Our drive back towards the west was a little fast than the one east. There was not quite as much to see in the north of Iceland as our tour wound down. We started out in the morning headed for Akureyri for lunch. It’s called the capital of the north, and was an absolutely beautiful small town. It can get very busy in the summer apparently. It’s another fishing village and a great spot for whale watching tours.
Along our drive after lunch, we stopped at the Hraundrangi mountain range, which has an interesting spire peak. Right below it also sits a single isolated farmstead. I thought it made an absolutely stunning image for the isolation in Iceland. It might be one of my favourite images, though I think it’s under-appreciated as the little house is so small.
One of the really interesting parts of the tour, as has been mentioned, was the local professional photography expert as our guide. I learned so much from him, and he knew so many of the best places to take some landscape photography in his county. He had his camera with him, and used it occasionally. There was, however, a lot of been there seen that. So while we were photographing Hraundrangi, we suddenly noted him hurrying down the road way with his camera. Looking left quickly we spotted the sun and clouds over the mountains that had attracted his attention, so we all followed suit.
We stopped for sunset along a river with some waterfalls along the road. In those days at least, there was a lot of common sense assumed for tourists. Walking past the small caution sign advising us of the cliffs, the guide and I clambered down into the gorge a little way. The rest of the group was a little more cautious, though still explored the site for some amazing shots. I don’t think our guide expected me to be quite so bold and to follow him in climbing up to some breathtaking spots for pictures. I have some many great ones so this post is going to have more than my usual token example.
We stayed that night at a guesthouse in Hunavellir that used to be an old boarding school. It was quite simple, but a nice spot for our final night before we had to head back to Reykjavik for the end of our tour. We still had one more sunrise, which was going to be the best one since the first morning of the tour.
