After a rainy night, we were awoken to a strange bright light in the sky, so great to see it again!

We set off feeling more confident that the weather would be good for our glacier trek later in the afternoon.

Along our journey east along the south coast we started to see increasing signs of a massive glacier.

We were approaching the largest glacier in Europe.

The sky was still looking a bit ominous but we hoped that we would remain dry this afternoon.

The scenery along the route was exceptional, so we had to stop multiple times just to try and capture some of these fine views.

We stopped briefly at Diamond beach. It’s so named because of the sparkling chunks of glacier ice that float down from the lagoon into the sea and get washed up on the beach.

Much larger chunks of ice are caught further up the beach.

We parked up close to the nearby Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon waiting to start our trek.

The little ice bergs in the lagoon look impressive. Unfortunately the poor visibility meant you could not see the glacier flowing down from the mountains.

The glacier tour trucks are like monster trucks, elongated and riding high.

Our truck took us to the starting point for the trek, the glacier ahead looking like a frozen sea.

The retreating glacier leaves a trail of rock debris and melt water behind it.

With crampons attached we began our ascent of the glacier with our tour guide leading us safely forwards.

As you plant your feet into the ice you hear a satisfying crunch followed swiftly by some relief that you didn’t break through further! I sure there was an undisclosed reason we were wearing harnesses…

The glacier is discoloured by the volcanic ash on it’s surface and you can see small piles of it collected together on the ice looking like thick soot.

Our guide led us to a small ice cave, you can see our group below waiting to enter.

The rich blue coloured ice in the cave was amazing. There is only a small opening to walk through with a melt water stream running underfoot.

Holding the side walls for support is hopeless as they are ice cold and slippery!

My wife and I pictured below coming out of the cave.

The weather held up, so much so that the sun came out and we were too hot!

Our guide showed us a melt water gulley that corkscrews down into the heart of the glacier.

We finished our very enjoyable glacier tour and quickly peeled off our crampons to feel the solid ground beneath us again.

We headed to Hofn for our overnight stay sampling some delightful mountains along the way

Can a mountain be sumptuous? If so this one certainly was!

Another fabulous day in Iceland comes to an end, we can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings as we start to head up the eastern coastline.