We had arrived into the Jökulsárlón area quite late the evening before and had made the decision to spend our sunset at Diamond Beach instead of at Jökulsárlón itself.

So, this next day involved a little bit of backtracking to see the spots we had missed. Now, we had initially planned to drive the whole Ring Road but Ella was a little nervous about driving the less visited parts of the country, especially as until this trip she had no experience driving in icy or snowy conditions, so this was as far as we planned to go along the South Coast before heading back to Reykjavik and flying north to Akureyri instead.

The morning was seriously chilly and this day marked a real turning point in the weather that we would experience during our time in Iceland. Up until this point we had had some cold moments and few rainy moments but mostly we had had unseasonably warm weather. This was the first day where the mercury would drop below freezing and it was amazing to see how quickly that temperature shift would change the landscapes.

Jökulsárlón is one of the most iconic spots in all of South Iceland and it isn’t hard to see why. This lagoon, fed by Breiðamerkurjökull glacier is littered with endless icebergs of all shapes and colours. The icebergs slowly drift through this lagoon before it filters out into the ocean and many of them end up on nearby Diamond Beach.

Early in the morning was definitely the best time to visit, there were absolutely still tourists around, but due to this spots distance from the capital it can’t be reached by day trippers until much later in the day, so it is much quieter in the mornings.

Now, I need to preface these photos by saying that this area is ‘no drone zone’, something which I didn’t realise until after I’d given Droney Boi 3.0 a workout… my bad.

This drone self portrait does kinda slap tho, just saying!

We spent a while walking around the perimeter of the lake as the sun rose gently behind us, creating some gorgeous cotton candy colours that danced along the ridges of the surrounding snowy peaks.

Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for seals – we didn’t see any at the time but upon watching the drone footage later I spotted a cute lil’ guy snoozing on one of the bergs!

We then decided to once again do a little backtracking another glacial lagoon.

Fjallsárlón is a much smaller glacial lagoon that is literally only five minutes away from Jökulsárlón but doesn’t receive anywhere as many visitors.

The volume of ice and number of icebergs is significantly smaller here, but the sight of the glacier touching the water is pretty special! I wanted to fly my drone here but we were pressed for time (story of our lives on this trip) and thus we made plans to come back the following morning and fly the drone then.

However, let this be a good lesson – if you can do something you want to do, don’t bloody procrastinate! When we returned the next morning the wind was insane. Like, we could barely walk without getting blown over! If I had tried to fly my drone it would have been pretty instantaneous death for the ‘lil guy.

However, I did capture these two pictures which I think are rather pretty.

We were rushed because we had pre booked a tour to go inside Vatnajökull glacier that afternoon. We arrived and I was pleased to find that it was just us and three other people on the tour – every other group we saw was much busier which is just not my preference.

We took a super jeep to the base of the glacier and after donning all of our gear we were sitting at the edge of our glacier and getting ready to go within.

Taking photographs inside these ice caves isn’t easy. Right off the bat, flash photography is awful – it will wash out all the blues of the ice – but due to minimal light to capture good images you either need a tripod or a camera with sophisticated technology that can do long exposures handheld and still look crisp.

I am very fortunate that my Olympus is one such camera!

The blues of the ice mixed with volcanic ash were mesmerising.

There was a smaller space towards the end of the cave that you just about needed to get onto your hands and knees to access, so keep that in mind if you are prone to claustrophobia as these tours may not be for you.

It was a great tour and a wonderful way to end yet another amazing day in Iceland.

Stay tuned for more Iceland posts <3

THE LOWDOWN

Jökulsárlón: Parking for the lagoon is 1000 ISK/$10 AUD/$7 USD and if you are planning to visit here and Diamond Beach on the same day, stay parked in one spot and walk across the road to the beach and save yourself some $$$
Fjallsárlón: A gorgeous glacial lagoon that is seemingly untouched by the masses and as an added bonus – parking is free!
Ice Cave Tour: Okay, so I feel like a bit of a blogger failure in this moment because I cannot remember the name of this company we used to save my life – put me in the bin!
Remember: If the opportunity comes up to do something, do not procrastinate!