Packing up my life that was starting to commence in England was, tough. Feeling like I needed to spend more time there, with the new friends I had made was quite difficult. Eventually, I made the decision and I paid for the flights and set a stopover for Reykjavik. Ryan, decided to also come along to Iceland as well. Leaving in the morning, and myself in the afternoon, we met up at the KEX Hostel in Reykjavik. After some dinner and toing and froing, we decided that well, maybe the best way was to book a car, a mere 100 meters from the hostel and head south. My main goal was to see Jökulsárlón, everything else was a bonus. I can say that hiring a car saved a lot of money on tours and allowed us to travel as we pleased.
The first day:
The view from the front of the hostel:
We immediately headed to the thermal springs close to Reykjavik with the hope of finding a thermal bath. After searching and following signs, we gave up and kept heading south towards our hostel that was booked for the night in Höfn, past Jökulsárlón. Along the way we stopped by the famous waterfalls of Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss. Stunning falls. Just stunning.
As the day progressed we keep on driving, stopping the way to admire the sunset.
Getting late, we were running low on fuel and by chance, we discovered on the GPS a self serve petrol station near Höfn. Filling up we made it to the hostel and crashed for the night after a very late dinner in town. I must add that this was the first time driving on the opposite side of the road for me, in a manual car also after just getting my manual license before leaving Australia. A great experience.
Exhausted, I was awoken at 7 by Ryan, saying its time to go. I got ready and jumped into the car to watch a majestic sunrise over the snow covered peaks of Iceland. Oranges and pinks covered the mountains as we headed back the 1 hour or so to Jökulsárlón.