Grumpy Old Man
So far it had been a very enjoyable day on the south coast of Iceland. We'd mooched around in the mini metropolis of Vik, filling Brian the VW Camper with diesel and water and taking lunch in a cafe rather than the back of the van for a change. We even lost an hour among the aisles of the shopping centre, where you can find a higher class of tourist tat than you do in similar locations elsewhere in the world. I have a t shirt which tells anyone who cares to know that yes indeed, I have been to Iceland and I enjoyed myself so much that I bought this to make sure you know about it. Lazily we lounged in the warm pools of the Vik leisure centre for well over an hour, interspersed by the occasional visit to the sauna followed by a five second dip in the ice tub just so we could boast about how pious we'd been later on.
It was the one day in Iceland where we didn't just get up, have breakfast and drive a long distance, instead enjoying a host of nearby delights. True, we had to be back at Reykjavik early the next day, but tomorrow was tomorrow and for the moment we concerned ourselves with the pleasures behind the viewfinders that lay ahead. Usually a day out with the camera will lead us to two, maybe three locations at most, but on this most wonderful of summer adventures we managed no less than four separate mini adventures within twelve hours.
We'd been to the secret beach where my camera had had yet another accident:
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/49974389827/in/album-...
We'd been to Dyrholaey to commune with the clifftop puffins:
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/49592986588/in/album-...
In the middle of the evening the plane wreck at Solheimasandur was number three on the agenda for the day. You know you're at the right place because there aren't really any other obvious reasons to have a large and well filled car park on the south side of the ring road here. We'd hoped it might be less busy by the time we'd arrived, and the last enormous bus shaped object on steroids between the car park and the plane wreck had just returned to base. This was no concern of ours. Iceland is by far the most expensive county I've ever visited and the fare for a four mile round trip was no exception to the rule. We'd walked further across more challenging terrain to Aldeyjarfoss three nights earlier and the stroll across the barren black landscape discussing the adventures of the week behind us was no hardship.
It takes a while to make your way to the plane, which eventually becomes visible as a hidden dip in the ground ahead of you reveals itself. At this point the numerous specks around it also announce their presence. This may be the middle of nowhere, but it hasn't stopped an endless stream of visitors from making the effort to get here to see the remains of the US Navy Douglas Dakota which crash landed here in the winter of 1973 - fortunately no lives were lost. As we made our way towards the scene, one young man was standing on the roof of the plane, posing for an Instagram post no doubt. It was just the start of my mild descent into grumpy old man mode.
I've got no business being so high and mighty about such things of course. Justin Bieber (a teenage pop sensation so I'm told) may be permitted to prance about here with nobody else interrupting his creative outputs, but I'm just another member of the masses; somewhere between Josef Stalin and Mother Teresa on the grand scale of human kindness; somewhere between Josef Stalin's parents and Nelson Mandela on the grand scale of human accomplishment. I can't expect to have a place like this to myself, no matter how I imagined this would go. After an interim spell of childish sulking I began taking long exposures for the sky, which at least helped me to lose the unwanted distractions in my shots - even if they were still playing havoc with my concentration.
Each time it seemed that we might finally get the space to ourselves, another party would appear on the horizon. One man stood behind me to watch my progress alongside his evidently disinterested wife. He was a photographer too it seemed. He said he wished he'd brought his tripod with him too. Having had enough by now I gave him mine and sat on a rock with a bar of chocolate.
Finally and somewhat bizarrely a wedding party arrived, the bride and groom draping themselves elegantly across the fuselage. Subsequent research indicates that this seems to be a commonplace event. It was time to go; our final adventure of the trip at nearby Skogafoss was calling and the grumpiness began to dissolve as we began the two mile trudge back to Brian. Finding words to bring justice to the joy of our final episode under darkening northern skies and a colossal waterfall wasn't easy, but it was a memorable way to end an adventure we'd been dreaming of for years.
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/50702613408/in/album-...
