Northern Lights in Hafnarfjörður

The great thing about being a Northern Lights hunter is that your average day is far from average. It is impossible to say how any given tour will go and while sometimes you end up seeing nothing at all, the fact of not knowing the outcome or the unfolding of the tour brings much excitement!

Like last night, for example, the Weather and Solar Activity levels were a bit worrying and it seemed that we might end up going home without seeing anything…Well, it was the total opposite! We drove out with a relatively tiny group (23 pax) and set off to Reykjanes. As usual, we had to escape the Light pollution and drove out of Reykjavík first, and then Hafnafjörður.

As we eloped in the darkness, I started talking to our guests, explaining what the Northern Lights were about, what were the conditions and our chances for the night…it’s a talk that I can make last for hours and hours, but I literally only had the time to open my mouth when our driver Bennie silenced me!

The Northern Lights were already there! The clouds were actually much more open than expected and could clearly be seen from the bus’ windows. Bennies drove a little bit further and parked on a tiny, abandoned road and we all rushed out. This is what we saw:

The wind was blowing quite violently, and lying on the rocks was a little bit painful. Still, I was determined to stay out a bit longer. The Northern Lights were actually evolving quite interestingly: since the beginning of the evening, they had moved higher and higher up the sky, then, what I (and I think all the other) was waiting for happened: The Northern Lights burst, drowning the sky in Light:

I even managed to capture a Comet flashing throughout the Northern Lights, that was really neat!

This burst lasted for about half an hour and then the clouds started coming in again. That’s when we moved back to the bus and headed home. We were back in town half an hour earlier than expected but I think no-one had any problems with that!