The sky was very clear Monday night but unfortunately the aurora was not visible. However I did get a long exposure photo of the start, and there is a faint green and red glow towards the north, so it looks like it was there, but very faint.

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.