Iceland 18: Hoffellsjokull

Having been blown away in Hofn, we hit the road and decided to get "up close and personal" with a glacier.  Several of the glaciers have gravel roads leading up to them, and we followed one to Hoffellsjokull.  A bit of a bumpy ride, but more than made up for by two things.  First we saw an Arctic Fox which had just caught what looked like an Oyster Catcher; and then we saw a magnificent lake in front of the glacier where it hit the black sand.  There was much less wind up by the glacier, but the temperature dropped several degrees as we neared the ice.  Very beautiful and serene - at least it was until a group of unruly children and their parents started to thrown stones into the water.  Irate of Tonbridge Wells was not happy.  Even so, it was one of the most magical places we'd found so far, and I could have spent hours taking pictures here.

Apologies if some of the following images seem repetitive, but I was so smitten with the place that I couldn't stop snapping.

I've gradually zoomed in to the glacier lake, but I realise that there is no real sense of scale to the images.  The pictures below all have people in them, which hopefully will rectify this.

The sky was blue with some fluffy white clouds, and this was reflected perfectly in the mirror-like surface of the lake.  Everything was composed of a palette of blue, white and grey, and it was difficult to know where to start (or, indeed, stop).

Ok, so I lied - there was a tiny bit of brown too.

We stayed about an hour in this magical place, but then it was necessary to hit the road again as we had an appointment with the mother of all glacier lagoons: Jokulsarlon.  This will be the next exciting episode, and if you think that these picture have been repetitive, wait until you see the next set...