It was meant to be a night for aurora viewing so Calvin stepped out into the cold night at around 2:30 am. Kate slept right through. It was crisp and clear outside however it was still twilight and too bright to see any northern lights if they were occurring. Being the second day of official Icelandic summer meant that there was no longer any night - just astronomic twilight. It was still a nice time to wander around the quiet shore and photograph the white mount...

We woke up to heaps of snow outside - the roads, paths and mountains were covered in white! Today we were headed to Borgarnes via the Western Peninsula. First stop was Kirkjufell waterfall. Only problem was it was howling with wind, hail and snow when we arrived so we decided against getting out of the car and instead appreciated the view from inside the warmth of the car. Of course the weather fined up pretty quickly after that stop. It was beautiful driving...

A planned wakeup at midnight to see the northern lights was unsuccessful. The clouds were still hanging around and were getting bigger and thicker each hour. In the morning, the clouds were dense and looking quite mean. The first stop on the way to Grundarfjordur was the petrol station and it was here that the first flurries of snow started and the wind started whipping the flakes around. It was quite scary driving to the west as that clouds seemed very menacing ...

We started off the day with a quick walk to the bakery. We shared a deliciously sweet caramel cinnamon bun. Then it was a half hour drive to the meeting place for our 2 hour Icelandic horse ride tour!! There were another 2 people - Laurie and Kelly, friendly Americans from Washington DC, on our tour plus the guide. Before starting, we learnt how to get on and off the horse, how to change directions and how to stop. Kate's horse was called Stoopy and Calvin's was ...

We chatted to the other guests at the guesthouse, Dave, Nicole and Matteo, over breakfast and packed up and left to drive into the centre of Egilsstadir to try and clean the windscreen a bit and to get a bit more food! We even had a "breakfast dessert" of Icelandic Skyr yoghurt! We then drove through snowy mountains, with snow being blown furiously around, until we reached Hverir - a large geothermal field of bubbling mud pools, hissing fumaroles, sticky red soil...