Started to leave Jökulsárlón at 6am as we could not get that much sleep.

Drove about 90 minutes West to Kirkjubæjarklaustur. A small town of just 120. We filled up the gas tank and then waited for the Gas stations shop to open. We had a hotdog and a cup of hot chocolate. Here is where I found out that my hiking boots had broken down.

Something we really needed from the crazy cold last night. Rested for a bit then headed 45 minutes East to Skaftafell National Park. Here we hiked about 45 minutes in heavy rain to the famous Svartifoss.

At the Skaftafell National Park Parking area. Real wet & foggy.

Some waterfall on the way

Not Svartifoss!

Svartifoss!

Svartifoss surrounded with awesome rock formations

Would have been a good shot if we had good weather. We headed back to the car right after. Drenched in rain, my rain jacket has failed me. After 9 years, its time for it to retire.

We then drove 170 West to Skógar where we checked in and stayed the night.

We then walked outside our hostel where we took pictures of Skógafoss.

Skógafoss is one of Iceland’s biggest waterfalls. Over 25m.

Near the top of Skógafoss

As the sun was setting, we headed to Seljalandsfoss about 20 minutes away.

Inside Seljalandsfoss

3 waterfalls in a day.

Headed back, had dinner, and bed.

Today’s route

http://goo.gl/maps/mbppj

This is how our hostel looked like. We could not see what it was like the night before as there we were in the middle of no where and had no street lights.

Continue our journey 200km east towards Hofn.

Stopped at Jökulsárlón.. ill let the pictures speak for itself

This is where the lagoon meets the oceon where Icebergs drift into the sea.

Jökulsárlón is a glacial lagoon and is truly Iceland’s natural wonders.

We spend a good amount of time here taking pictures.

We then continued our journey and stopped at Hofn (pop > 2000, biggest town we’ve seen other than Reykjavik. The only reason why we stopped here because of the Dutch couple who said we should…we ended up just eating hotdogs here as all the attractions are closed due to it being late in the season.

We then drove 30km further east to Stafafell.

Going offroad to reach our starting point.

Weather was sunny and was a good day for hiking.

The start of Stafafell hike. I think it was previously a big river here.

Freshest water i’ve ever drank.

Doing the “Chewie boy”

Single File.

Hiked for 2-3 hours roundtrip. This was the furthest east we went, we’d like to do the whole ring road (which could be done in 24 hours) however we would not have much time to explore anything.

We drove back and decided to be badasses and sleep in the car at Jökulsárlón to hopefully catch some northern lights with the awesome Glaciers for awesome pictures. The weather turned bad it just rained on us. It got freezing temp cold and we had to use emergency blankets to keep ourselves warm. We got no Northern Lights, uneeven sleeping surface, and crappy sleep.

Daniel slept in the front seat. I slept at the back with the back seats down.

Route we took today.
http://goo.gl/maps/FhDEG

Woke up at about 8am. Warden told us that it would be safer for us to hike together because the winds were up to 49mph.

The room was cold, and when we looked out the window we saw this.

Group picture before we left the hut.

Hiked 15KM from Emstrur – Þórsmörk (Pronounced Thorsmork)

Þórsmörk is just about 10km north of Eyjafjallajökull, (the volcano that erupted in 2010 which caused air traffic to stop in many parts of Europe)

Awesome pic of Eyjafjallajökull. Thanks Ryan!

Arrived an hour before the bus left back to Reykjavik. Its been a while since I’ve been so happy to see a bus in my life.

Its of a bummer that we didnt continue our journey all the way back to Skogar. The journey would have taken an extra day of hiking which we would hike inbetween Eyjafjallajökull and Katla (a volcano which erupts every 100 years, 10x bigger than Eyjafjallajökull and is suppose to erupt 2 years ago). Its said that when taking this route to Skogar you could walk up the foot of Eyjafjallajökull and the ground is still warm from the eruption in 2010. However with the condition of my legs there was no way I would be able to hike another 20km.

On the way back we passed Seljalandsfoss. The winds were so strong the waterfall flew back upwards. No good pics of this waterfall as we were in the bus 🙁

Bus ride took 2 hours. We then checked in at Backpackers.

What would YOU have for dinner?

Puffin taste kinda sweet. I like it.

Whale meat in the other hand…kinda tough even though we ordered Medium Rare.

Awesome sleep with proper beds.

Eventhough yesterdays forecast was to have terrible weather. We woke up to awesome weather. Bright, sunny & no wind. Excellent day for hiking and taking pictures.

We started our 16KM hike towards Emstrur.

We walked thru 2 rivers in which we had to take off our boots to cross as the depth of the rivers were up to almost knee height.

Both my knees were aching as soon as I woke up but slowly got better as the day passed.

Walking on volcanic ash.

A dormant volcant.

About 2/3rds of the way, we could see a cloud behind us

It got cold and started to drizzle about 10 minutes before we reached the hut. We arrived in the afternoon after about an 8 hour hike and spend some time with out hut buds from Holland, Germany & Spain.

Went to bed at about 10pm. We cold hear strong winds hitting the huts while we were sleeping, and would wake me up every time. All I could think about was what weather it would be like the next day.

Microwave Pasta for Breakfast

We took a 4 Hour Bus ride from Reykjavik to Landmannalaugar to start the Laugavegur hike. *Laugavegur is a hike route famous to experience a wide variety of landscapes in just 55km*

We stopped to take pictures of Mt. Hekla aka the Gateway to Hell. A volcano which has been active for thousands of years. Last erupted 2000, and is said to expected to erupt once every 10 years.

Our bus reached Landmannalaugar which was the start of our hike at around 1PM.

Destination Hrafntinnusker. 12KM

The journey begins.

If mommy saw this…………..

It took us 4 hours to reach this Hrafntinnusker. It was probably around 5:30. My knees were  sore probably from overuse. At this point some hikers already left for the next hut Alftvatn. We talked to the Warden and said that today’s weather was awesome, and that it was forecasted to have a snowstorm and winds of up to 45mph the next day. So I popped a couple of panadols for my knees, dropped off 3 litres of water, some heavy food and then gave Daniel some of my load to help ease my pain.

Next destination Alftvatn 12km. The sun sets at 9:15 so we would need to hurry or hike in the dark.

Daniel took a lot of pictures and my knee slowed our hike. We had to hike about an hour in the dark with torchlights and a GPS. Reached Alftvatn at about 10PM. Way too tired…

Had Pasta with sausages for dinner. At 11pm while I was washing the dishes the Alftvatn warden said “the light are here”

At 0 degrees, we went out to witness something everyone should see
The light looked like the were dancing. Moving up and down and side to side.

Click Here For More Northern Lights Pictures!

The lights lasted about 5 minutes. Went straight to bed after.