If you had asked us a week ago what we would be doing on the night of 12 March, we would have said, "Second night in Reykjavik, probably done a walking tour that day". Given that the vast majority of this trip was nutted out six months ago... we would definitely have said that. But what's life without a tiny bit of spontaneity? Somewhere in my online travels I saw mention of an ice lagoon... where small ice bergs (or massive ice cubes) break off a glacier, flow out a channel and land on the aptly named Diamond Beach. According to what I read then (and what I found with a bit of research), this is the highlight of many folks' trip to Iceland. The only slight drawback is its a 5 hour drive from our cabin. Which knocked it out of day-trip contention. The furthest we'd actually planned to go was 2.5 hours each way to the Black Sand beach at Vik. Which leads me to a tiny plug for the world's major booking site which we use frequently, mainly for their free cancellation on most rooms. We did a quick search, found the last room available in general vicinity of the ice lagoon, cancelled our second night in Reykjavik and off we went. Thankfully it was a Sunday morning so there was little traffic when we headed out of the city. We read that driving in Iceland is easy (once you're out of the city that is) and it's true. There is only the Ring Road - AKA State Highway 1 (The One & Only). In no time we were surrounded by snow covered mountains. We've decided Iceland is the only country we've ever been to where there is just so much scenery on the way to the scenery. Quite overwhelming - and that was before we even made it to our first stop. But first a brief and recent history lesson. Iceland suffered big time in the crash of 2008. We've just been reading a guide book that was published in 2009 and seriously - there was barely any tourism back then, especially in Winter. Recently the BBC published an article about the country taken by surprise by tourism - that would be Iceland. Now it is booming. There is a population of only 330,000 people on the island (which is roughly the size of England) - plus a gazillion tourists at any one time. Helped in no small part by free stopovers of up to 7 days for folks flying between Europe and the USA. Scenery wise, Iceland is such a fire cracker because it's in a constant state of flux - apparently the earth's crust is one-third of the normal thickness in this part of the world. There is a sliver of habitable and populated land along the shores and the rest is desert, ice caps, volcanoes, lava fields, glacial sand plains, geysers, fumaroles and hot springs.   In fact there is a spot in Thingvellir National Park where two tectonic plates (the European and North American) are separating at freight-train speed in geological terms - between 1 and 18mm a year. It is possible to dive or snorkel in the Silfra Gap - but if the cold doesn't kill you, the price certainly will. Thingvellir is in the Golden Circle and we'll be heading there in a few days. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Our first stop on our spontaneous jaunt along Iceland's south coast was Seljalandsfoss. We are waterfall aficionados from way back, having visited the world's three largest falls back in 2012/13. So this was an enjoyable stop but not a long one. It's possible to walk behind the waterfall in a cave, but there was quite a hike, quite a crowd and we were guaranteed to be soaked through. So no urge from either one of us to freeze for another 4 hours in the car. Next stop? Another waterfall - Skogarfoss this time (remember 'foss' means falls or waterfall). There is a saying in Iceland that if you don't like the weather, give it five minutes and it'll be worse. It is without doubt the most changeable weather we have ever seen anywhere in the world. It was pouring when we walked from the car park to the falls at Skogarfoss - and by the time we walked back (and we're talking 5 minutes) the sun was out and a rainbow was born. Magic. It was just after here that we passed by Eyjafjallajokull. That name may look familiar if for no other reason that you couldn't pronounce it the first time it hit the news back in 2010 when it erupted and disrupted flights all over the world due to the massive ash cloud. There are several photos on an information board within sight of the volcano and there is a farm that has stood the test of time - really puts the eruption/ash cloud photos into perspective. From there, the town of Vik gave us the chance to fill the tank and then it was on to Dyroholay with it's erosion archway and stunning views of Black Sand Beach. Out came the sandwiches and we enjoyed the sunshine and the scenery. The next stop was Reyinsisfjara which is simultaneously two incredible caves and also columns reminiscent of the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. This area is obviously famous for the black sand, the columns, the