Our final day in Iceland was spent in the capital city, Reykjavik. It's such a great city, small by most capital standards (but hey this is Iceland) and full of super quirky buildings, shops and people. Art and graffiti covered many buildings and it was great just to wander around the streets and enjoy the place.  The first place we headed to was the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which was quite literally a dick museum. It's famous for holding the world's largest collection of penises. I'm not even kidding - google it. I dare you! Whale penis, dolphin penis, otter penis, why does this place even exist? And then to further the weirdness there is a room in the museum that contains troll penis, merman penis and unicorn penis. Iceland, are you ok? Who thought to themselves, you know what I'd like to start collecting? Penises.

We booked ourselves on a Viking Boat cruise for our very last Iceland activity. It's a replica ship that took us out of Reykjavik and towards an island where there were puffins and seagulls. I had thought this would be a more interactive activity, but we just sat on the boat listening to our guide tell stories. In the brochures people were rowing oars, helping with the sails, but I guess not today. 

 The only pic I took of the ship - amateur!!

We had lunch at a Momo Dumpling place just near the marina, and we were served by a Tibetan New Zealander who moved to Iceland a few weeks ago and was happy to see a Kiwi and an Aussie to speak to. He was so nice! I wish we had at least learnt his name!

And that brings us to end of our Icelandic adventures. I had the best time, spent an absolute fortune (still unknown, ignorance is bliss) and cannot wait to go back. Peace out Iceland you magical country.

Happy Birthday to me! It's my 32nd birthday and what an awesome way to spend the day driving through the Snæfellsnes Peninsular to Hafnarfjörður, the city of elves, where we had the most incredible accommodation at a Viking Village. Followed by a late night dip in the Blue Lagoon, this was definitely up there with the best birthdays of all time. 

We spent the previous night in an AirBnb in Grundarfjörður, at the top of the Peninsular. We left super early as we had a jam packed day of fun. We stopped off at a supermarket for breakfast and ended up with the most delicious pastry consisting of a mix of croissant, donut, and iced bun. What is this witchcraft? Divine!! We headed south to Reykjavik as we had booked an escape room. I was so pumped for an Icelandic escape room, but it ending up being terrible. OMG we may be smiling in this pic but we were actually proper disappointed. Look at that time! We got out with THIRTY SIX minutes to spare! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we got out but wish we got our money's worth.  We shopped for a bit in town before having a delicious noodle lunch and then headed into Hafnarfjörður, about 20 minutes south of Reykjavik.

Hafnarfjörður is known as the city of lava, city of vikings and city of elves. Hafnarfjördur is famous for having one of Iceland's largest settlements of elves, dwarves and Hidden Folk. Do all Icelander's believe in the Hidden Folk? I don't think many would openly admit to believing, but they certainly wouldn't deny their existence either.  Sarah purchased the Hidden World's map and we did a tour around town in search of the Elven Church and home sites. This was taken in the elven park in the middle of town.

We tried to be as cheap as we could with accommodation during our trip, with the exception of this night where we stayed in a cottage in the Viking Village. Because why the hell not! Sometimes you just gotta splurge, and why not treat yo' self on your birthday? Honestly, it was worth every single cent. It was themed to within an inch of it's life, but managed to do so without being tacky or Disney-fied. We had dinner at the Viking restaurant, which got off to a bad start when we were ignored by the  hemp sack wearing waitresses who wanted nothing to do with us. They then seated us in a small table at the entrance, and we felt like we were on display the whole time. Chinese and German tour groups walked past us and unsubtly stared at us eating our food. I death-stared down two Chinese ladies who were eyeing me up as I ate my lamb. I just picked up the leg of lamb and started chomping on it without breaking eye contact. I then snarled a bit (hey, we're at a viking village) and narrowed my eyes enough to make them go away. The food was incredible, they gave us shots of Black Death and ended up having an awesome night.

 We tried so hard to be fierce. Fiercely failing.

That Icelandic sky!

We had pre-booked the Blue Lagoon for a 9pm start which meant we got to stay away from the crowds, and enjoy the midnight sun. We drove the main road and all the turn offs into the Blue Lagoon were blocked. We were semi-freaking out that there was no way to get there when we saw a roadwork crew flanked by 15 cars and a very animated argument was taking place. It turned out that they were repaving the road and expecting all guests to travel the long way around which would add 45 minutes to the journey to the lagoon. FORTY FIVE MINUTES are you joking? The Blue Lagoon is not cheap, and you want to get every single minutes worth there. Some of the ladies who were arguing were fierce, and demanded to be taken through the newly paved road which was met with replies of how much it will ruin tyres, you better have insurance etc. We ended up all going across as Fierce Lady 1 was not going to give in, and the paved surface? About 30cm long. Not even joking. By the way the road workers were going on about it, I honestly thought it was the entire length of the road. And furthermore, why would you block off the entire road to the most popular tourist attraction in the country? Do one side of the road! WTF.

