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.

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.

It’s road trip time! I had a week off from work but not enough funds for a flight overseas so decided to instead see some of the amazing country that I live in. I organised 2 nights accommodation in Oban and knew I wanted to see Glen Coe and the Isle of Mull. Everything around and in between was just luck. I left home at 7 to pick up my car to begin my trip. It took nearly half an hour to get out of Edinburgh. Half of the roads around the city were closed for a marathon and my GPS continued to attempt to take me down said roads. I only ever travel by bus in the city so had no idea where to go, so I just drove north towards home and found my way out. EFFORT. Anyway, a few hours later I spot my first snow capped mountains and I am freaking out like a chihuahua getting treats. Mountains! Snow!! Lochs!!! I’ve read that the A82 is one of the UK’s most beautiful drives and I’m finally on it. And it does not disappoint. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it. The colours were so strange which is a weird thing to remember, but that’s what appealed to me t`he most. I think it was also the weird light from the sunshine trying to get through the clouds/rain but everything looked like it had an Instagram filter applied. Contrast and saturation on maximum.
I took the road towards Glen Etive, one of the few places I had previously researched. I’m not a huge fan of James Bond films, but the shots of Bond in the Scottish countryside in Skyfall made me desperate to recreate the scenes! So I knew where to go. Unfortunately I had forgotten that as I was travelling alone, by myself, with no companions, it meant that I couldn’t actually recreate the scene so had to settle with a simple photo of the spot. Back to the main road and I spot the little cottage that I’ve seen so many times on Instagram. Look at it right there in front of the mountain!
My first actual stop was Glencoe Lochan for a walk around the loch. The trees around the loch were shipped in from Northern America for the owner’s Canadian wife to help deal with her homesickness. It didn’t work as she made them return to Canada, but it certainly makes for a beautiful spot to walk around. After the walk I headed towards Oban, but was detoured by my favourite sign in Scotland “CASTLE TURN LEFT”. YEEEESSSS.

James Bond was here.

Told you.

 Here’s a super condensed History of Caerlaverock Castle for you. A MOATED (!!!) triangular castle built in the 13th century to control trade during this time, Caerlaverock was besieged by the English during the Wars of Scottish Independence and was abandoned in the 17th Century. Caerlavelrock means “fort of the skylark”, and is easily one of my favourite castles so far!

What a day! 12 hours of driving from Edinburgh to the southern tip of Scotland and back again.  This was a great journey, but I also had a LOT of learns from this road trip. Number 1 being to check the opening hours of Castles. I missed out on 2 castles, 2 of the 3 reasons I wanted to take this trip in the first place! I headed down to Caeveralock (post about this beauty later) and drove on up to Drumlanrig Castle. A long driveway winds its way up to the imposing Castle and I was met by a lady in a little booth just before I hit the carpark. She informs me that the castle is closed after August but the gardens are open. OMG ARE YOU SERIOUS. So I got back in the car and drove to Abbortsford House, a good 2 hours drive away and I miss the final entry time of 3.15. I arrive at 3.30, half an hour before closing time, but as with many castles throughout Scotland (as I now know), there are specific last entry closing times as well. So I drove back to the road between Selkirk and Moffat which I read somewhere was one of the most beautiful drives in Scotland (and it was) and headed to Grey Mare’s Tail Waterfall. I was excepting and hoping for a long walk to the waterfall particularly after hours sittting in a car, but it was about a 5 minute walk from the carpark. Next time I’ll do some proper research! 

Driving to Edinburgh I came across a sign directing me to Doune Castle, so naturally I turned the car around and headed straight for the castle! I was walking up towards the castle doors before they were pretty much slammed in my face as I had arrived at closing time. Dammit! So instead I spent a quick 15 minutes or so walking around the castle.

The oldest part of the castle dates to the 1260s, and was home to the younger brother of King Robert III, and used as a royal retreat until the 1800s. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, the castle has been used as filming location for Monty Python, Outlander and Winterfell in the Game of Thrones pilot. I’m so gutted I didn’t get to see inside!