Aurora over Þingvallavatn

Mars has been a weird month in many ways. While February was bright, sunny and dry, March has been just plain chaotic. We got some of the most beautiful days since the beginning of the winter but also some of the stormiest event I have witnessed. All of that makes hunting the Aurora all the more difficult but we did managed to see them last night anyway!

I have to say that this wasn’t to my credit (when is it anyway?) as the skies had been extremely clear for the whole day. And contrary to what’s often the case the skies remained clear as night fell. On our coach this night, we decided to drive Eastwards, more or less to the region of Þingvellir.

It took some time before we managed to get dark enough skies and we had already passed Hveragerði and Selfoss by then. As we were driving Northwards towards Þingevllir lake, our driver Bennie sighted something and we pulled the bus on the side and ran on a rugged lava field. The Northern-Light was starting:

The Lights were not that strong though, and the Hydro-electric Power-plant was so bright it actually made it pretty hard to see much of the Aurora. We then drove a bit further west and found the perfect place: a little inlet just South of the lake with no Light pollution at all!

There, it was at first pretty hard to discern any Northern Light but as our eyes got used to the ambient darkness, the Aurora appeared and we could all clearly see its shimmering arch-shape:

By then, it was already 12 and we were running out of time so we decided to drive back home. As we entered the city, we were met with a thick cloud covering and snow falling from the sky. I think everyone was happy then, that we decided to drive East!