Northern Lights & Thingvellir National Park – Euro-Trip Days 11 & 12

The northern lights & Thingvellir National Park, what a way to start our adventure in Iceland!
Day 11 of our trip started in Wingham England and ended in Keflavik Iceland. We landed just before sunset on a crisp evening. After we grabbed our bags we picked up our rental car from Sad Cars. From there we made our way into Keflavik to get gas and some supplies.

By the time we rolled in to the lovely little AirBnB place we had booked for our first night, it was almost completely dark. We dropped our bags off, and walked over to one of the main streets in Keflavik. We wanted to pick up some groceries for the next few days as we had heard Iceland is expensive. We found a nice little restaurant and stopped in to pick up some fresh brick oven pizza for supper.

That evening Sunny was still dealing with the tail end of his head cold so we just chilled in the AirBnB. We collected all our plans, meals, schedules, and routes for the week. That first night turned out to be the best night in terms of weather of the whole Iceland trip. It was only partly cloudy, not too windy, and only a little rainy. It was the only night we managed to catch a good Northern Lights show, and it did not disappoint!

We had an early morning to start Day 12 as we made our way towards Thingvellir National Park. We pulled into the park just before sunrise and made our way to the waterfall Oxarafoss.

It started to snow like crazy shortly after we got there, but true to the Icelandic saying, we waited 5 minutes, the weather changed and we got some really nice light.

As the snow came back we packed up our camera and started walking around the area. We explored and read the informational signs detailing the history of the area.

After we finished at Thingvellir National Park, we made our way to the Strokkur geyser and its aptly named friend “Geysir”. The weather progressively grew worse and worse. By the time we made it to the geysers it was raining, foggy, windy and very overcast. We managed to snag a couple of decent shots while we were there though.

A short drive up the road from the geysers was the iconic Gullfoss waterfall. Despite the terrible weather the area was still packed with tourists.

We walked around the area and tried to wait out the weather to get a better view of the falls. Unfortunately it only got worse, and with the light fading quickly we left to make our way to the Hotel Selid where we were spending the night.

We met a new friend along the way.