Seeing The Northern Lights,Thingvellir And Eyjafjallajökull In Iceland

One of the many joys of a trip to Iceland is learning to (or at least trying to) pronounce Icelandic names and perhaps, one of the more fun ones to try to pronounce is the Eyjafjallajökull volcano…

…but more on that later.

The first time I saw the Northern Lights was by no means unplanned. The first night in Iceland was in the Blue Lagoon hotel and after a rather relaxing evening, I ventured out to try to catch sight of the Northern Lights.

Granted, it was a lazy half-arsed attempt but I kinda hoped I would get to see it regardless.

Needless to say, we did not.

The next day, we ventured out and stayed out for ages and still no Northern lights! Mind you, both nights were clear with no clouds in the sky and lit up with twinkling stars.

Luckily, we kept an eye out on the Northern Lights forecast and knew we would be in with a chance on the third night.

It didn’t feel like that on the third night though and after a few hours of waiting, just as Lloyd thought we should give up and leave, I thought I saw a faint movement in the sky.

Seeing as I kinda thought the same a few nights ago (which turned out to be absolutely nothing), I didn’t think much of it but then again, I thought I saw something move and I bounded out of the car, tripod in hand and within seconds, the skies lit up!

Unlike the other nights, however, thing night was quite cloudy! Cloud or no clouds, the Northern Lights still shone through and looked amazing!

Everything was pitch black though so I had no idea there were snow-capped mountains or lakes in any of the photos till I looked at them on a computer that night.

The next day, thrilled with finally seeing the Northern Lights, we ventured off in search of more sights! Some of which led to waterfalls and others which led to Thingvellir National Park.

You can see part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is a divergent tectonic plate (basically where the earth is pulling apart) and it’s quite spectacular when you think about it…

Part of the drive that day also let to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

Perhaps more popularly known as that volcano that caused the ash cloud issues back in 2010, Eyjafjallajökull although spectacularly difficult to pronounce, was definitely one I wanted to see when in Iceland. Lloyd was stuck in the US when the ash cloud thing happened.