It was when we were halfway around Iceland that we were finally treated to our first blue sky day – and boy was it worth the wait. A morning drive led us to a closed ski hill, giving us enough elevation to park above a sea of clouds which blanketed the valley below us. 

It was a mesmerising sight, and one we wanted to soak in and enjoy, so we cooked some porridge and sat on a log above the clouds. 

We watched the clouds shift through the valley and slowly burn off, until we decided it was time to hit the road. The sun was shining down on us and thin wispy clouds wrapped around the peaks.

We were on our way to a hot spring nestled on the edge of a fjord. Everyone flocks to the famous blue lagoon but we’re budget travellers who despise crowds, so we found a place that was a quarter of the price and shared with just a couple of other people. 

The location was incredible – set on the shores of a black sand beach and surrounded by mountains. There were three hot tubs and the crème de la crème was a boat, filled with 39° water. It was paradise. 

We melted into the twinkly blue water that filled the boat, and then there was nothing to do but gaze at the mountains and occasionally scrape away the flies that kept landing in the water.

It was quite a novelty being in a boat filled with water, perfect for someone with a vivid imagination like myself to start re-enacting scenes from boating disasters. 

I sat there picturing iconic moments from The Titanic and asked Craig “What would you do if you were in the middle of the ocean and your boat filled up with this much water?” 

We laughed when we remembered taking an inflatable boat out on a lake in the Canadian Rockies and a ranger almost fined us for not having a cup. If all that was required to remove water from a boat was a cup then I think putting our hands together to use in a scooping motion would give a similar effect.

We were brought back to reality when we heard a splash behind us – no it wasn’t a lady in a Victorian era dress clinging onto a piece of wood, it was a seal.

The sweet little thing swam through the glassy sea with its head poking out of the water so it could watch us. 

I was starting to overheat in the hot tub so it was time to join the seal and cool off in the frigid water. The sea was extremely shallow though, so I ended up having to lie down in a foot of water, being careful to avoid the jellyfish. 

It was such a contrast in temperature that I had visions of steam billowing off me, like a piece of glowing forged metal being dropped into a bowl of water. 

After a few hours of getting uncomfortably hot, running into the sea, and repeating the process until we looked like raisins, we figured we should probably hit the road. After all, it was one of those rare blue sky days in Iceland and we had to make the most of it. 

Soon after leaving the hot spring we were confronted with a tunnel. It all happened rather quickly but we suddenly realised the tunnel was single-lane and we started to wonder if we’d misunderstood the sign and weren’t supposed to enter. 

There was no use Googling Iceland’s road rules now, our signal had vanished as we travelled into the pits of hell. To make matters worse we seemed to enter some sort of time warp and there was no end in sight to the damn tunnel. The minutes passed and nothing changed, we just nervously continued driving, deeper into the mountain until we suddenly spotted headlights. 

“Did we miss a traffic light or something?” I asked. 

But then we saw a passing place, and another. Phew! We pulled over and waited for the car to pass, hoping the driver wouldn’t begin flashing their lights or waving their arms about in anger to suggest we’d fucked up and entered a one-way tunnel. 

After seven kilometres(!) we finally saw light at the end of the tunnel, and it wasn’t just a metaphor. Soon enough the world opened up in front of us, with the sun beaming down on a majestic fjord and a thin layer of cloud drifting below the peaks – we made it. But not for long, as we were enshrouded in darkness yet again for the next tunnel. At least we felt like pros now. 

The road eventually led us past quaint fishing villages with colourful boats moored up in the harbour and wooden houses, the perfect place to stretch our legs and thank the Viking spirits for allowing us to exit the tunnels. 

The drive continued to offer spectacular views, and as we reached a big bend in the road, the vast Atlantic Ocean sprawled out in front of us – nothing but the open sea between us and the far north of Greenland. 

Below the dramatic cliffs, we spotted a bright orange lighthouse that looked like it belonged on the set of a Wes Anderson film. We’d seen a few of these lighthouses around Iceland – painted orange to stand out against the black, volcanic landscape. 

The wind had really picked up but we had a fun stroll around the lighthouse where the jagged cliffs and mystical clouds made for a very photogenic scene. 

It was a slow drive west as we stopped regularly to photograph the scenery unfolding before our eyes – and to stroke Icelandic horses! There was an absurd amount of them, not just in that one field, but around Iceland in general, which led me to Google the statistics. 

Iceland is home to about 80,000 horses, and with a human population of 350,000, that means there’s one horse to four people. Also, once an Icelandic horse leaves the country it can never return. That way they guarantee the breed is kept pure. 

To be honest, they just looked like normal horses to me but I guess it’s what’s on the inside – they’re built to handle some of the harshest weather conditions. The highest wind speed recorded in a populated area of Iceland was 261.3km/h so a sure-footed horse would be required to handle such a beating from Mother Nature. 

We ended the day in a tiny little village that had the most fabulous public pool, set beside the fjord. It was a beautiful setting, and just up the road was Iceland’s smallest church, made of wood and covered in a turf roof. 

We ended the day at a lake where we cooked up some dinner. I’d read online that a dog nearby likes to visit people and luckily it happened! A sweet border collie came running our way, tail wagging like crazy. He was such a cutie and rolled over for belly rubs. Occasionally a car would drive past and the sweet boy knew to lie down until the car had passed. 

It was all fun and games until we went to leave and he decided to corral us up the dirt road like we were a flock of sheep, barking frantically at our tyres and causing us to almost have a heart attack out of fear of running him over. What a day!