Southern Iceland: The Land of Ice and Fire part 2

The first few days of our trip to Iceland were spent in and around Reykjavik. The second part of our trip to Iceland began by hiring a car so we could drive to the hotel we had booked in the south of Iceland.

Driving on the icy roads was a little daunting at first, especially when the windscreen wipers didn’t clear the windscreen and we had to pull into a garage to clear it by hand! Wipers adjusted, we set off on the 90 minute drive to Hotel Rangá. The roads were fairly clear until we drove through a couple of small towns, and then we just drove slowly and carefully, and it was all fine. One thing to remember if you hire a car in Iceland is that you must have your headlights on at all times – it’s a legal requirement.

We stopped in the tiny town of Hella, the nearest town to the hotel, to pick up a few supplies and snacks. There was a tiny bakery next to the supermarket, with rows of delicious-looking cakes, so we had to get a few to try them! Especially the traditional snudur with caramel glaze – a bit like a giant cinnamon bun.

We had booked dinner, bed and breakfast for three nights as the hotel is fairly remote and we wanted to make the most of the facilities while we were there.

We chose Hote Rangá for a few reasons. 1. It’s remote, so there’s very little light pollution, which makes it much better for seeing stars and the Northern Lights. 2. The hotel has it’s own observatory with two high powered telescopes and a local astronomer gives a talk every evening that the sky is clear. 3. They do a wake up call when the Northern Lights appear. 4. They have natural hot spring water hot tubs for guests to use anytime. 5. The restaurant had good choices on the menu – important when I’m pescatarian and my Spouse is vegetarian and gluten intolerant.

The hotel also had a pool table, board games you could borrow, a bar, and various areas around the hotel where you could sit, relax, and enjoy the views and quiet.

The first evening we just explored the hotel and enjoyed dinner in the restaurant. The food was fantastic, definitely a gourmet experience and, as three courses were included, we had to make the most of it!

That evening, the skies were clear which meant the astronomy talk was going ahead. We wrapped up warm in as many layers as we could and headed outside to the hotel’s observatory. The astronomer was extremely knowledgeable and told us details about everything he showed us in the night sky, from the nebula in Orion’s belt and the Andromeda galaxy to Uranus, Jupiter and four of its moons. The amount of stars we could see just by looking up was astounding. It was really hard to take good photos as I didn’t have a tripod and it was so cold my hands were shaking. These photos show the same view of the Orion constellation, but the left image is with professional camera settings and the right one is without. Not the clearest, but they give you an idea of how many stars we could see.

The next day we visited the Caves of Hella, a historical site which is Iceland’s oldest still standing archaeological remains. Some believe the caves date even further back than the settlement of the Nordic Vikings. You have to visit the caves on one of their tours, which are in English every day at 10am, 12pm and 2pm, and it’s best to pre-book. The tour guide was fantastic, combining humour with historical facts, and again, he was very knowledgeable about the history of the area. It was really interesting to find out that the Vikings may not have been the first settlers in Iceland – there may have been Irish monks there first, but they’ve been written out of history.

That evening, after another delicious dinner, we went to the astronomy talk again and gazed at more stars and planets. We’d requested the Northern Lights wake up call each night and had set out our warm clothes ready to throw on, and on the second night we got the call at around 1am. There was a definite reen glow in the sky, this time with more defined lines that you could see directly. Once again, it was difficult to take clear photos – I resorted to putting my phone in a mug with the camera on a timer to try and get it as still as possible without a tripod! That’s why there’s so much snow at the bottom of each photo – the mug was on the ground as it was the most stable place to put it with the wind blowing. Even then, my photos are a bit blurry, but it gives you an idea of what we saw. There’s even a hint of reddish purple lights above the green. The first image is without the professional camera settings, so it’s more like what we could see with our eyes.

We were very lucky to see the Aurora Borealis not just once, but twice during the week we were in Iceland. For the rest of our time at Hotel Rangá, we played pool, tried out the hot tubs, played board games, ate more delicious food, and generally had a very relaxing time. On our final day, we decided to leave a bit earlier so we could drive via a black sand beach on our way to the airport. We went to Eyrarbakki Beach and found a very interesting sign there.

There was a viewpoint which gave great views over the tiny town as well as the seafront. The beach itself was covered in huge lumps of ice, which we thought were rocks at first due to the black sand caught up inside the ice. It was stunning to see.

Overall, our trip to Iceland was absolutely fantastic. It had been on my bucket list for a long time, along with seeing the Northern Lights, and it definitely delivered. If you get the chance to go, definitely do it!