THE PLAN!

Check the current weather forecasts and you'll see the following:

• SUNDAY - Sun in west and north. Cloud in south and east
• MONDAY - Sun in west, north and east. Rain (heavy around iceberg lagoon) in south.
• TUESDAY - Sun and showers of rain in west, north and east. Rain in south.
• WEDNESDAY - Mix of sun and cloud across Iceland

This is as of Thursday evening. The forecast has improved a lot over the last 48 hours. Let's hope it keeps improving.

Now, the initial idea was just to explore the south coast but we're going to have rubbish weather if we do that now so I suggest we follow the weather and go around Iceland in a clockwise direction. Here is for and against:

FOR

• We'll get the best weather this way
• We will see a lot, lot more of Iceland
• We can just visit the very best sights and leave out the not so good ones
• Even if you go direct from Keflavik to the iceberg lagoon it is 260 miles. That's 260 miles you then have to repeat if you're not going all the way around.

AGAINST

• It's MADNESS! Everyone says you need 8-10 days at least.
• It's a lot, lot more driving which means a lot, lot less time looking at stuff, eating, sleeping, etc.
• As our schedule tightens, we lose a lot of flexibility. This limits our options for camping locations especially.

I think it's do-able. We'll have to miss out large chunks like the Snaefellsnes peninsula, Westjords and probably Lake Myvatn. You could spend 2 days in each of these locations easily. However, we're never going to be able to see everything anyway (at least not in this system!) so we just have to accept that.

I've worked out an itinerary for the first 2 days. The goal is to camp at a free campsite at Detifoss on Monday evening. That would put us ahead for the next 2 days. We would have covered 630 miles by then. I've allowed 16 hours driving time for that due to the gravel roads. We'd also spend over 8 hours out the car looking at stuff. This allows a bare minimum time for sleeping, eating, etc!

Here is the map itinerary for Sunday. The big problem right now is we need to find someplace to camp between Surtshellir and Hvitserkur. There's 125 miles between them.