Iceland Day 4
Thursday Morning: 1st of March
After what was a very short but restful night our next stop for sunrise was Godafoss. An imposing waterfall, one of the more visited locations and great place to take photos. I was really looking forward to it. When we arrived there was already a little photography bustle, but not so much that it was bothersome. In my opinion the west side was the better spot to photograph which was also confirmed by a fellow photographer complaining about the spray of the waterfall. When I was done shooting with my camera I fired up my drone. It would be a lie to say my fingers weren't cold, because it's not possible to fly the drone with gloves really. Actually when I was done with photos and filming I felt like we might as well amputate both of my hand since I couldn't feel anything anyways. The only downside would've been no one being able to drive the car. Thanks to Marco and his foresight he brought pocket hand warmers that got me back on track.
We headed for our next waterfall which is called Aldeyjarfoss. From Godafoss you have to drive a gravel road for about 40km to get there. the last 4km or so are actually a 4x4 off-road which we would find out soon enough. Passing the last house with power supply about 8km before reaching our destination let us knew where we were going. To the center of the middle of nowhere. We turned on the 4x4 road which was perfectly fine in the beginning. Just some ruts to be careful about and a frozen creek to cross. Shortly after that tho we arrived at what seemed to us like an unpassable obstacle. The road declined into what looked like a mix of ice and snow about 1.5meters deep unlikely to be crossed with our family 4x4. Snowfall and winds started to turn up and with a chance of less than 1% of someone to find us we decided to give the drone a shot, flying the remaining 2 km and just taking aerial photos. Turned out to be a great idea apart from the fact of me being scared of loosing my drone to the snowstorm. I got it back fine though and we started heading back to route 1 with our next stop Myvatn Nature Baths in mind.
Driving in unknown and serious, always changing conditions like they are in Iceland can make you tense - probably even as passenger. Marco and I were really looking forward to relaxing in the hot pools in Myvatn. Jet our first thought after arriving was probably to leave again. The smell of sulfur was overwhelming. We haven't eaten to much yet, but I felt whatever was left in there would soon leave my body. I'm actually not even sure if I ever got used to it or my brain just turned of the part that's responsible for smelling. The baths were everything else but cheap at 4100 ISK, about 35€ per person. Yet I have not felt as relaxed at any point of this trip than right here in the hot tub or the Geo Therm Sauna. Also it made an awesome view being in a pool with smoke moving in and snow right next to the pool.
We decided to have pizza at a campground close by before photographing a volcanic crater. The pizza was plenty and had a really nice conversation with the girl that served us. She was from Poland and it was her second time traveling and working in Iceland. She gave us some tips where to go and we headed out. The weather cleared up for a little while shooting the crater. When it turned worse again we started to leave direction Egilsstadir in the far east with one waterfall still ahead of us. Being the waterfall with the highest water-volume in Europe we were quite excited to see Dettifoss. Unfortunately Google Maps sent us on the wrong track and the road was closed. Turning around was not an option since we still had a drive of two and a half hours before us and it was already getting dark. Apart from our third near death experience, where an oncoming truck was swept onto our lane right before passing it, we had a save trip to our stay and were greeted by a cute doggo, a cat that stayed in our room the whole night and a lovely family that baked bread for our breakfast.
Comments