Winterbreak in Iceland.

Eirikur, my son, talks a lot about going more often home to Iceland. We had not planned any trip during the winter break but couple of weeks before the vacation we had a look at the ticket prices and to our surprise, we found very cheap tickets that we jumped on.

Amazing Aurora Borealis

Father and son in good mood!

We had only four days to spare and time usually flies when we are over there but there are several mandatory things to do:

Not every country has hot water flowing from the ground. Spa and swimming pools in every town, walking distance almost wherever you are. Especially when travelling with Eirikur, it is mandatory to go swimming at least once a day.

Iceland is known for quality restaurants and this time Eirikur had a list over places to eat. Eirikur had prepared a „high-priority“ list of restaurants that we should try to eat at, including Tommi's Burger Joint (Hamborgarabúllan), Osushi the Train, Eldsmidjan for and Domino‘s for pizza.

Eirikus older brother lives with his girlfriend and son in Vesturlandeyjar, on the south coast. Eirikur wanted to visit them and spend a night with them. I decided to use the opportunity and go further south (east actually) and try to catch some photos and potentially hunt for aurora borealis; the forecast for both aurora and clear sky was above moderate.

After dropping Eirikur off, without meeting my grandson who was asleep, I drove to Dyrhólaey area and was there during sunset and blue hour. No spectacular light but managed to take some decent photos. The area is amazing, hard not to come back with decent pictures.

Curious horses

Stormy day

Dyrhólaey Sunset

Reynisdrangar after sunset

I checked into a Hotel Katla close to Vik, had a bite to eat and headed out again prepared for clear sky and aurora view. When I came out, I was met by quite massive snowstorm that was not expected at all. I looked at the weather map and it seemed to be clear if I drove back west. I drove the whole way to Skógar with quite limited sight due to the snow, which became ever worse closer to Skógar. I stopped and looked at the weather forecast again; the whole country was expected to be covered with clouds soon after midnight, but the southmost part was expected to be clear for clouds around midnight.

I had spotted quite interesting place, promising composition for aurora photos, close to Dyrhólaey. Area with 2 to 4-meter-high lava/rock formations that would make nice silhouettes, I set the heading to that place, parked the car and was ready to wait. I had one another look on vedur.is and found out that exactly that area was going to be covered with clouds for the whole night. It looked better further east at the moment so I decided to drive like a maniac (within speed limits though) until I hopefully find starry sky. I drove for 30 minutes and finally noticed some white dots in the sky, found the next rest stop and stopped the car. The sky was relatively clear but no aurora visible, nonetheless I took the camera with wide angel lens and wide open aperture, put it out the window, pointed upwards, more in the northern direction and shot. I looked at the LCD and there was some green stripe there! I was excited, rushed and found more suitable place to park the car, went out and the aurora was there indeed, weak but becoming stronger every second.

I didn´t see much in the darkness and but tried to find a composition, something to put in the foreground. It was a moonless night, so the landscape was very dark. I expected this but realized I forgot to bring flashlight to use for light painting the foreground. Fortunately, my mobile phone was fully charged, and I could use it to slightly light up the subjects closest to the camera.

I knew I had short time but managed to use ca 20 minutes before the sky became fully covered again.

I lived in a small town on the east coast as a child and northern lights were not an unusual sight in my childhood, but I think it is now at least 15 years since I laid my eyes on those wonders of nature last time. I felt like a child opening a present containing something I had been dreaming about for long time. I was in ecstasy for a while but again sad when the show was over, but I felt lucky and was happy with the harvest of long drive.

Amazung Aurora Borealis

The sky was now covered with clouds, nothing more to do here so I drove back to the hotel where I spent the rest of the night. I spend ca 2 nights in hotel every week and often I am upgraded to a better room, even a sweet and that was the case this time. I always find it waste of space when I stay in such a room alone, regret my wife is not with me.

In the morning I drove back to Vesturlandeyjar to pick up Eirikur, hoping my 1-year old grandson was awake and would remember me and be glad to see me.

He was awake when I arrived but sadly, was not at all happy to see me. He had obviously forgotten me during the two months we had not seen each other. We spent some time with them, and he accepted me after a while, and we had a good time together.

We drove back to Reykjavik in the afternoon, the plan was to have nice "father and son" time for couple of days.

Eiríkur will be confirmed in Iceland end of June and we need to find a location for the party and our mission was to investigate some locations and potentially book. We had spotted three halls which we investigated. Eirikur has strong opinion which we respect, there is usually valid arguments. He was not at all impressed with the first one, said it was not suitable for the all the kids coming to the party. They need to be able to run around and play. It is in 2nd floor and the stairs are dangerous. I couldn't disagree when I thought of it. The second location was on a top (7th) floor with fabulous view over Hafnarfjordur harbour, very nice but was not child friendly.

The third one was spot on! Located out in the countryside but still close to the city, spacious with easy access to outdoor area to play. Even better; a huge loft where the kids could play and watch movie in case the weather was not suitable for outdoor activities.

Best of all; there is fantastic view from the house and it is situated few yards from the cemetery where Eirikurs oldest brother as well as grandmother are resting, they will be remembered and in our minds during this happy time, and will probably attend the party together with other beloved gone relatives without us knowing.

Suddenly, it is time to go back home, a bit to short according to some and I couldn’t disagree.

Ordinary "boring" days with school and work in front of us again but we look forward to returning in June when Eirikur will confirm his Christian religion and we will have fantastic time together with all our relatives and friends in beautiful surroundings.