On the morning of Friday, our sixth day on the road, and the day before returning home, we had the shortest distance to drive to get to our next stop, Reykjavík. Before we came to Iceland I had hoped we would get to see some of the Western fjords, but maps can be deceptive and it was clear that getting anywhere interesting would have been far too much of a diversion, so we stuck to the ring road and headed due south.

By now all the snow had gone completely, and the bare green-brown, half-dead grass and subsequent mossy lava were showing again, giving the landscape a touch of the unearthly. The volcanic craters at Bifröst did nothing to alleviate that impression, and loomed large and imposing over the surrounding lava fields. A huge wall of exposed rock to the east hinted at the chaotic past of this part of Iceland, which lies squarely on the active fault line between the continents that gave birth to the island originally. We were speculating as to whether these particular volcanoes were exctinct or merely dormant as we climbed up to get the best view from the top of the taller of the two cones.

A little further south, and we headed off the main ring road to visit a curiosity that I had been to before, five years previously, the lava falls: Hraunfossar, and neighbouring Barnafoss (the children’s falls). The lava falls are unusual in that the water emerges directly from the rock at the side of a river, straight out of the ground. The lava from which the adjacent landsape is made is porous, meaning rainfall heads straight underground, flowing along above the non porous bedrock before emerging where the softer lava has been cut into by the river. Upstream of Hraunfossar is Barnafoss, so named because (so the story goes) two children, who had been left behind after a nearby village went to church, went to play by the waterfall, which at the time was bridged by a natural stone arch. Somehow the children fell into the waterfall, so that when their mother discovered what had happened, she destroyed the stone bridge so that nobody would perish in the same way again. Looking at the water roaring through a narrowing in the river, it wasn’t hard to imagine how dangerous it would be to go for a swim. The overcast conditions helped us considerably when it came to getting the best exposure times for the wonderful ribbon effect you can see on most of our waterfall pictures.

Close to the waterfalls is the town of Reykholt, home to Snorralaug (Snorri’s pool), a small outdoor pool where the Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson used to bathe. A hot spring nearby helps to keep the pool’s water warm, and emerges from the ground innocuously nearby, next to a rather incongruous pile of rubber tyres.

Heading on to Reykjavík, through the tunnel at Hvalfjörður, we got to the city much sooner than we expected, so took a detour to Gullfoss - the Golden Falls - which we had missed on the first day as it had been too dark and wet. Gullfoss is probably my favourite spot in Iceland, and I can just sit and watch and listen to the water crashing down that famous double cascade all day. This being my fourth visit I left the camera in the car so I could enjoy it properly; besides, the weather was pretty poor (grey and drizzly) meaning the rainbow was missing, and two tourist buses had arrived alongside us, meaning it was swarming with the dreaded Other People! I had forgotten how busy places like Gullfoss can get, as we had been pretty much alone for much of the entire trip so far.

We took the south coast road back to Reykjavík, with Jeff and Raof annoying me by taking pictures of a wonderful sunset while I had to keep my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road! Back in Reykjavík, with luxurious double rooms all to ourselves in the hotel, we left the cameras behind and headed into town to spoil ourselves with a proper meal (Icelandic style, meaning expensive!) before meeting up with a friend of mine who was visiting and heading off to a bar to just sit back, relax, and reflect on the amazing things we had seen and done over the past week.