Day 1: South East Iceland Vik

For my first solo trip to Iceland I opted to do the Ring Road, I had preselected some targeted stops and was intent to just discover the rest. Flew out of Toronto September 4th, 2018 early evening, landing in Iceland 4:30 am on the 5th with customs to clear and car rental before I hit the highway. I’m a landscape photographer so hanging around Reyjuvak wasn’t my plan, it appealed to me as much as jumping into the Blue Lagoon with I don’t know hundreds of people. Nope, I was out of there and on the road thanks to Geysir Car Rental and my budget 4 x 4 Dascia Duster. First Stop I had selected was the coastal town of Vik but I gotta tell you it’s hard not to just constantly pull over to take shots anywhere around Iceland.

One thing, very important to note, the Starbucks junkie in me discovered is there are not a lot of coffee shops as you drive around. I drove by a Mister Donut by the airport saving myself for better and better never came. For perspective 4:30 am landing in Iceland was equal to 12:30 am my time and after making some stops en-route, tourng around beach at Vik  it all hit me, jet lag lack of sleep and Starbucks. No worries, take a side road beside a mountain recline the seat and nap beside a mountain for an hour or so, all good!

South East Iceland Hofn

Enroute to Höfn, I wanted to stop at Jökulsárlón Lake, where icebergs flow from the Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier through a narrow passage to the black volcanic pebbled beach with seals bobbing in between them. Pretty cool spot.One note as you approach from the west, you will see a sign for the Jökulsárlón Lagoon, that’s not it. A nice stop no less but it’s nothing like the real thing. Photo Travel Tip, you want to be on the ocean side west side of the inlet (I realized this too late) gear wise you want a great travel tripod (I swear by my Promaster XC525) and this is an ideal spot to have a LEE Filter Big Stopper.  So with tripod, filter you have icebergs on a beach, swirling water running in and out, a thing of beauty. Last tips here is download the LEE Filter phone app and if you are using auto focus fine use that to st your shot up, then click to manual when you pop filter on and have a shutter release in your kit.  Oh one more tip, make sure if you are doing long exposure the iceberg is anchored, you just want water moving in your shot not a wobbly berg.

After a 6 hour flight and just over 500 km drive (Travel Tip don’t do this drive with stops all over in one day :-), you deserve a great dinner and it’s right there in Höfn on the coast at Pakkhus Restaurant. My review is pretty simple, ” it’s fricking amazing!”

From Höfn, where I spent two nights I found some great off the road shots, took a great little trek to a lake by a Glacier (there are all sorts of spots you can pull over and hike off from here), checked out some waterfalls. Highlight is Stokksness (must see stop, get there real early for that rising sun, amazing). From Hofn I basically toured between the far side of Jökulsárlón and Breiðdalsvík. There is a great waterfall to shot by Djúpivogur as you come around the peninsula the circular nets and boats you see are part of a giant fish farm, regretted not snapping some shots of that.

Here’s a sample of some of my shots around this area of Iceland.

Night 4 - Eiðar, Iceland

Next stop was about 200km’s from Hofn winding along the coast then branching north where there is the introduction of forested areas for a nice change to the landscape. I don’t do straight A to B so for me it turned into about 300 km’s with a cool mountain pass detour to the town of Seyðisfjörður a small town with ferry port to Norway, complete with a little waterfall hike enroute to Fardagafoss.  I stayed at a guest house just outside of Eiðar (they offer free boat and fishing in the lake) and after I checked in decided to take the road North…to I don’t know…the end (about 120 km’s there and back or so – map here). This was so worth it as there is a great plain area below the rising mountains. As for the mountains, your going to drive right over em throught the clouds ;-). Nice hiking trails at the top and a crazy winding road that has nothing on the Million Dollar Highway of Colorado. This puts you into the hamlet of Bakkagerði  (population 100) and it’s so worth that drive…and yah there’s some gravel (it’s a rental your driving, don’t sweat that). This really was a highlight drive and I would have liked to spend more time here and done some real hiking, I highly recommend this detour!

Next morning  I was up early and off to Akureyri  which is a really cool city (second largest in iceland) in North Iceland . Stayed just outside of town here and the route runs through some moon like barren areas,  my targeted stops were Godafoss Waterfall (drop right down beside it, best shot angle I found) and the Hverir Geothermal pools of mud (was ok but no highlight). Got some great shots of Godafoss but I really found some awesome landscapes of abandoned houses along the road (I can’t drive by abandoned buildings) or just the broad landscape views as highlights to photograph.

Here’s some photo highlights from this leg of the trip, including  a selfie I timed to make it to the rock by the water for the shot: