Prior to arriving in Iceland I had talked to a few people who had already been. The most common responses was that the weather and landscape was always changing. Day one didn’t disappoint in that respect. I was also told that the environment can seem somewhat alien, as in you’re on another planet, not alien as in you’ve lived all your life in a big city and suddenly find yourself in a rural setting.

I’d have to say that aside from the lava-fields everything felt a little familiar. For quite a bit of this day the scenery reminded me of places I had visited in Britain – the moors and Scottish highlands mostly. Even the distinct absence of trees couldn’t shake this notion and although excited to be here I wasn’t too impressed with Iceland thus far.

The day started very grey, wet and windy but the sun soon broke through the clouds to give us blue skies and rainbows. I was taking in the scenery much of the day rather than seeking something good to photograph and was happy enough to go for a walk every now and then. Highlights were the sulphur springs for their pungent eggy smell and a waterfall simply because it is a waterfall.

Although seemingly uneventful, day one helped ease us in to our journey. It is not often you get to see a rainbow or a waterfall and the hot water in Iceland has the same eggy smell of the geothermal sulphur springs. Little did I know at the end of day one that these would be regular features for the days to follow.

In the midst of the barren lava-fields of the Reykjanes peninsula - the first that most visitors to Iceland see of this astonishing land - the landscape is unearthly and alien. Not a tree grows anywhere, so there are no birds to sing, and away from the airport no planes fly overhead. There is no distant motorway to provide a background sigh, and no railway for trains to clatter along. All there is are you, the landscape, and the silence.

Kleifarvatn lies about 20km to the south of the capital conurbation, which consists of Reykjavík, Garðabær, Hafnarfjörður, Mossfellsbær and Kópavogur. The water level is extremely sensitive to weather conditions, and varies considerably, to the extent that the lake is used by some locals as a rain gauge. It is surrounded by barren, black rock and lava, dusted with little more advanced than moss and lichen. At the south end of the lake, near the tiny settlement of Krýsuvík, an area of geothermal activity assaults the nose with a pungent sulphurous smell which I would liken to a cross between boiled eggs and Marmite. The intense heat triggers chemical reactions in the soil creating red, yellow and grey mud which seethes and boils endlessly.

We drove through Reykjavík, stopping briefly for something to eat, and headed inland towards Þingvellir, the Parliament Plains, where the first Icelandic parliament was held in the early 10th Century, making it the world’s oldest democratically elected parliament. There is geological significance, too, as Þingvellir is also where the tectonic plates of North America and Europe meet, moving apart slowly to create a vast low-lying plain between mountains to the south and tall cliffs of lava to the north. Over these cliffs the river Öxará flows, creating the Öxarárfoss waterfall, from where the water makes its way down two more, smaller waterfalls before flowing into Þingvallavatn, one of Europe’s largest inland lakes.

As the sun set we paid a brief visit to Geysir, before a long drive through driving rain and pitch darkness to our first overnight stay at Hotel Dyrhólaey, near Vík, Iceland’s southernmost town.

Hot showers in the morning meant waking up to the smell of rotten eggs. It’s actually not that bad once you get used to it. However, experiencing it for the first time means you are either shocked into full consciousness or end up fainting. Wide awake then we set off on what was to be a spectacular day.

Sun and blue skies throughout helped us get over the patchy weather yesterday. It wasn’t this that made the day special. We covered a lot of ground and at every turn we saw some breathtaking scenery. Today was definitely picture postcard day. We got to see waterfalls, rainbows, mirror lakes, snow covered mountains with glaciers and waves crashing against ice on an ashen beach.

Pick of the day for me was a lighthouse on-top a cliff edge at Dyrhólaey. We were there initially to visit a natural arch in the rocks but ended up the wrong side of it for the time of day seeing it only as a silhouette against the bright morning sun. The light was magnificent though and turned the dead grass around a wonderful golden brown. The lighthouse, and a smattering of outhouses, with nothing else in sight for miles gave me a sense of remoteness and planted a seed in my mind that would inform the rest of this photographic journey.

The black mirror-like effect of the lake at Dyrhólaey was enchanting and mesmerising. The ¼ inch of water on the black sand gave a perfect mirror-like finish. Fantastic! We then visited Skogafoss waterfall, the sun was low enough in the sky to grace us with a complete half rainbow in the spray of the falls.

Over midday, we drove across the front of Vatnajökull glacier to Jokulsárlón, a glacier lake connected by a short iceberg filled river to the sea. The evening light shining through the icebergs with a gorgeous green-blue aura.

Much of day two was spent in wonder at the astonishing distance from which the peak at Hvannadalshnjúkur was visible. At 2119 m (6952 feet), Hvannadalshnjúkur, part of the rim of a volcanic crater called Öræfajökull, is the highest point in Iceland and is visible from as far away as Vík, approximately 150km (90 miles) distant. The road from Vík leads through Eldhraun, an enormous expanse of lava covered with moss, before passing through the small town of Kirkjubæjarklaustur, from where it crosses Skeiðarársandur, an area of gravel and rivers where water from the great Vatnajökull ice cap melts and flows towards the sea. The remains of an iron bridge, destroyed in 1996 in the jökulhlaup (glacier burst) have been left as a monument to the power of nature.

