Iceland - Þakgill
Little did we know that our plans with John and Judy would get thrown out the window. The next morning at Landmannalaugar we woke up to periodic showers and a steady, hard wind. Both had been helping us have a good sleep that night (you’d be amazed at how a rocking van and the patter of rain on the roof can lull you to sleep). It was clear that we weren’t going on any further hikes at Landmannalaugar so we had breakfast and headed down yet another F-Road, F208 (which several folks say is the most beautiful road in Iceland) to check out a waterfall and then head out F235 to camp at Langisjór, a lake in the middle of the nowhere.
As we drove, the rains got harder, the winds rose to gale force and, at times, the fog was so dense you could hardly see the road (not that we were driving fast on an F-Road). The best tool an overlander has is judgment. As we approached the turn off for F235 (the waterfall was out of the question, we’d never see it in the fog), I made the decision to drive onward to a national park campground I knew was on F208 but at much lower elevations. The drive was . . . difficult. At the campground we spoke to the host. He said that his wife and he have a cabin at the lake we were going to stay at. He had been there the previous night. “You made the right decision. You wouldn’t have wanted to be up there tonight, and getting down here tomorrow could have been dangerous.” I’d made the right choice, especially given the next few days also saw heavy rain and winds. Our plans for exclusively driving F-Roads was a bust.
So I came up with a new game plan that skirted the south coast, but kept one of our drive-in stops Þakgil. While not technically an F-Road, it is an F-road (better than some, worse than others). When I get to blogging about the trip, I’ve got a great story about our drive into Þakgil, which includes picking wild Icelandic blueberries (very different than the ones we know), and John and Ann deciding to make us blueberry scones because . . . well that’s what you do when it’s raining cats and dogs outside.
This post is about our next morning’s photo shoot. Judy and John decided to take one of the several hikes up the ridges around Þakgil, and Ann and I decided to photograph the creek in the canyon at the end of Þakgil.
Þakgil is like a set from Lord of the Rings. Rich green mosses cover almost every exposed area, and those areas that aren’t covered in green are a deep lava rock grey.
We knew John and Judy were going to be gone for a couple, if not few, hours so we were in no rush. The canyon is only about a quarter-mile long, if that.
We had scouted it the previous afternoon, before the rains hit, so we already had several compositions in mind.
It was simply a matter of finding the right spots for each location and making sure that we got the right shutter speed for the flowing water. Unfortunately, we never even made it to the end of the stream.
As at Landmannalaugar, but much more quickly, a heavy fog descended down the hillside. With the fog came mist and the inevitable rain that would follow. I stopped to make one last image as we were retreating back down to the campground.
By the time we got to the vehicle, it was raining. Ann took off to take a shower. I waited a bit and started to make some coffee when Judy and John showed up - soaking wet from their hike. Oh well, that was pretty much it for Þakgil.
At least I got some decent photographs in before getting soaked.