view of the Dyroholay arch and unfortunately, even on calm days, sneaker waves... No, not truckloads of wet running footwear raining down upon one, actually massive, nasty, killer waves that come out of nowhere and fairly regularly kill tourists who've turned their backs on the treacherous ocean. Not us! This point in the journey is where most day trip coaches turn around and head back to Reykjavik (as it's 3 hours to this point). We are so happy we decided to head further down the coast and stay the night - as the scenery from Vik onwards was divine - and so different - every 10 minutes or so the countryside changed dramatically - from wild, moss covered lava fields to massive flood plains so wide you don't even realise it's all a river... you are just crossing bridges to get across the particularly wet bits. The purpose of the trip was eventually upon us and we were like kids on Christmas morning when we pulled into the parking lot of Jokulsarlon - the ice lagoon. It was everything we hoped for and more. In summer the lagoon is massive and boats take people for trips to the edge of the glacier and near the broken off chunks or mini-bergs. In winter the lagoon is just chock full of icebergs of all shapes and sizes and colours all crowding each other to get into the channel and head out to sea - which rarely happens as most get thrown up onto Diamond Beach by the wild waves. We assumed this had been going on for millennia, but actually the glacier only started to retreat from the shore in 1950 - so Iceland continues to evolve and change - seemingly on a daily basis. After the lagoon it was back into the 4WD and down to the beach - again - we had great fun and felt like we were in a huge, natural crystal factory with works of art spread out on the black sand. By the time we crossed the bridge and looked around the other side of the lagoon and the other Diamond Beach, we were more than ready to continue on another 30 minutes to the hotel - after such a phenomenal day we delved into our groceries (still happily in the car and sitting at about 4 degrees) and whipped up some roast chicken and avocado sandwiches in the room... there may be people who can cough €30/A$45 each for a burger in a hotel restaurant. But they're not us. We had hoped to see the northern lights on this adventure, but instead we had a full moon which almost turned night to day - stunning views over night and then a beautiful sunrise to wake up to. We had thought we probably had enough photos of the ice diamonds... but having come all this way we were back in the beast after breakfast and down to the beach again - if possible, even better - more and bigger and better bergs. Eventually we gave in and started the 4.5 hour drive to our cabin in the countryside for the rest of our stay in Iceland. We had been fascinated yesterday by glaciers (rivers of ice), seemingly so close to the road that we could drive to them. We didn't want to go far over gravel roads, but it was a stunning morning and when we came to the closest of them all, Svinafellsjokul, we headed in, probably not even 2 km, and with a few other people went to have a look at the ice blue crags of frozen water bearing down onto another glacial lake. We'll never take the expression 'ice blue' for granted again. We only had a few places left to see on the return drive - which is lucky because the weather closed it and the rain and cold made jumping in and out of the car fairly unpleasant after that. One area that fascinated us was fields and fields of lush green moss - it was positively alien - definitely a spot for a future episode of Doctor Who. After lunch, we checked our list twice and our next stop was Dverghamrar. This is another example of a miniature Giant's Causeway column grouping and is one of the few spots where there were no other cars at the turn off. It was even impossible to see what might be there as the Dwarf Crags weren't visible from the road. It was a short stop but a good one and we could only walk so far down as the path was covered in snow (and we could see from 3 foot deep foot prints in the snow, that the path wasn't that wide and people had been falling off the edge.) The weather was absolutely caning it with rain and wind by the time we reached our last stop - Urridafoss - basically the waterfall of the salmon and trout. It's not just a source of food for humans - seals are known to swim up the river from the sea to feast on the fish in the vicinity. It's certainly not the tallest falls in Iceland - only 6 metres - but it's actually the most voluminous with 350m3 per second crashing over the cliff - up to 1,000m3 per second during the Spring thaw. Just reading over the above, we can't actually believe how much we've seen in less than 48 hours - wow! We eventually arrived to our cabin at about 5.30 pm... filled the hot tub, unpacked the groceries and that was that... we slept well that night.