Snaefellsnes

After we finally got our negative result from the second Corona test here in Iceland yesterday, we finally started our trip today.

Our first tour took us to the Snaefellsnes peninsula, about 1.5 hours north of the capital Reykjavík. As we were used to from the last days, we were also welcomed there with our new "favorite weather": drizzle.

Actually, on large parts of the outward journey we had once again little to no visibility and as soon as you stop and get out of the car, you have to watch out that it doesn't blow the doors off.

Our first destination was the arrowhead mountain Kirkjufell, also known from the series "Game of thrones", and the waterfall Kirkjufellsfoss next to it. The usually busy place welcomed us with an empty parking lot, which is probably partly due to the weather but mainly due to the currently rather difficult travel situation.

Bevor wir ausgestiegen sind, haben wir alles an wasserfester und isolierender Montur angezogen, was wir dabei hatten. Und so machten wir uns wenig später in Winter- & Regenjacke, Regenhose, Schal, Mütze und Handschuhen auf den Weg zum Wasserfall am Kirkjufell. Dieser befindet sich nur wenige Meter vom Parkplatz entfernt und dort angekommen baute ich auch gleich mein Stativ auf. Was mich erwartete war definitiv „Fotografieren unter erschwerten Bedingungen“: es regnete, der Regen kam gefühlt von allen Seiten, sodass man alle paar Sekunden das Objektiv von den Wassertropfen reinigen musste. Zudem war der Wind nicht gerade schwach, was zum einen dafür sorgte, dass mir die Kapuze samt Mütze vom Kopf flog. Zum anderen sah ich meistens vor lauter wehenden Haaren vor dem Gesicht nichts von dem was ich eigentlich fotografieren wollte. Die Mütze konnte kurz vor ihrem Abflug in Richtung Wasserfall glücklicherweise noch von Simone gerettet werden. Allzu lange wollten wir hier auf jeden Fall nicht verweilen und so entschlossen wir uns zum Abschluss noch zu einem Gruppenfoto vor dem Kirkjufell. Ich hatte die Kamera bereits zuvor auf mein Stativ geschraubt

, um einige Langzeitbelichtungen vom Wasserfall zu machen.

Self-timer activated and thrown into pose. To be on the safe side, I took a second picture and that's when it happened: the camera and tripod, which were standing about five meters away from us, were caught by a strong gust of wind and fell in front of my eyes onto the black lava rock floor. A real shock moment, as especially the photographers among you can surely understand. Once again I was lucky and the ND filter, which I had screwed on the front of the lens, has intercepted the worst. A few scratches he has unfortunately carried away and I will not get around a new acquisition, but fortunately nothing else happened to camera and lens.

On our further way across the Snaefellsnes peninsula, we stopped at a black sand beach, where wind conditions of a special kind prevailed again.

Afterwards our way led across the peninsula to the south coast to Arnarstapi. After arriving there, we made a short lunch break in the car and waited until all had warmed up and our clothes were at least partially dry again.

From this point on, however, the weather promised to improve at least a little bit and so we hiked along the black cliffs to the rock gate Gatklettur.

At the end of our tour, we stopped in Budir, a small town known from all travel guides. Whereby village is still exaggerated. In fact, there is exactly one small hotel and the most photographed church on the island, the black church of Budir. However, it is also quite small for a church and I would rather call it a chapel.

The longer we were there, the more beautiful the weather and also the light became. It was only about 16:30 (sunsei on Iceland is currently about 19:45), but still, the light was already much softer and warmer, which makes the photographer's heart beat faster, of course. Especially since we have not seen the sun very often since our arrival. And so we let ourselves drift there a bit and simply enjoyed our vacation.