Grumpy Old Man
So far it had been a very enjoyable day on the south coast of Iceland. We'd mooched around in the mini metropolis of Vik, filling Brian the VW Camper with diesel and water and taking lunch in a cafe rather than the back of the van for a change. We even lost an hour among the aisles of the shopping centre, where you can find a higher class of tourist tat than you do in similar locations elsewhere in the world. I have a t shirt which tells anyone who cares to know that yes indeed, I have been to Iceland and I enjoyed myself so much that I bought this to make sure you know about it. Lazily we lounged in the warm pools of the Vik leisure centre for well over an hour, interspersed by the occasional visit to the sauna followed by a five second dip in the ice tub just so we could boast about how pious we'd been later on.
It was the one day in Iceland where we didn't just get up, have breakfast and drive a long distance, instead enjoying a host of nearby delights. True, we had to be back at Reykjavik early the next day, but tomorrow was tomorrow and for the moment we concerned ourselves with the pleasures behind the viewfinders that lay ahead. Usually a day out with the camera will lead us to two, maybe three locations at most, but on this most wonderful of summer adventures we managed no less than four separate mini adventures within twelve hours.
We'd been to the secret beach where my camera had had yet another accident:
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/49974389827/in/album-...
We'd been to Dyrholaey to commune with the clifftop puffins:
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/49592986588/in/album-...
In the middle of the evening the plane wreck at Solheimasandur was number three on the agenda for the day. You know you're at the right place because there aren't really any other obvious reasons to have a large and well filled car park on the south side of the ring road here. We'd hoped it might be less busy by the time we'd arrived, and the last enormous bus shaped object on steroids between the car park and the plane wreck had just returned to base. This was no concern of ours. Iceland is by far the most expensive county I've ever visited and the fare for a four mile round trip was no exception to the rule. We'd walked further across more challenging terrain to Aldeyjarfoss three nights earlier and the stroll across the barren black landscape discussing the adventures of the week behind us was no hardship.
It takes a while to make your way to the plane, which eventually becomes visible as a hidden dip in the ground ahead of you reveals itself. At this point the numerous specks around it also announce their presence. This may be the middle of nowhere, but it hasn't stopped an endless stream of visitors from making the effort to get here to see the remains of the US Navy Douglas Dakota which crash landed here in the winter of 1973 - fortunately no lives were lost. As we made our way towards the scene, one young man was standing on the roof of the plane, posing for an Instagram post no doubt. It was just the start of my mild descent into grumpy old man mode.
I've got no business being so high and mighty about such things of course. Justin Bieber (a teenage pop sensation so I'm told) may be permitted to prance about here with nobody else interrupting his creative outputs, but I'm just another member of the masses; somewhere between Josef Stalin and Mother Teresa on the grand scale of human kindness; somewhere between Josef Stalin's parents and Nelson Mandela on the grand scale of human accomplishment. I can't expect to have a place like this to myself, no matter how I imagined this would go. After an interim spell of childish sulking I began taking long exposures for the sky, which at least helped me to lose the unwanted distractions in my shots - even if they were still playing havoc with my concentration.
Each time it seemed that we might finally get the space to ourselves, another party would appear on the horizon. One man stood behind me to watch my progress alongside his evidently disinterested wife. He was a photographer too it seemed. He said he wished he'd brought his tripod with him too. Having had enough by now I gave him mine and sat on a rock with a bar of chocolate.
Finally and somewhat bizarrely a wedding party arrived, the bride and groom draping themselves elegantly across the fuselage. Subsequent research indicates that this seems to be a commonplace event. It was time to go; our final adventure of the trip at nearby Skogafoss was calling and the grumpiness began to dissolve as we began the two mile trudge back to Brian. Finding words to bring justice to the joy of our final episode under darkening northern skies and a colossal waterfall wasn't easy, but it was a memorable way to end an adventure we'd been dreaming of for years.
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/50702613408/in/album-...