Iceland – day 8

2nd day on the Ring Road and it’s just wall-to-wall scenery. Today we did about 3.5hrs of driving from the south to the east. There’s lots to write about, but I’ll condense it to the highlights in photos:

 

Crashed DC-30 plane in the middle of nowhere
  
Swollen river – police, camera crews – the whole bit!
  
Friendly Icelandic horse – decent background!
  
Feed barn for sheep in winter (I think?) – super low entrance
  
There’s hundreds of waterfalls, but this was particularly pretty with a beautiful house in front
  
We hiked in to get a closer look at one of the glaciars. So impressive close up!
 
Melting glacial icebergs
  
Glacial lake with bobbing icebergs before heading out to sea
  
Abandoned building as the sun sets
  
Mountains and glacier reflected in the still water
  
Chasing the Northern Lights – 3/4 moon with a hint of green
  
We saw them! Northern Lights over snow capped mountains. Just magic!
  
More pronounced here. We purposely didn’t photograph the best one – we just watched and took it in.
 
The Northern Lights were an unexpected treat… Our accommodation is in the East of Iceland and in a small fishing village. Yesterday was our first day without much rain and lots of sunshine so with a clear sky, we ventured out. Lots of wishful thinking and “is that them?” and in the space of about 20 minutes, they revealed themselves. Just incredible! 

It’s easy to get caught up in just going to places to take a photo of it and forget to actually take it in. Soph mentioned that yesterday and she’s right – it did feel like it became a bit of a photography contest. So we made a concerted effort to forget the camera as the lightshow presented itself and just take it in, be in the moment. The photos above are the after affects. Hopefully we’ll have lots more opportunity to take a photo of it in its full glory!

It’s probably the highlight of the trip so far – absolutely pumped we got to see them!!