The secret blue river.

What an amazing few weeks I have had! I am only just sitting down now to process all of the images and try and catch up on my blog. 

Where to start...

This overnight stay happened at the end of May, and was a result of me getting itchy feet to go out on my own to take some images. 

Now, the location I had in mind was a foss (Waterfall in Icelandic) called Brúarfoss and it is about 2hrs drive from Reykjavik. It is a great little place that seems to be causing a bit of a friction with the local Icelandic population. After visiting the area and adding to the issue I can totally understand why, so I am not going to locate the foss here, but if you are keen to see it there is enough information on line to locate it.  The area is a "Private" summer house retreat for the locals and with the increase of tourists and lack of infrastructure the road and trails are over used. 

I left mid afternoon from Reykjavik with the sun shining, clear beautiful blue skies, and great big white fluffy clouds in the sky. Perfect! After eventually finding the area, and a place to park I walked off along the very beaten up and muddy track to be rewarded with an amazing river scene. I spent the afternoon there to find a good composition in relation to the sunset. This would mean that when I returned later that evening I would have a picture already in my minds eye and could set up my camera quickly.

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Brúarfoss during the day.

I drove down the road a few kilometers to a campsite next to the geysir field. This geysir field is on the golden circle route and is very popular with the bus tours, which makes it very popular during the mid morning and late afternoon.

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Camp site for the tent.

Fortunately, I was spending the night there, so after dinner I went for a walk around the geysir field and almost had the place to myself in the evening sun. The Strokkur Geysir erupts every 5-10 minutes so you are bound to see it, and then you can walk around the area looking at the other less active hot pools. What a great place. 

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The Strokkur Geysir can reach as high as 70-80m

After my walk around the geothermal springs I headed back to the car to set off back to Brúarfoss for the sunset.  I arrived and walked down to the river and had the place to myself. Unfortunately the clouds started to roll in and I maybe should have been there about an hour earlier to get some nice close up images of the waterfall. I will also need to bring wellington boots next time, as there is far too much water for my hiking boots to stand in the river.

I did manage to get a few shots that I am very happy about and they are on my website just before the sunset was completely obscured by the clouds and mountains.

After the last light disappeared I headed home at about midnight. I returned to the campsite and went to the car to get my sleeping equipment, but I could not find my sleeping bag! Oops! I made do with putting all my clothes on and got some sleep in the tent. Needless to say it was cold that night. 

The next day it was grey, rainy and cold, so I decided to head back home and get ready for my next adventure...The amazing Westfjords. New blog coming soon!

Thanks

Kev

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Airplanes and black beaches in the dark.

How do you top the Northern lights? It is very difficult and unfortunately conditions have not been right to see them again since. The skies have been cloudy and the Northern light activity has been low, so no more Northern lights at the moment. However...

Skógafoss and the iconic airplane at Sólheimasandur

Map and directions to Skogafoss and the abbanonded airplane site

Time for another long drive to visit the Skógafoss waterfall and the abandoned plane wreck. The waterfall is about two and half hours drive from Reykjavik and is Iceland's biggest waterfall. The waterfall is very impressive but is also very busy with tourists. It was around 6pm at this point and is the highlight of any visit to Iceland and so it is to be expected.

Skógafoss from the river bed, Iceland.

Skógafoss from the viewing platform, Iceland.

After a few pictures, from the bottom of the waterfall I walked up to the top where there is a viewing platform. It gives you a real birds eye view of the falls and how big they really are. 

Time was marching on, so it was onto the main event!

A five-minute drive from the waterfall is the car park for the abandoned airplane site and the main reason for this particular trip. The site was accessed via driving in a 4x4 down to the crash site, but tourists kept driving off trail and getting stuck which left unsightly tracks on the black beach.  There is now a car park next to the main road and a 2.5 mile walk down to the site.

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Looking back up the long walk back to the car park. Iceland.

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I was packed with my camera gear, GPS tracker, and a head lamp as I wanted to get the sunset, and knew I would be walking back in the dark. It was a longer walk than expected or even noted in any online resource that I could find, but it was worth it. The skies where very cloudy and it didn't look like I would get any sunset or natural light, but I was wrong. Just as I arrived the sun burst out from under the clouds and gave me and a few others a brief window of amazing light to take a few pictures. I managed to get a couple of pictures.  

The picture below and the latest picture on my site.

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Sunset over the abandoned plane on Slheimasandur. Iceland.

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WOW! What a cool place! Worth the walk down there, but if you do go make sure you can get back. I had been tracking myself on a GPS app, and once the sun had set it was pitch black. The plane is in a dip or hollow, and the trail up to it ends above the edge of the hollow. This means that you can't really see the trail even when the sun is up. When I started walking back I initially did not use my GPS app and walked the wrong way. I couldn't find the trail. So I reached for my GPS app and found the trail again, and walked back in the dark with my head lamp. A few others did not do this and I saw them walking around the beach area trying to find the trail. They did eventually follow my light and find the trail, but if I had not been there it would have been a much longer evening for them.

What a great place. I will return if only to get some better pictures of the waterfall, and hike into the mountains! 

See ya,

Kev

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