The Travels Of The RJs

Tuesday 18th June - Stokkseyri (Day 155) A purposefully shorter day of driving allowing time to get through school work plus another night ahead at Fisherinn so no need to pack up and check out. Unfortunately for Seb, by the time he’s finished his school work, the bouncy pillow he wants to go on again is swarming with school children on their morning break.  Luckily we’ve found another in Hveragerdi, 25 minutes away where we’d planned to go for a walk anyway, so we head there, the kids continually laughing as they jump and stumble on the bouncy pillow.  More of the geothermal pools where we had done our walk on Friday are dotted around the town and we wander on our own next to gurgling and hissing pools in the collapsed earth.  We’ve been very lucky with the weather so far; some light drizzle but never stopping us from doing any activities - plus bouts of blue sky (even applying sunscreen one day), but now the promised rain is starting to appear so we retreat back to Fisherinn for toas

Monday 17th June - Hvoll - Stokkseyri (Day 154) Better blackout curtains means better sleep at our hostel. Porridge, toast, Skyr yoghurt for breakfast, then the start of a new school week in the room, once the kids have had a run around on the climbing frame outside.  There’s noticeably fewer children on holiday here which also partly explains why we’re the first to arrive yesterday and last to leave today as others stay out longer in the day and start earlier for their walking.  We’ve a stop start road trip west ahead of us today (so brace yourself for ‘and then we drove’). All our conversations with place names involve a lot of spelling out the word, none more so than the Vatnajokulsthjodgardur Visitor Centre containing images of then and now receding glaciers and a large chest of black sand for the kids to dig in and find ‘treasure’ all housed in a Grand Designs building.  10 minutes further along is a brief stop in the now light drizzle for a loop walk through the lava field covere

Sunday 16th June - Hali - Hvoll (Day 153) The sun is trying to push through the clouds as we leave the seafront of Skyrhusid Guest House starting our journey back westwards. We’re at Jokulsarlon by 9:30 am and although the car park is half full, the overflow car park is empty and there’s no tour buses here yet on the famed stop off.  The kids warm into the ever changing views of the mixture of icebergs, larger ones wedged to the floor and smaller ones drifting out through a single channel under the main road and out to sea.  There’s a stream of rib boats and amphibious vehicles ferrying people onto the glacier lagoon - we’ll do our trip on a quieter lagoon a little later, this one being fully booked out all day. The icebergs vary in colour too and at a distance all appear very smooth yet small broken bits on the shore show several much more intricate delicate ice carvings.  We follow the stream to the shore past nesting ducks before hopping in the car to cross the bridge and park the o

Saturday 15th June - Stokkseyri to Hali (Day 152) After the success with the local hotdogs for lunch yesterday we added some Skyr to our basket last night, a really thick yoghurt low in sugar and high in protein and it tastes great too for Seb and I at breakfast at Fisherinn.  Today is a longer driving day heading east along the south coast starting with a 70 minute stint on the single lane N1 that circumvents the island, to Seljalandsfoss - a narrow waterfall near the road which has the selling point of being able to walk behind it. But not a strong enough selling point for Sienna and Seb who sit and dig holes in the rocky path - their loss.  A 5 minute walk further walk brings us to another waterfall - Gljufrabui - hidden in a gorge. Seb is keen to enter trying to step from stone to stone on the edge of the river, but in the end I pick him up, hoping we both don’t end up slipping over. It’s misty in the tight space but it is a decent view of the water almost falling on to us from 30