Day 6 - 20 March 2016

Up at 6am after a good night's sleep (nearly 7 hours). On the road by 6.30am heading for the ice beach at Jokulsarlon. We had a successful 90 minute session. This time we failed to beat the Japanese to the best spots.

My aim this morning was to use slow shutter speeds and a small aperture to capture a clear image but to blur the receding waters (drawback). This, I think, I have achieved in my photos (to be posted on my website shortly). There were huge chunks of ice on the beach and bobbing in the sea. All of this ice has drifted out from the Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon and deposited itself into the sea or ended up on the black volcanic beach. It is an amazing sight. It was quite cold this morning but I was pretty warm as I was wearing a vest, Hele Hanson top, fleecy shirt, a fleece, a quilted jacket, hi-tech waterproof/windproof coat, neck warmer, windproof/waterproof fleece lined hat, longjohns, fleecy walking trousers, 2 pairs of socks, walking boots with 2 foot warmers in each boot, silk gloves and over gloves! Yesterday I had 6 layers on and in actual fact 3 was too warm!

At 8.15am we decided to beat the Japanese back for breakfast and headed back. Breakfast was good with a varied selection of cold meats, cheeses, fruit,etc. Breakfast over we headed back to our comfortable rooms to blog, download photos, etc. At 12 noon we are heading to Hofn for our afternoon session.

My huge thanks to Val for presenting me with this awsome experience! Everybody should visit this spectacular and unusual country. and I would certainly recommend the Hali Country hotel. The rooms are spacious, new and kept exceptionally clean. The staff are wonderful (mostly Czech) the food is good (in fact the lamb was lovely last night) and the surroundings are beautiful.

And I bought my fridge magnet today!

At 12.30pm we set off for Hofn in gentle rain and cloudy skies. At 1.35pm we arrived at Hofn and had a look around a supermarket. We stopped for lunch at a petrol station!

2.55pm we were on the road again and the weather was brightening. We stopped to take photographs of reindeer and spent the rest of the time at Stokksnes (an unbelievable bay with huge snow capped mountains and black sand dunes). We stayed there until 7.20pm and headed back to our accommodation for our evening meal.