Hello and welcome back!
Today we're picking up where we left off, after witnessing the amazing Aurora for a couple of hours we headed to bed.
And woke up to this:
Sheep! Amazing and glorious Icelandic sheep!! Aren't they majestic?
We actually camped here not knowing it was next to a sheep grazing area, which honestly, most of Iceland is a sheep grazing area.
I slept in a bit later than I had planned, but we did have an exhausting day and I probably needed the rest. Our camping spot was just a few hundred feet from the amazing Skogafoss waterfall, so I strolled on over to see it for the first time, well, first time in the day light. And it was unreal.
As I mentioned, I woke up a bit late, and the tourists were starting to flock in, plus we had somewhere to be, so it was time to call it a wrap for Skogafoss, but what a place to wake up!
We headed back to the van, cleaned up and organized, and got ready for another day on the road. Our next stop wasn't too far down the road, so it was a short drive. We were heading to the famous Icelandic Plane Crash. It happened in the 70's or so I believe, where the plane ran out of fuel and crash landed on one of the black sand beaches.
Normally, and for the longest time as I understand, you would have to hike out about an hour to reach the plane, as there is no road to it. I would have liked to do that, but that would add 2 extra hours to this activity, and our time was very limited. Fortunately for us, they recently offered a shuttle service to the plane site. For about 20$, you get there in roughly 10 minutes, a huge time savings, and honestly, without this shuttle we probably couldn't have done this.
So we boarded, paid our fare and were on our way!
10 minutes later and we were there! The plane I've seen in countless photos was right there in front of me!
There was a small crowd out there, and it was a bit annoying sometimes trying to take photos without people in them, or to not be in others photos. Though there was one couple that didn't seem to care about anyone else's photos and kept snapping away. Well, until a very vocal Italian woman came over to them and told them "This plane, it doesn't belong to you!" and they backed off. It was quite funny. And to top it off, a more meekly seeming Italian man came to me and my friend and looked at us and kind of sighed and said "It.....it's my wife...." pointing at the woman who told the others off. It was pretty hilarious, and we became friends from there and took some selfies and talked about Italy.
Shortly after that, it was time to get going to stay on schedule, so we waited for the shuttle to return. And if you're thinking it's a regular "shuttle", think again. This is the shuttle:
It's pretty much a monster truck bus, which is needed to traverse the extreme landscape to get to this site.
Well, that's it for this installment. Next, we'll be heading off to see more of the famous black sand beaches of Iceland's South Coast!
Did you know about this plane wreck? What did you think of the photos? Did you find the waterfall or the plane more interesting?
Well, thanks for reading and I'll see you in the next post!
-Sean
