Pingvellir National Park

Having seen the sights of the most northerly capital in the world we squeezed back in to the car for an hour's drive to Pingvellir National Park. This is where the tribes formed the first Icelandic parliament and where you can see the fault line between two tectonic plates. We enjoyed a good walk through the valley. I had looked in to the possibility of Kath diving here as it is in the top ten diving sites because you can dive down and touch both plates. But due to the cold you need to be a certified dry suit diver and of course the cost was prohibitive.

This used to be the President's summer house

The channel where you can dive

Back in the car for another hour to our next airbnb. There are some gravel roads but they are quite smooth. The car already has quite a few dings in it. I also had to sign to say wind damage was not covered in our rental. The chap told us that the most common form of damage out here is doors blown off by the winds and to hold onto them when getting out. So now whenever we stop we all shout "wind".

The roads are very quiet until you arrive at a tourist destination then the car parks are packed. There are many different nationalities of tourists all dressed in walking gear. Last night we Googled lots of questions about Iceland. Amazing that the population is only 370,000. There are also lots of horses - too many just for trekking. When we discovered that they eat horse here Kath said "gross" and Ryan said he'd like to try it.

The water stinks of sulphur so we are drinking lots of juice though Martin and I are still drinking tea and coffee. Our meals are probably going to be meat free except for salami or sausage meat - 500g of mince is £14. There is not a lot of darkness at night but we are all sleeping well.

We are now in Fludir for 3 nights in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. The kids were delighted to find out the reason I asked them to bring cossies - the cabin has a hot tub.

The view