Anyway, we got into the lagoon and relaxed our now stressed and frazzled selves in the calming warm water of the lagoon. We had paid for the more expensive package (treat yo' self birthday) which included alcohol, silica mud masks, algae mask and towels. I just kept slathering the masks on, they had buckets of it by the sides of the pool where you could just reach in, grab a handful and just slather it on all over your face. I knew you could buy the masks and they are expensive. I'm talking $100 for one tube of silica, so when they're handing that shit out - you take it. It was such a relaxing night and the best way not just to spend my birthday night, but also the last night of our Iceland trip.

Quite often we would see guests standing on the edge of the lagoon taking photos, so Sarah and I awkwardly posed in as many as we could. Random people now have photos of us with white silica faces strangling each other, waving, back to back posing and just general tomfoolery.

We were there until midnight and it was still light. What a magical place.

Can you spot me? 

2 am sunset on the way home from the Lagoon. The long way home from the lagoon.

Welcome to Snæfellsnes Peninsular, or what we called Snuffleupagus Peninsular. The drive from Laugar in North Iceland to the Peninsular was actually the most boring scenery we had in Iceland. It was quite drab, the scenery was so so and it really felt like we had seen all the greatness that Iceland had to offer. Until we hit the Peninsular, where the sun came out, the skies turned blue and the scenery was INCREDIBLE. We had read that Snæfellsnes is a microcosm of Iceland, where all the good parts of the country have been squished together into one Peninsular. And that's so true! I'm so glad we travelled the anti-clockwise Ring Road route and ended with Snæfellsnes, it was all the best parts rolled into one. 

We missed the first turn off to the Peninsular so ended up driving the Southern route, which took us up to the Troll Cave. Because it wouldn't be Iceland if there wasn't a reference to the Hidden Folk, Elves or Trolls. The canyon/cave is named after Rauðfeldar who had a brother Barður who was half man and half troll. Rauðfeldar pushed one of Barður's daughters onto an iceberg that drifted away to Greenland, and naturally Barður was pissed and pushed his brother into the canyon, and Barður followed him inside the glacier and was never seen again. Apparently he is still watching the area to this day.

Here's the statue of Bárður Snæfellsás in his full troll like form, guarding the Snæfellsnes Peninsular.

Later on the day we headed underground to the lava caves of Vatnshellir. Jules Verne wrote that the journey to the centre of the Earth started in the Snæfellsjökull volcano, and we hiked under the volcano into the lava tube that formed three awesome rooms. The lower section of the cave is 6000-8000 years old and you could see where lava flowed freely, where it settled and the awesome lava formations that have been created over 1000s of years.  I wish I had better photos of it, seriously this photo below of the staircase is the only clear photo I have of the caves. At the bottom cave, our guide asked us to turn our flashlights off and we were plunged into complete darkness and total silence. It was extremely creepy. He then asked someone from our group to sing and a lady began a really strange haunting song that really fit the weird location we were in. 

Bringing sexy back.

Well, this was some of the most incredible and varied scenery I've ever seen in my life. Photos just don't do it justice.  Our morning started with us leaving Mjóifjörður, and we had to pull over about 3 minutes after departing the guesthouse as dolphins had appeared in the fjord! 

Our drive towards Husavik was unreal. We drove from stunning fjords, to dark desolate mountains that looked like Mordor to the red ochre mountains with smoking sulphuric gas that could pass as the gates of Hell.  We walked out to explore for about 7 minutes before the intense stench of rotting eggs got too much for us!

We drove towards and around Lake Mývatn which is scattered with what look like deflated volcanoes floating in its centre.  I stole this image from National Geographic which really displays how random this scenery looks! We later climbed the Kefkla volcano and enjoyed the views of the crater.

So one thing we noticed about Iceland was how many picnic tables were scattered around the country which makes sense considering how many people road trip around Iceland. But they were often placed in the most random and strange positions, set opposite the most incredible scenery but with the views blocked by trees surrounding it, or set inside some ugly ditch. So we challenged ourselves to have a picnic on the most random table we could find. And we found such a picnic table about 20 minutes south Husavik, a picnic table set just inside a driveway that was holding up a letter box. We received a lot of awkward stares. So worth it.