Past Hvannadalshnjúkur we drove to a place where the Vatnajökull glacier meets the sea, at Jökulsárlón. Here, icebergs calved from the glacier stretched as far as the eye can see in a wide lagoon, drifting slowly towards the sea. On the shore itself, where the sand was jet black, chunks of ice lay melting in the sunset, as clear as glass, while larger icebergs that survived the journey were pounded by the waves just offshore.

We watched the sun set over Öræfajökull, turning the mountains to the east blood-red, before heading off to the farmhouse that was to be our accommodation on the second night.

Day three saw us drive round to the far side of Iceland through the eastern coastal fjords. Much of the day was grey with only intermittent glimpses of blue peeking through clouds threatening to burst but never doing so.

Throughout, the landscape seemed sparse and barren with long stretches of straight empty road reinforcing the sense of solitude and isolation I had started to feel yesterday. Nick had burnt a CD to play in the car that had Sigur Rós’s Takk album on. The atmospheric harmonies was the perfect soundtrack and one could instantly tell that their music was heavily inspired by their native land.

Driving through miles upon miles of similar terrain meant there was a certain languid monotony about the day. However, both Jeff and Nick had the good sense to swap their wide-angle lens for some macro and telephoto opportunities that arose. Being the only non-driver of the group, I was content to enjoy the ride to soak in the scenery and music, letting any creative juices flow through my mind rather than my camera. It was almost hypnotic.

I only really woke up, in the visual sense, as we started to leave the coast and drive up a snow covered mountain. The view from the top looking down into the valley was breathtaking. Snowball throwing aside, we took a quality moment to enjoy the panorama.

Toward the end of the day we reached another waterfall at Hengifoss. It was a fair steep climb and we were rapidly losing light so we had to make haste. Alas my lungs packed-in halfway up, the path was starting to get narrow and precipitous and there was a high wind blowing. Only Jeff made it to the top. Whilst waiting for him to return, I sat there alone to watch the sun set and contemplate the vast open land below.

“STOP!’ I shout and slam the brakes on, “Reindeer”, a reindeer and her calf are gently trotting along the water’s edge of a fjord. Back in the car we wondered what we’d see next.

Before the afternoon light gave way to dusk, we drove of to see Hengifoss a very dramatic and high waterfall. The map in the carpark (this was a tourist attraction) explained the waterfall was about 2 miles away and looking up, it appeared it was all uphill!! Nick’s headache prevented him starting, Raof managed to reach Litlianfoss (pictured with Hengifoss in the distance) The route became a bit treacherous after that, about -3º and ice covered rocks with sheer drops to a freezing raging torrent below - and failing light. All worth it because Hengifoss is magnificent.

On Tuesday morning, after we had established that all three of us snore, the first thing we did was to get some earplugs from the chemist in Höfn, before picking up some more groceries, petrol, and blank CDs so I could burn a compilation to play on the car’s stereo. I’d always wanted to listen to the opening strains of Sigur Rós’s Hoppipolla while driving through Iceland, and so I finally got the chance after we passed through a tunnel to the north of Höfn and arrived in Austfirðir, the Eastern Fjords.

We found one of Iceland’s numerous waterfalls in the first valley we drove past, the sort of waterfall that, had it been in England, would have been signposted and crowded with tourists. This being Iceland, however, the waterfall was probably nameless, and just one of probably thousands around the coastline, all of which carve the surrounding mountains into the wonderful shapes you see all over the island.

Further round the coast, after yet another amazing waterfall, Jeff spotted a pair of reindeer trotting along in the shallows by the water’s edge, so we stopped the car again to get some shots. Then our breath was taken away.

On the map, we could see where the road left the coast, followed the river along the bottom of a valley, and then headed over the top of a mountain. However in front of us, as we drove, all we could see was a snow-capped mountain ridge, roughly 1km high, with no sign of a road. However sure enough, the road began to climb, and as it did, the temperature began to drop. For the sake of posterity, we stopped as soon as the thermometer on the car’s dashboard reached zero and exchanged a few snowballs, and took some pictures looking back down to the valley. The road continued to climb, and the temperature bottomed out at minus 3 celsius.

Things returned to (relative) normality on the other side of the ridge, with a snow-free drive along a lake that took us all the way to our next stop in Egilsstaðir. After dropping off our baggage we drove back along the lake through one of the locals’ favourite holiday spots, an area known as Hallormstaður which is covered with minature Icelandic Dwarf Birch trees - probably the closest thing to a forest in the whole country. Our destination was a waterfall called Hengifoss, Iceland’s third highest waterfall, however the waterfall itself was so far from the road and so high up that only Jeff managed to make it, a splitting headache defeating me before I could climb the second flight of steps, and exhaustion overtaking Raof half way up.

We stopped for a meal in town that evening, at a place where the clientele all seemed to be construction workers of some description, before heading for the basement in the hotel to download our pictures onto the laptops and then test the efficacy of the earplugs.