After Akureyri there was only one big thing on our Iceland ageneda - the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, and its main attraction, the Snæfellsjökull volcano.

We had planned to split the journey up with an overnight stop just north of the peninsula. We were staying at a place called Sæberg which is so small I'm not even sure it could be called a town. The drive there was quite dramatic. The landscape was again quite rugged although there were more trees than we had seen elsewhere. We soon came back to the coast and passed through some nice little towns. The weather was alternating between downpours and sunny breaks.

The coast was quite swampy and marshy with lots of large sandspits at the mouths of rivers. We pulled over to have a look at an historic battlefield site and were swarmed by mosquitoes.

The were lots of farms in this part of the country with paddocks full of sheep. That plus the mountains and the sea really made it feel a lot like the South Island back home.

There were lots of islands looming out off the coast in the fog. Closer to shore we stopped of a cool sea stack called Hvítserkur. Most of the base has been washed away leaving very little to hold up the rock.

The hostel we stayed at that night was called Sæberg and was really just a large house at the edge of a tiny village. The hostel hosts actually left and went home once we had checked in! The hostel's best feature was a hot pool out in the open beside the water. We went out and got in just as the sky was darkening in the hope of seeing the Northern Lights. As we sat there waiting we started to get annoyed by a bright cloud that was covering much of the sky. After looking at this cloud for several minutes we realised that it had actually been the lights the entire time! It was pretty cool to sit in the pool and watch the lights dance across the sky. I got out after a while to go and get the camera to try and get some photos but the clouds moved in before I could get any good ones unfortunately.

The next day we drove the rest of the way to the start of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. The roads we took here were all gravel and were in a pretty horrendous state with endless potholes and muddy patches. It was slow going and the car got filthy but we made it back to sealed roads by around midday.

Our plan was to drive around the edge of the whole peninsula, stopping towards the end for the night.

The weather had gotten wetter again and the clouds hung low across the mountains. We pulled off the road to take a look a narrow gorge the cut right into the hillside. We were able to walk about a hundred metres in with just a narrow opening up above letting light in.

Near the end of the peninsula is a huge volcano called Snæfellsjökull. Apparently one of the symbols of Iceland, this volcano can sometimes be seen from Reykjavík, over 120km away. Unfortunately, like with so many other sites on this trip, the mountain was shrouded in clouds and there was very little to see. There was however a road that crossed up and over the mountain so we decided to see if the clouds were thinner up high. The road turned out to be far to ambitious for our little two wheel drive car however so we were forced to turn around a short way up.

After getting back to the main road we drove a short distance to Arnarstapi for lunch and a bleak walk out to the coast. There rock here was formed in the same interesting formations that we had seen earlier in the trip, with large, twisted pillars.

This whole section of the coast is a huge lava flow from the Snæfellsjökull volcano. The rough sea crashing against the rock has created lots of small stacks and arches. The sand is the same dark black colour as the rock. It was mesmerising watching the huge swells crashing against the cliffs.

As we drove around to the other side of the peninsula we stayed in the vast lava field. We soon came across lots of much older, smaller volcanoes.

Eventually we made it to the other end of the road that crossed Snæfellsjökull volcano and we decided we would give it another go from this side. We were able to make it much further up that we had before although there were some hairy moments. The ground was really marshy further up with big damp fields of moss. We drove until we could go no further and through some gaps in the cloud were able to make out some of the glacier. We didn't want to push it too far and get stuck though so we turned around any headed towards our stop for the night.

We stayed the night in another nice hostel in a pretty town called Grundarfjörður. The day was the last full day of the trip and we had to drive the rest of the way back to Reykjavík to return the car. On the way we stopped of at the Bjarnarhöfn Shark Museum which is dedicated to the Icelandic fermented shark called Hákarl which we had tried earlier in the trip. The museum was interesting and we were offered some Hákarl to try. I chose not to but Howard had some and it turned out to be far worse than what we had tried the first time.

There wasn't much else to report on after that. We drove the rest of the way back to Reykjavík and checked in to our last hostel of the trip. The only moment of excitement was me sleeping through two of my alarms that I had set to wake me up for my early flight home. I missed my booked transfer to the airport and had to get a taxi instead. It's about an hour's drive so it ended up costing more than the flight!

Iceland was an amazing place to visit and I would definitely love to go back again. I think visiting in October might not have been the best time of year to go as the weather stopped us from being able too see many of the big sights. We were lucky enough to see the Northern Lights several times however so can't complain!