Our third day in Iceland was our "lazy" day which we definitely deserved after 13 hours on the road the previous day. Let's quickly backtrack to yesterday and the HELL that was the very last 40 minutes of driving. We got to the turnoff to Mjóifjörður which ended up being the most difficult road I have ever driven on in my life. It was an unpaved dirt road that winded and curved through the valley and up a mountain and down to a fjord on the other side. We dealt with blind corners and gravel smashing into the side of the car. 4WDs would drive up behind us begging to pass our small car which certainly did not belong on this kind of road. It was foggy and raining, and most of all the incredibly beautiful scenery was so distracting! We had to take this route FOUR times and I can't believe we made it without running off the road and dying! 

We slept in all morning and decided to drive (on that bloody road) to Seyðisfjörður which is about an hour from Mjóifjörður and we spent the entire day sitting in cafes eating, drinking, reading, and a quick walk around town. It was so nice having a lazy day and setting that expectation of laziness early on meant we never felt the guilt of doing "nothing" and were able to enjoy every minute of it. Some times when travelling you can really feel expected to make the most of every minute, by seeing every possible tourist sight, every waterfall, walk every recommended route, but sometimes the best thing to do is spend time chilling and reflecting on what you've already seen.  And that's what we did in Seyðisfjörður.

The town itself is full of colourful corrugated iron homes, the same kind of homes we see around all of Iceland. We later found out that many of the homes come flat packed from Norway and the simple designs of the homes are a reflection of this. The church is GORGEOUS, so quaint and I love the cornflower blue colour of it!

We floated from one cafe to the next before heading back to our guesthouse to spend the night watching Stranger Things. Let's turn this lazy day into a lazy night!

Day Two involved the longest drive of the trip, 568km from Hvolsvollur to Mjoifjordur via black beaches, puffins, lava fields, ice caps, a glacier lagoon cruise, mountains, fjords and ending the day with the most difficult road I've ever driven on in my life.

We didn't do a whole lot of research before heading to Iceland. Sometimes that paid off, sometimes it didn't. We went in peak summer season and booked our accommodation about two months before, which meant our choices were extremely limited and everything was super pricey. We did a mixture of guesthouses, AirBnBs and ended with a super expensive (but worth every single cent) stay in a Viking Hotel.

The small bit of research I do included a turn off at Dyrholaey, which has the most amazing views over the black beaches of Southern Iceland. The sign off the main ring road is TINY and if I didn't know about it through research we never would have made the turnoff. And we never would have seen puffins. PUFFINS!! Omg they are adorable! Sarah also started crying when we saw them, what a crybaby. Haha!

Fields of lava cover much of Iceland, formed when Laki erupted in 1783 and killed 20% of Iceland's population, and over 6 million people globally. It's just acres and acres of moss covered lava that is now just a barren wasteland. I've never seen anything like it! All you can see from every direction is this strange shade of green covering random bulbous shapes.

The original plan was to head to Jökulsárlón for the famous glacier lagoon tour. I looked into it that morning to discover it was completely booked out. OMG I was so upset and furious at myself for not organising this better! I also didn't tell Sarah that it was booked out and I'm not sure what I was going to say to her when we got there.... I figured I'd worked something out by then! We stopped off on the way for snacks and a toilet break, and I picked up a brochure that contained an advert for the glacier lagoon at Fjallsárlón and thank the gods there were still spaces left on this tour! The one thing I desperately wanted to do in Iceland was a glacier cruise and thankfully I didn't have to admit to my failures!

We had the most rubbish weather driving that day, it was cold and raining, and worst of all the sky was a plain flat grey colour that never looks good in pictures. Then for the 1 hour of our glacier cruise, the clouds parted and we had blue sky for about 20 minutes and it was fabulous! It gave the icebergs such a weird blue/grey colour. We took the boat close to the glacier and as we were parked for what seemed like forever (we were there for so long it got super awkward) and part of the glacier came down and made a huge deafening noise caused some pretty decent waves afterwards.

Across the road was another black beach, this one covered with icebergs! This was the most random site I've ever seen in my life, sitting on a beach of black sand watching icebergs floating down the river to the ocean. So incredible!

Sitting on my Ice Throne.

Jökulsárlón Glacier.