Hof, Höfn, Ice Cave, Glacier Trek......

Here we are driving along, the only car on the road, snow blowing, sun rising, -11 Celsius showing on the gauge, and we're in search of Diamond Beach. Doesn't sound like much of a beach day, but at least we have the sun - for now.

Long snowy roads with nothing in sight seem to be becoming a daily routine.

Found It!

WHY ICELAND?

Several have asked.......This is Why

Where in the world are you going to find a black sand beach covered in diamonds?

ICELAND

Diamond Beach is Amazing! It's everything I thought it would be and more.

The gorgeous fine lava black sand beach is littered with small, medium, large and even ginormous icebergs that have broken away from the glacier and floated down the river and become beached due to the enormous waves.

That one is large but not the largest.

Click the above photo to see more of Diamond Beach and Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon

Just one more from Diamond Beach before our next adventure, just down the road a few minutes.

Heading east again - toward the town of Hali.   Along the way we spotted dozens of reindeer.

They are not native to Iceland but were brought over between 1770 and 1780. Four different herds were placed in 4 different parts of the country and only 1 group survived.

Locals believe that there are 6000 - 7000 animals living in Iceland now. Hunting is permitted.

This cool encyclopedia building greets you right from the Ring Road at the entrance to Hali.

A closer look at the Cultural Heritage Museum.

We had a little more than an hour to spend at Diamond Beach and Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon this mornimg. We could have spent 3 hours there! I know we'll be returning. We are headed to an excursion in Hali with Glacier Adventure.

Click the photo below to check out our amazing Glacier Trek and Ice Cave Exploration!

After a terrific day of exploring, we are headed east to Höfn.

Looks like this guy has seen better days.

Höfn is a small fishing village. By the time we reached the town, it was really snowing. Our ice cave guide gave us a few recommendations for restaurants, and we found this one first.

They had lots of lobster options - YUM! The entire place only had 2 groups when we arrived - a family with a few kids and a 20s crowd - one on each side. We were seated next to the family. One of the kids (about 9ish) made so many weird noises and spoke so loudly that we couldn't even have a conversation so we moved to the opposite corner in the other room where the 20 something crowd gathered. They had already had too much to drink and were extremely loud too - better than the weird kids though. By the time our food arrived, several of the 20 something group had been cut off by the bartender. We liked the food, ate, and left. It was dark and we still needed to find our room for the night.

Cute bathroom sign - had to take a picture.

My 5 Star TripAdvisor Review of Glacier Adventure:

Amazing Ice Cave & Glacier Trek Tour

We did the COMBO TOUR ICE CAVE & GLACIER HIKE and had an amazing time. There were 6 in our group plus our guide, which was a great number. We saw so many beautiful caves, tunnels, arches, ice formations....more than we even expected. We learned about the glaciers, volcanos, and the area. We had plenty of time to take photos and explore the ice. Would definitely recommend this tour!

My 3 Star TripAdvisor Review of Seljavellir Guesthouse:

Convenient Location; Simple Room

This guesthouse was just outside of Hofn and right on the Ring Road. We had a triple room which was clean but pretty crowded, even if it only had 2 beds. The beds were comfy but the room was very warm and didn't cool off while we were there. The bathroom was almost as big as the room itself. The shower was not its own space in the bathroom. It had no door or curtain and no separate floor so the water sprayed a lot of the bathroom and flooded most of the floor. There is a squeegee so you can clean their floor for them. No extra towels either. It was so windy the night we were there, we thought the building might blow over - it didn't! The sleet hitting the glass front was also noisy while we were trying to sleep. The breakfast was average.

Day 4 Complete!

By the time we drove all the way east and ate dinner, it was much too late for Stokksnes. I had planned for us to go there for sunset; however, the sun was nowhere to be found and had been MIA for hours.