Ringroad Selfdrive Tour - In 8 Days around Iceland

(Für die Deutsche Version dieses Artikels, klicken Sie hier: German Version )

Unlike our expectations, the Icelandic sights are well occupied. Which doesn´t mean that one can’t shoot pictures of nature alone… It only means that we needed to stay almost three times as long as the other tourists, since we had to wait for the small breaks between the Chinese families crossing our sight.

Our first destination was really worth the while: The waterfall Seljalandsfoss. The most impressive thing about the waterfall is that one can walk behind it between the rock and the falling water. And not to forget: the marriage we witnessed, held in front of the waterfall. They had a fantastic scenery indeed… And about 30 enthusiastic Asian photographers surrounding them.

Following a secret hint of an Icelandic friend of ours, we walked on for about 500 meters to the left of Seljalandsfoss and reached a small cleft in the rock. It was an extremely acrobatic act to climb through it without getting our feet wet. But finally we found ourselves on the bottom of a 10m deep hole, water falling down the walls - truely magical!

It took us about half an hour by car to reach the next waterfall: Skógafoss. Since he had seen pictures of it online, it was Nils’ big dream to take a very specific photo of it: a long exposure shot of a person standing in front of this giant waterfall arms spread wide. Guess who played the victim. So I put on my pink softshell jacket and walked as close as I could. (Of course, this is the only reason why I own a pink jacket… no more comment on this :D)

The only problem of waterfalls is, well, the water. Standing right in front of it first felt like rain on my face. Then I looked down and realized that I was wet ALL OVER. But as I didn’t want to ruin Nils’ photo… At one point I started to sing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen against the roar of the waterfall - which actually did not part the water in front of me, but at least it was fun. Especially when I noticed two guys right next to me, who seemed to be quite interested in either my singing or in the waterfall.

The cleaning woman looked a bit puzzled when I entered the sanitary rooms half an hour later, dripping wet - As did I, when I realized that I had brought a second pullover instead of dry trousers… Fortunately the other tourists had already heard me singing so they probably couldn’t be shocked any further.

It was not before evening that we reached to rock formations of Dyrhólaey. If my hair wasn’t dry at that point, now it was! The last time I had experienced a wind that strong might have been at the North Sea… Nils gave me his precious camera and I had a lot of fun with it.

Only after I was taken a whole step closer to the abyss by the wind without noticing I managed to concentrate on something else then taking photos... It was quite adventurous!

At Dyrhólaey we also saw our first puffins. On the cuteness scale those small clumsy birds with their bright orange beaks are right up there with the penguins, which they actually sometimes get confused with. Their Icelandic name is “Lundi”.

Life and Lies of the Solheimandsur Plane Wreck

It was already quite late when we were finally finished putting up our tent and were heading to a beach called Solheimandsur, where a plane is said to have crashed years ago. There ARE some pictures of this plane wreck on the Internet… But by now I am pretty sure that this wreck - in case it ever existed - has either been dragged off by some crazy environmentalists or just resembles a rock very convincingly.

What we found instead was some parts of a huge whale skeleton. A fantastic scene, though a bit scary in the twilight…

At on point we decided to just go back to the car - it was then, that we realized even a red car is nearly untraceable in the dark. We arrived LATE this night!

This post is part of a whole series called "In 8 Days around the Island". To be continued - Day 2 of our Roadtrip: 

Ringroad Selfdrive Tour - Day 2 - In 8 Days around the Island

Interested in your own Ringroad-Selfdrive-Experience?!

Click on this link to book your own 7 Days Ringroad Selfdrive Tour now: Days Ringroad Selfdrive Tour - Guide to Iceland

Or just rent your car here and explore on your own: Rent a Car!

Here you can find a map that shows our route on Day 1: https://goo.gl/maps/vc9aSi187oJ2