Black Sand Beauty

This morning we got off to a slow start but still managed to check off more locations on our Iceland bucket list.

Before I go into details about what we saw, I'll tell you that we managed to survive our first night in the camper van, without it being blown over by the wind during the night. But that doesn't mean the wind wasn't trying. We didn't fall asleep until about 7am (which was initially the time we planned to wake up) because of the winds. In the location we were at, the wind was gusting at 21 meters per minute acording to the forecast at the time I checked at 12:46am. This speed translates to approximately 47mph. I anxiously laid awake all wrapped in my sleeping bag, convinced that at any second our van would tip over. The wind would let up for a few minutes and I would think I might be able to fall asleep, then instantly another gust of wind would strike and the van was swaying and shaking again. Every so often one of us would hear the other whisper under our breath, "that was a big one" or "please don't tip over, please don't tip over." To our pleasant surprise, the van did NOT tip over in the night, and we survived to travel another day. 

Bucket list day 3:

✔️Skogafoss 

✔️WWII plane crash ruins 

✔️Reynisdrangar black sand beach 

PLUS unexpected cute little church, and luscious mossy fields ✔️

Our fist stop of the day was Skogafoss. This waterfall is one of the most famous of the many Icelandic waterfalls and for good reason. We spent a great deal of time exploring this waterfall and we were even able to walk up to the top, then follow a path further up the hill to see more of the water flowing before it reached the waterfall. The scenery was incredible and this waterfall quickly became our favorite thus far. After leaving Skogafoss, we journeyed down the road a few more minutes to the parking lot for the plane crash. We parked our van alongside the many others and started the 4km walk to the plane wreck site. This plan was a WWII aircraft that crash landed here in Iceland back in the war. There were no casualties and the plane was left where it crashed and has been sitting there ever since. It is a popular place for tourist photos, and sometimes even wedding photos as we discovered today. We got to watch as a Hungarian photographer worked his magic while doing a photo shoot with a couple in their wedding attire. The plane crashed on one of the beautiful black sand beaches of Iceland, somewhat near the water. We got to explore the wreckage, and of course snap a few selfies, before we began our 4km trek back to the car. Our last bucket list item for the day was Reynisdrangar Black Sand Beach. This beach was an exquisite experience that I've seen nothing like before. The large rectangular columns that make up the cliffs were beautiful (and naturally a popular picture to attempt to get without tourists in the background) and the rock formations in the ocean added an extra touch of elegance. We even collected some of the black sand in a bottle to bring back home with us as a souvenir. We didn't make it to our next destination in time to see it, but we stopped at a campsite nearby so we can hopefully get an early start tomorrow. On our way to the campsite we stopped to take pictures of a quaint little church, then again at a viewpoint to take pictures of the fields of moss that go on for miles. The moss covers the rocks and is as squishy and bouncy as it looks. Iceland is home to 606 different types of moss. Not sure which one we were looking at, but it was a very exciting detour. And yes I realize that moss may not sound exciting, but trust me, if you had driven by miles of moss covered land you would be excited to stop and squish it a little too.

 We settled into our van and even got to cook our gourmet dinner of spam and top ramen in the shared kitchen at the campsite. A warm meal was just what we needed to end our day. We also were able to finally charge my cameras batteries since they quickly died and my initial charging plan didn't work out (but more on that later). Now it's time for some much needed sleep. Hopefully the wind won't be as crazy tonight!