First job in Höfn was a full restock and after a bank holiday, everyone else apparently had the same idea – there were more campers parked at the Nettó than at the campsite. I topped up my fuel just in case then got on the road. I was going all of twenty minutes north to Hoffell hot tubs, which belong to a pleasant little country hotel. There are four of them, two a little cooler and two a little hotter, with views up the valley to a tongue of Vatnajökull. Two German ladies arrived at the same time as me and when they’d finished taking their selfies, they switched on some tuneless tinny music – just the perfect background to a scene like that! Fortunately they had the sense to ask if it was disturbing and I was brave enough to say “kind of – don’t you want to just experience this landscape?” and they turned it off. Later I got chatting to a Czech girl and she said that the moment the music went on, her sister said (in Czech and quietly) “I don’t want to listen to music!” so it’s not just me.
There are three of them – the mum was 60 last year and this might be their last holiday together. The older sister is a doctor who is starting to want babies and the younger sister is a student (PhD student studying biomedicine and just back from a project in Romania on nanofibres). They’re driving the Ring Road in the opposite direction to me so I’ve been told about horses and the best places to see seals and puffins, and I’ve told them they’ll see more and more sheep over the next few days and that Stokksnes and Stuðlagil are worth the time.

Then I drove onwards. There’s no shelter and it was very hot and sunny and I began to feel quite pink – one of the German ladies was noticeably redder about the arms than when she arrived. It’s quite a long drive along Vatnajökull with some nice picnic spots but nothing in particular to see or do until Jökulsárlón.
Parking there is a nightmare. It’s very beautiful – this is at least the fourth time I’ve been there but it’s still otherworldly to see those icebergs. When I’d had enough of the lagoon, I walked under the bridge to Breiðamerkusandur (may have got a couple of vowels in the wrong place there), which tourists call Diamond Beach for the chunks of ice that wash up there. No one ever mentions the occasionally half-a-dead-fish. I spent more time watching the water. The sea is violent here, probably as much so as Reynisfjara, where another tourist died recently. The waves suddenly wash ten feet higher up the sand than you expect and when they roll back, you see that the beach is steeper than you realise. Sneaker waves conditions and yet there are no warning signs and you never hear of accidents here. I think the difference is that at Breiðamerkursandur, the diamonds are washed up on the shoreline so everyone’s attention is on the sea. At Reynisfjara, people are looking at the basalt cliff and the black sand and don’t realise the sea is sneaking up behind them. Just a theory.
Then onwards to Skaftafell. I found myself a corner where at least I can open the van door to a mountain view rather than another van three feet away. Van camping is very different – space is at a premium so camping in one is like being in a car park. My neighbour on the other side is closer than I’d like and I have someone close enough behind me that I hope he leaves before me in the morning.
Normally I’d walk down to the glacier but there’s been a heavy cloud over the mountain since Jökulsárlón so instead I ate and read in the van. Hoping it’ll be better in the morning (even though by the time I’m writing this, it is morning).