I’m back in Iceland! This will be half the same trip that I did two years ago, but hopefully with completely different weather! But at least I’m better prepared now – I have enough warm clothes with me so I don’t have to freeze the whole week like I did the last time!
There was no time to settle in, we took off already at 5:15 in the morning to catch the morning light at Jökulsárlón. It’s a familiar place, and it was a familiar feeling – I just couldn’t figure it out. I took some pictures of course but I felt like I could format the memory card and not miss a single frame. I will get a new chance tomorrow… to fail again, presumably.
In the afternoon we drove up to Skálafellsjökull, another familiar spot for me. Last time we had a flat tire here, but no such worries this time. And also unlike the last time, it was overcast weather now, which made it easier to shoot the patterns in the glacier. But the funniest thing about this excursion was a car that we saw in front of us, it was a small thing, can’t remember exactly what make but let’s call it a Toyota Yaris. Such cars have no business driving on the F-roads, in fact it’s strictly forbidden and there’s a very clear sign at the beginning of every F-road where a normal car is crossed over and a 4×4 is the only allowed vehicle. And the rental companies for sure remind every customer to avoid the F-roads, not least because if their car breaks down here, there is no insurance in the world that covers it. So anyway, we are driving up on this steep serpentine road with its share of holes and water puddles of varying sizes with the little car in front of us, until finally the driver checks their mirror and let’s us pass. There are two women in the car, the driver patting her chest, signalling that her pulse is probably through the roof. Amazingly, they made it all the way to the top and when they passed us again on the way down while we were shooting, the driving was grinning happily. Not sure if the car was as happy!
Then we drove to Hoffellsjökull where I tried to shoot some patterns in the mud, but it didn’t quite work out. The colours are all weird, brown water and blue ice. You’d think that glacial water is crystal clear, but the ice is often covered in dirt and I’ve even seen completely black icebergs (I took a picture of one, but it was shaken… and deleted), so the glacier lagoons have brown water.
Our last stop was at Stokksnes which is one of the iconic spots with grass covered black sand mounds and mountains in the background. Unfortunately the rain had gotten worse and the wind was blowing from a direction which made it impossible to shoot towards the mountains, so we had to settle with shooting just the mounds facing the other direction. But it was great to visit this place, I’ve seen so many great pictures from here that I really wanted to see it myself!
