cap covers fifteen per cent of Iceland, although on our walk to the glaciers it was repeatedly evident that it is shrinking at an ever-faster rate.

The walk took us to a magnificent viewpoint at the junction of three glaciers - all names unpronounceable - before we took in a few more glacier facts on the way back to the cars.

The landscape as we drove along was a fascinating changing mix, from seemingly manicured grassy hills, to barren rock and gravel, to rock covered in a spongy moss-like plant. Iceland has the market for rocks and stones cornered, but almost no trees, as these were all burned for charcoal but in the Viking days and they sort of haven’t come back yet.

And then, the incredible Glacier Lagoon.

We parked the car, walked to the water and were confronted by hundreds (well, maybe tens) of chunks of ice - the biggest maybe ten metres long - that had carved off the glaciers and were waiting on the tide to take them out to sea.

As they floated around they would occasionally turn turtle, showing off their bright blue underwater colour for a while.

A short walk away was Diamond Beach. Black sand isn’t beautiful, but it can be made to look that way by pieces of ice laying all over it.

And that was it for the day. We stayed at a fishing lodge, with a sitting room adorned with stuffed animals and intrepid fisherpeople putting on their cold weather gear and looking determined to enjoy themselves.Read more