So, recap so far; a bit of sun on Monday, and a lot of wind and rain for two days after that. On Thursday morning, we finally caught a break.
The picture probably tells most of the story. We arrived as the clouds were starting to go pink. Even though we didn't see the actual sun, there was a break in the clouds in the correct spot on the horizon, and the color just got better and better as all of us were firing away. The morning light lasted for about half an hour, but it was all we needed. The moment was simply magical.
Tighter crop. Still awesome.
After the sunrise we finally went to bed, it was 4:30 am at that point. After a good sleep, we woke up for the last full day of the trip. We had plans for two hikes; one through the lava flow and out into the flat meadow we walked by the first day, the second up another hill nearby. As it wasn't raining (much) I went out to take a few images I was waiting to take since day one; the weather had gotten in the way previously.
Same pic as last night, with more light.
Green stone? Sure.
The two hills we climbed the first evening.
Three of us had already seen the lava fields earlier, but we had turned to a different direction just after it. Now we ventured out onto the plain, crossing small streams as we went. Some of them were pretty deep, and some of them were boiling.
View back to the camp from the lava field.
The little patch was boiling ferociously; what better way to remind us we were over active lava.
I have many pictures of the streams and the sand, but this one and the following are my favorites. I was just about to shout 'don't step in the ...'. I'm glad she did.
Some had a better stream-crossing tactic than others.
I should have put more time into this picture (long exposure pun intended).
We headed for the waterfall above, which turned out to be bigger than it looked. We spent some time at it, a few people climbing the rocks on the left side to see if there was a composition to be found. Afterwards, we headed to another ravine a bit further in; this one had steam vents on both sides. It looked very Icelandic. On the way, we got distracted and had to stop briefly when we saw a S-curve in the rivers. Landscape photographers do love their S-curves :)
Tom doing some filming.
Them curves.
More curves! More!
This small canyon was quite the sight.
There was still a slight drizzle in the air as the clouds moved around the nearby hills. When shooting the small canyon, we only had to turn around to see this:
Sheep for scale :)
All in all, we were out for about for hours; I was soaked, sweaty and tired. And we still had one hike to go. We headed back to the camp site and made some burgers, discussing this and that. The weather hadn't gotten any better, and there was zero chance for a nice sunset or sunrise, again. We decided to move the hike to the next morning and get a good nights sleep, since the view from the destination would look the same at sunrise or noon because of the cloud cover.
The burgers and change of plans left me in a better mood, and I noticed I wasn't that tired anymore (we had gotten up very late, after all). So I walked up and down the riverbank to see if there was any angle I'd missed from before, just in case.
I was drawn to the symmetry here.
Again, S-curves :)
After an hour or so, I went to bed tired; the next day would be our last. I was sick of the constant rain. We hadn't seen the sun since Monday morning. And although we had gotten an amazing sunrise, I wasn't sure if I had any good pictures yet. Not having my laptop to check the images was beginning to eat on me.
As you can see, I shouldn't have been worried. But I was. I fell asleep hoping for some sun, but mostly hoping I'd get back home, to a warm, dry bed.