Honeymoon in Iceland – Day 8: The Northern Lights and Hvisterkur

Long story short of our Iceland Honeymoon day 8: We start our eighth Icelandic honeymoon day under the magic of the Northern Lights – probably, the most spectacular night so far. In the brightness of a perfect morning sun we headed towards Borgarvirki and Hvitserkur – another Icelandic must see: the rock elephant!

Our day on Google Maps

With small steps we are slowly returning to the Western parts of Iceland, passing through a few little cities on the roads 76, 75, 744, 74 and then entering the Ring Road, again. We are heading towards Borgarvirki and Hvitserkur, following roads 717 and 701. Grundarfjordur will be our final destination of the day, and for this, we will get off the Ring Road and follow roads 59 and 54.

The wonder of the Northern Lights

I will start this story with a simple and sincere affirmation: I do believe that it is perfectly normal to cry when powerful emotions invade your heart. This is what happened to me during my second encounter with the Northern Lights. The Aurora experience really tickled our inner childish joy that dictated the best amazing emotional chaos!

Not only that the Northern Lights lightened the horizon but it enlightened my soul as well. This was the first and most wanted To Do on my list and in that instance, I realized that I was witnessing it at it’s best!The point is, that even if the below pictures could have been much better done, partly because we lack technical knowledge, partly because we lack proper gear, we will try to share with you a bit of this sky magic and invite you to dream about it!Somewhere near midnight, the little parking spot started to be animated of all kinds of people curious to see a grade 5 (out of the 8 possible) Aurora. The “hunt” started and it included both locals and tourists, photographers or simply admirers, experts or noobs – this is something that calls watching beyond barriers.

Outside, a chilly little wind was blowing, moving the clouds around, together with the Northern Lights waves, but honestly, who has the time to feel cold when Mother Nature is simply blessing you from the above with such a stunning spectacle. It was hard to convince ourselves that eventually, this will end and we have to go to sleep!

Siglufjörður and its architect

The next morning woke us up with the brightest sunshine we ever saw in Iceland and not a single cloud on the sky! Now this is a rare treatment so gladly, we accepted it and embraced the day!

Last night, during our Northern Lights hunt we encountered a really nice guy that proudly told us that besides being forever in love with the Aurora, he is also the architect of Siglufjörður – the little city we were sitting above of. He was the first Icelander with who we changed some opinions and who we asked out of curious how is Winter in Iceland? Unexpected, he told us that Winter is not as bad as everybody expects it to be because Iceland is really well protected by the warm Atlantic currents that do not allow a typical winter day to lower beneath – 5 Celsius degrees.  He even told us a funny story about the time when he moved to Norway (if I remember well) for some years and the people there were making fun by calling him “the polar bear” for having issues with the cold weather of even -30 Celsius degrees during the day.

But returning to the start of this story, I was telling you that the man looked proud of the city he helped design so first thing in the morning, we went to check out his work and I have to say, we were pretty impressed by the tiny Icelandic city – really cozy and nice!And because we discovered this great camping right in the middle of the town we decided to stay a bit and also take a shower. There was nobody at the reception, but we paid for the shower in the little mailbox designed for this. This is both funny and something to appreciate – a nice hot shower in the middle of the day!

So, I ask you, how can you not love Iceland when at every step, there is something you can smile at? This is how the North started to go deeper and deeper into our hearts, with its infinite roads that meander along the Ocean’s shores and the never-too-far mountains around.

Decisions – decisions

The fact was that we had one extra day to fill in with activities due to the harsh weather conditions that didn’t allowed us to hike on Kristínartindar peak from Vatnajökull National Park. But sometimes when there are too many options, we tend to change decisions with every hour and postpone the final one until the last moment. First we thought that we should target another peak…but again weather said no. Then another idea was to go for West Fjords but after better analyzing the situation we realized that there were at least 400 km from one corner to the other including unpaved roads so this will be time consuming and we wouldn’t be able to see – experience much. I estimate one needs at least four days to get to feel the taste of West Fjords, but of course, the more the merrier considering that this is the most isolated place in Iceland and a hiking paradise. Some say that you can hike for days and not see another person.

So the conclusion was simple, we need to find something else to do and we quickly orientated towards a whale watching tour and maybe explore a bit more the South – Western area of the country.

Borgarvirki – the natural fortification

It’s funny because this decision came so naturally while we were climbing one of Iceland’s very old natural fortresses Borgarvirki – year 1000.  This is a short detour worth doing while you travel to another location I will present next.

Hvitserkur – the rock elephant

So, we had a night highlight – the Aurora, now for the day’s highlight we vote for Hvitserkur. Hvitserkur is one of Iceland’s notorious and most loved place to be, photograph and enjoy due to the mysterious volcanic rock that resembles to a mighty elephant.

And we were so lucky to catch it in a wonderful sunset light that was gently animating the black sanded shores at the feet of the elephant.

We also enjoyed the tide effect as such when we arrived there we could reach the rock and after a half an hour walk on the shores, picking up shells and dead corals we returned and our elephant was beginning to swim already.

Here, everything is so amazing, every little corner of this niceland has a story to tell and a smile to steal from you! I was bursting out with happiness as Hvitserkur was among the priorities on my To Do list in Iceland. I can’t tell you how delighted I was to see dream after dream after dream coming true!

But form in order to keep the dream chase going we have to say goodbye to the elephant and head towards Kirkjufell, another Icelandic dream place – the most photographed peak of the country. The night caught us so we gently went to sleep above Grundarfjörður. No Aurora this night as there are clouds everywhere but definitely a good sleep! À demain!

Hope you found the information helpful and accurate, but remember, if you have any questions drop them in a comment below!

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