Ok so after being taken the scenic route by my sat nav on Wednesday there was not a repeat on Thursday. A nice simple shorter drive with spectacular mountains & a sheer drop road followed buy sweeping fields on one side & yet more mountains & waterfalls on the other side. Plus it was sunny again!
After driving for a little over 90 minutes I arrived at my first stop Seljalandsfoss. I really wanted to visit this waterfall above all others because you can actually walk behind it! Which is really cool (a bit scary too) you also get quite wet from the spray as well.
My next stop was going to be the waterfall at Skógafoss but when I got there there were so many people it would have made getting any kind of good photo practically impossible. Also you can go to the top of the waterfall but it's a real climb even on the steps, I needed to keep my walking legs for my final destination - The Solheimasandur Plane Wreck.
The Solheimasandur Plane Wreck was my final port of call. It's a long walk from the road, a really long walk, so long in fact that at one point I could no longer see the car park & still couldn't see the plane wreck either.
Meanwhile the whole time I'm walking to the sea I look back and see the huge mountains (some with snow on) & a glacier, while either side & in front of me the ground is black & grey like rubble. Also the whole time I'm walking to the wreck everyone else is walking in the other direction, that seems to have happened a lot to me on my stay here in Iceland - Maybe I'm lucky?
So I eventually reach the Solheimasandur Plane Wreck, there's maybe another 6 people there already so less than I thought would be there. As I reached the plane it self the weather started to turn as the cloud began to roll in & the wind picked up so I knew I should be quick in taking my photos.
However this is my favourite photo of the day, the inside of the wreck was virtually pitch black but I knew there was someone in there. I went to the back & took this shot and it came out even better than I had hoped. I'm really impressed by my FujiFilm X-T2 camera.
And so to the long walk back to my hire car, I think a third of my entire trip that day was taken up walking. It took about an hour each way walking to/from the wreck, I think my feet were ready to kill me by the time I got back to my hire car!
So to sum up my Iceland adventure.
It's a spectacular place, I'd love to come back again with a few improvements.
- 4x4 Hire car - There are so many places that just aren't reachable without 4 wheel drive, also Diesel is cheaper than Petrol in Iceland.
- More money - Food prices are insanely high, to give you an example a medium pack of sliced cheese costs maybe a few £'s in he UK. Over here it's over 2300ISK which is around £17!
- Stay in different locations - I made the mistake of basing myself in one location (Reykjavik) which meant travelling long distances to reach where I wanted to go. Because I was based in just one location there were places I wanted to visit but the round trip was just too much (Diamond Beach & the Glacial Lagoon).
- Accommodation - Pick your accommodation, although mine was cheap & pretty good for the price (£155 for 7 nights) the beds were a little uncomfortable for me. Also pick places which are self catering or where meals are included.
- Be prepared to wing it - There are so many places in Iceland that don't attract the swarms of tourists that the most common locations do. Again if I had been driving a 4x4 I would have gone off the beaten track to explore more of Iceland.
- 1 week isn't enough - To have a proper exploration of Iceland you need a minimum of at least 3 weeks maybe 4. I would love & most likely will come back again but for much longer maybe as long as 2 months.
Well that's it folks my last night in Iceland before I go back to UK on Saturday.
