An easy day. We started with chores on the truck, the small jobs that pile up after the highlands. The weather turned fine while we worked, so in the afternoon we drove out onto the Mýrdalssandur, the black sand plain east of Vík.

The first stop was Laufskálavarða. It is a low ridge covered in cairns, hundreds of small stacks of stones out on the black sand. The tradition is that anyone crossing the Mýrdalssandur for the first time builds a cairn here for good luck. People have done it for a long time, and the ridge has filled up. The name comes from a Viking farm called Laufskálar that stood nearby. It was destroyed in a Katla eruption in the year 894.

The whole plain is Katla’s work. From Laufskálavarða you look north at the ice. The big white dome is Mýrdalsjökull, and under it sits Katla, one of the most dangerous volcanoes in Iceland. We had seen this same icecap a few days before from the other side, from Valahnúkur in Þórsmörk. Now we were on the south side, standing on the black sand that Katla’s floods laid down, looking back at the ice that hides the volcano. Dark peaks stood in front of the icecap with glacier tongues coming down between them, the outlet glaciers of Mýrdalsjökull. Same volcano, two sides.

Far to the east there was more ice, low down by the ocean. That is Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Iceland and in all of Europe. It covers about a twelfth of the country. So from this one spot on the black sand we could see two of the great icecaps at once, Mýrdalsjökull to the north and Vatnajökull off to the east.

Then we drove to Hjörleifshöfði. It is a headland that rises straight out of the flat sand, about two hundred and twenty metres high, standing on its own. It was an island once, then a headland by the sea, but Katla’s floods have pushed the coast so far out that it now sits inland, surrounded by black sand. It is named after Hjörleifur, one of the first settlers of Iceland, the blood-brother of Ingólfur Arnarson. He was killed here in the earliest days of the settlement, and his burial mound is said to be on top. The rock is old volcanic rock, dark and steep.

At the base of Hjörleifshöfði is the cave. Its real name is Gígjagjá, but everyone calls it the Yoda Cave. From inside, looking out, the mouth is shaped like the head of Yoda, ears and all. You walk in over sand and turn back toward the light to see it. This cave was used in the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in the opening scene. Where it is, we will not tell you. Find it, you must.

Then we drove back to the campground at Vík. An easy day, chores and a road trip and a cave, and the weather held the whole way.