Iceland 2025

June 9th, 2025

We slept very well in our camper again, then had a leisure­ly break­fast and show­er. It works great, the show­er cubi­cle is big enough and the show­er water is pleas­ant­ly warm. The weath­er was quite good, with lots of blue sky and only a few clouds. But that can change quick­ly in Ice­land. So: let’s go!

First on the agen­da was Ker­ið crater, a crater filled with water. You had to pay an entrance fee at a small booth (but park­ing was free) and then you could walk around the crater and down to the lake. We had feared that we would have to walk up there, but that was­n’t the case. The crater was only about 20 meters behind the booth. It was a great sight, very impres­sive again. At times, you could almost believe you were on a hik­ing trail in Switzer­land, if only the red earth and the Ice­landic flag 🇮🇸 weren’t there.

After­wards, we made our way to the next water­fall, Sel­ja­lands­foss.

Sel­ja­lands­foss is one of the most spec­tac­u­lar water­falls in the coun­try – not only because of its height of 65 meters, but above all because you can walk behind it. A nar­row path leads into a small cave from which you can view the land­scape through the cur­tain of falling water – a unique per­spec­tive that is rarely found elsewhere.

The water­fall is fed by the Sel­ja­land­sá glacial riv­er and is locat­ed direct­ly on the ring road, mak­ing it eas­i­ly accessible.

Sel­ja­lands­foss – a water­fall where you can actu­al­ly stand behind and feel the pow­er of nature – and get thor­ough­ly wet. 😉

Then I launched the drone again from a dis­tance. You can see a total of three water­falls on the pictures.

Our next des­ti­na­tion was a well-known plane wreck on Sol­heimasan­dur beach. On the way there, we dis­cov­ered a cave dwelling. Sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple had stopped there too, so we went there as well. It was the Rut­shel­lir cave.

There are almost 200 man-made caves on 90 farms in south­ern Ice­land. These are not known in oth­er parts of the coun­try. Some of these caves are list­ed as his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments. This cave, called Rut­shel­lir, is locat­ed direct­ly on the ring road and is there­fore very well known. The main cave, which leads straight into the rock, mea­sures about 20 meters and was prob­a­bly used as a hayloft. A small­er cave of about 8 meters, con­nect­ed at a right angle on the inside, was prob­a­bly used as a smithy.

We went inside, but over­all it was unspec­tac­u­lar, so we quick­ly con­tin­ued on our journey.

Then we drove past Skó­gafoss and vis­it­ed it too. You could get very close to it by walk­ing through the creek. In the spray, a dou­ble rain­bow appeared in the beau­ti­ful sunshine:

On the moun­tain next to it, you could climb 500 steps to a view­ing plat­form and see the water­fall from above. How­ev­er, we found that it was­n’t real­ly worth the effort. The view from below is beau­ti­ful enough.

We then con­tin­ued onward and final­ly reached our des­ti­na­tion: the well-known wreck­age of a DC3 air­craft. Well, almost, because you still have to walk a good 3.5 km from the park­ing lot to get there. There is a shut­tle bus, but it costs €20 per per­son for a round trip, in addi­tion to the €7 park­ing fee. We thought that was too expen­sive, so we walked there. How­ev­er, it was well worth it.

Triv­ia: The strand­ed DC-3 in Ice­land
On Novem­ber 21, 1973, a US Navy Dou­glas DC-3 with sev­en crew mem­bers took off from Höfn bound for Keflavík – but it nev­er arrived. Due to severe icing, the air­craft lost alti­tude and had to make an emer­gency land­ing on a frozen riv­er near the coast. Although the ice broke under the weight, the air­craft did not sink. All crew mem­bers were able to dis­em­bark unharmed.

The dam­aged air­craft was nev­er recov­ered. Today, only the main fuse­lage remains; heavy rain, frost, and vio­lent storms have caused the DC-3 to increas­ing­ly fall apart. Today, the wreck­age is a pop­u­lar “lost place.” One rea­son for this is cer­tain­ly the rugged land­scape that sur­rounds it.

On the way to the wreck, the sky became increas­ing­ly over­cast, cre­at­ing a won­der­ful atmos­pher­ic lighting:

Then it was already time to look for a place to stay. We chose Vik, a nice lit­tle town about a 20-minute dri­ve away. We actu­al­ly want­ed to go to Dyrhólaey, to see the rock arch and black beach, but unfor­tu­nate­ly it was too late to make it there today. That meant we would have to dri­ve back a lit­tle bit tomor­row, as Vik is locat­ed fur­ther east on the ring road. The camp­site in Vik was almost too big for us. But we man­aged to find a good spot there again. Tired after the long hike to the plane wreck, we pre­pared din­ner. It rained heav­i­ly dur­ing the night, but we slept very well in our camper.