By Akos & Gréta
Camperstories Winner June 2024
How it began – Are there any hungry seals here?
…our 4-year-old daughter keeps asking after we visited seals four times in Budapest (H) and at the Schönbrunn Zoo in Austria and watched the seals being fed.
From then on, we called all stuffed animals seals and fed them daily, ignoring that they had long ears, maybe a beak, and were actually kittens or teddy bears, so the toys all became seals…
When we planned the trip to Iceland, it was obvious that we would find the real habitat of the seals, film it, and send it home so that she could see the seals live and maybe one day we would return to visit them together.
Along the way, we became richer not only with experiences, but also with learnings, here are some that can help others to realize a super adventure.
Take it and let’s go!
Don’t waste the night if you can also use it to rent a car!
We couldn’t imagine daylight at night, but when it turned out that our plane would land at 11 p.m., we immediately looked for a car rental company that could make the vehicle available even from midnight. Such was Rent.is. And to our astonishment, midnight was indeed equal to midday.
We were able to pick up our minibus in perfect light (in the middle of June) and set off on our first trip to Kirkjufell in daylight by our standards. Although we stopped to rest on the way, taking the car “early” made it possible to get to this attraction well before dawn, before the arrival of the other tourists.
The car was dropped off in the same way, we took it back at 8 o’clock in the evening to catch our plane leaving at 11 o’clock.
(2) Never give up! CLICK ON ME! – hiking trail to puffins
A mountain has many peaks don’t turn back just go until the FIRST puffin!
In addition to seals, we also wanted to see puffins.
On social media channels, you can see extensive puffin colonies, the photographer props up his tripod, and cute puffin families are walking, flying, feeding chicks, etc. in the grass everywhere. Press the button and there is the nature photo of the year. And again.
The closest colony is at the rock cliff next to Reynisfjara beach, if one only only the south coast. Departure from the Vik church uphill. Turn to see if they are there, but nothing. The weather is changing, fog is everywhere. We walk, I carry the stuff, of course the biggest cumbersome telephoto lens. We’re up to it. Nothing anywhere. Let’s move on. We reach the top again… somewhere… nothing… and again… nothing. And this is repeated until we are at the very top of the cliff. And the puffins are nowhere, there are no families, there are no small, large, nothing.
Finally, we looked down from the cliff and saw them. They are not in the grass, but among the clumps of grass on the cliff wall. Not many, but enough for the nature photo of the year. 😊
(3) The Icelandic eat, prey, love – Stop, Park, Sleep!
You’d rather lean down a little, like the minibus from the wind!
The plane landed before midnight, so we had to find a car rental company where we could pick up our vehicle at 00:30.
Rent.is was the perfect choice, where we rented a small campervan with basic insurance. To the layman, it’s strange that “it doesn’t apply to tearing off the door”, but we thought that we’ve managed to get out of every car without tearing the door off, so it will work now too.
We underestimated the gusts of wind, which can be responsible not only for pulling the door, but also for overturning the tall car. Already on our second trip, in full light at night towards Kirkjufell, it turned out that the roads are lean sometimes, so in the high wind you quickly get the feeling that you are going to topple over. What to do in this case: stop, park against the wind, sleep. And always check the wind strength in the “safe travel” app and along the roads.
(4) See the unseen! CLICK ON ME – walking path to the DC-9 plane wreck
If you think the night is for sleeping, you are wrong!
Since we really wanted to see the DC-9 plane wreck left alone on a deserted beach (Sólheimasandur), we wanted to get there before the other tourists and even take a drone shot, which doesn’t look good with a lot of people.
We were almost late, as the usual early rise proved to be not enough, or rather it was just enough. We left the parking lot at 7:32 and started the approx. 3.5 km walk.
A couple had already come back, but no one was on the beach. In this way, we could enjoy the view in complete solitude, undisturbed.
On our way back we met people who were running and competing each other. They arrived in a packed tourist bus and tried to overtake each other to see the wreck with the least possible fellows. The two buses could bring 80-100 tourists.
From then on, we got up at dawn and went to bed early, so we could see most of the sights in their full beauty alone or with very few visitors.
(5) Don’t look back CLICK ON ME – Mulagljufur trail
We love Icelandic landscapes, animals and birds. Unless they attack us.
The Mulagljufur canyon can be reached on a 2 km long F-road, so it is recommended to park the 2-wheel drive car in the parking spaces next to the main road and walk to the starting point of the hiking trail. This F-road is otherwise easy to drive, there is no danger lurking for the driver.
Not so for pedestrians. While we were walking, a car stopped next to us and its passengers warned us that they had to flee from a serious attack halfway, so they got back in their car instead. Birds? Ridiculous, we’re primates, we’ll figure it out.
The birds actually waited there halfway. At first they only spread their wings, later they rose up and flew in the direction of our heads to strike down. We responded by waving a selfie stick and throwing stones, with partial success. After a while they retreated.
The bird is brown, bigger than a pigeon and its name is probably arctic skua. When you google them: “Those birds are very territorial and we must have walked into their nesting area” So the simple advice here: RUN
(6) Where do Icelandic seal lives? CLICK ON ME – Vestrahorn seal habitat
We have marked all southern and northern spots where seals can be seen. We imagined ourselves racing 2,500 km drive around the island, making friends with the local seals everywhere. It didn’t happen that way. It became clear on the first day that the circle would not be complete, and so neither would the northern seal habitats.
First we tried at the Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon and we saw two seals, i.e. a seal head, but here even the serious 600+ mm telephoto lens turned out to be too small. Driving on, we tried around the Eystrahorn, without success.
On the penultimate day – almost losing heart and thinking that we would go home without seeing any seals – we entered the Vestrahorn campsite, where we received a map of the entire area at the reception. And there we saw a sign: SEAL. We asked about it, received a briefing and set off to explore their habitat.
We asked, as in the game at home: “Are there any hungry seals here? Is there a hungry seal here?” and suddenly he popped out of the water. A real seal head, he looked at us, swam closer and then did a few laps. There were two seals, we kept filming them, they moved away, they came back. For a good hour it seemed that that was it. We just hoped that we can see them climbing out. Within minutes, 5 seals crawled onto the shore in front of our eyes. It was incredible.
(7) Concluding remarks & useful links
We returned home to the summer with wonderful experiences, photos and film recordings, recounted the adventures and decided to return again next year to explore the northern part of the island, not to mention the adventurous F-roads, which also lead to great experiences.
Iceland is not only a collection of incredibly photogenic spots, but the whole country is an endless spectacle that is difficult for the eyes and the brain to take in.
Our short (5:53) film is about these, a few footages about the scenery, our “expedition” to find the seals and finally the feeling of life during our travels. Enjoy and have fun!
