Let there be lights in Iceland
It's barely gone 10pm, the sun disappeared hours ago, and chaos has broken out in car park of South Iceland's upmarket Hotel Ranga.
Belly down on the tarmac, people are crawling between the wheels of stationary vehicles, feeling their way through the darkness, while other bathrobed guests are dripping wet having leapt straight from the hot tub.
All have their gaze set in one direction: skyward.
The cause of the commotion is a luminous green streak rippling like a Mexican wave across the night sky.
Enjoying a riverside location kilometres away from any light pollution, four-star Hotel Ranga was the first property in Iceland to famously offer its guests an aurora wake-up call, with a night watchman ready to raise the alarm should the northern lights decide to put on a display.
Avoiding the hard and often painful graft of standing in sub-zero temperatures for several hours, guests can emerge from their centrally heated rooms to view the performance in the same way they might turn up to a theatre show.
For my photographer boyfriend Renato and I, though, a slithering light beam illuminating a gaggle of hysterical tourists isn't going to cut it. We've been fortunate enough to observe the northern lights on several occasions, and while the novelty never diminishes, our appetite for getting an awe-inducing photograph only seems to grow.
For us, foreground is everything, and with a wealth of dynamic waterfalls, gaping volcanic craters and crystal clear glacial lakes, Iceland is the ideal choice for a photographic hunt for the northern lights.
Eager to escape the crowds, we jump in our 4×4 and try to navigate a minefield of blanket-wrapped bodies and flimsy tripods.
Leaving an artillery fire of camera clicks behind us, we head in the direction of darkness, unsure of exactly what we might find.
Driving along Route 1, the main highway which rings Iceland, I can just about make out the faint outline of colossal mountains, some so vast they swallow up the starry sky. After an hour of taking false turns into private farmland, we find a suitable setting for our aurora light show: Skogafoss waterfall.
Wearing head torches, we hike for 45 minutes to the top of the falls, following the sound of water crashing against the rocks. But it appears we've turned up too late for the light show, as only a dim green glow can be detected in our cameras. An anticipated encore never comes, and we finally return to Hotel Ranga at 3am.
It's tempting to spend the following day recovering in bed, but we have some important work to do, scouting out a suitable location for this evening's performance.
Perpendicular cliffs shape the southern coastline, with colonies of gulls and gannets gathering in the crevices along Krysuvikurberg.
At Dyrholaey Cape, I feel the full force of the Atlantic Ocean, as waves smash against the basalt rocks, spewing an eruption of white foam above my head and drenching me in the process. Fulmars glide past, their compact, torpedo-shaped bodies casting heavy shadows on the satin black beach below.
Crashing water becomes a soundtrack for our days of exploration, as we shift from wild and battered shores to the slim cascade of glacial melt at Seljalandsfoss waterfall.
But still, we haven't found a suitable location for tonight.
Last year, I met photographer Ellen Anon at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, where her images of the northern lights above Jokulsarlon were on display. She convinced me I should visit the iceberg-filled glacial lake one day and as it appears to be only a few centimetres away on my map, now seems an appropriate time.
But after two-and-a-half hours of driving, we've covered only a few millimetres, according to my scale. Fortunately, the roadside attractions are plentiful, with the setting sun sweeping a drowsy haze across lava fields carpeted in a spongy layer of lichen.
Arriving at our destination four-and-a-half hours later, there's barely any light, and we scramble over a hill to find icy debris scattered in the smooth, viscous water.
The pleasure though, is short-lived. After 10 minutes, its dark, snowing and clouds have suffocated the sky.
There are two essential prerequisites for viewing the northern lights: clear skies and a high level of electromagnetic energy in the atmosphere. Using Icelandic Met Office website en.vedur.is, which gives forecasts for both, we try to find the optimum spot. Disappointingly, most of the country is covered in dark green, meaning heavy cloud, and white spots (clear skies) seem to be few and far between.
In search of alternative landscapes, we travel northwest to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula National Park, where a ridge of snow-streaked mountains, compressed like a concertina, dominates the open grasslands and only a few solitary houses brave the battering winds.
Our focus for the night is Kirkjufell, a sci-fi setting of waterfalls framing a swirling, Walnut Whip of a mountain, that repeatedly features in award-winning photos. Scrambling over rocks and slipping on patches of ice, I question the sanity – and safety – of climbing a waterfall at 4am.
With the lights being fairly uneventful, we agree to return at sunrise.
As our final night approaches, we've clocked up 1200km on the mileage gauge, burned through nearly $A350 of fuel, and still we don't have a satisfying northern lights photograph.
Although aurora activity is set to be a promising level four, with only a small white speck hovering above the westfjords on the en.vedur.is map, our chances are looking slim.
We debate returning to Jokulsarlon, which irritatingly promises to be cloud-free, but both agree that a 13-hour drive and night spent sleeping in the back of a car might finish us off.
When we arrive at Hotel Budir, a remote, romantic property that gazes out to sea, I'm glad we decided to stay; and when the alarm goes off at 4am, I'm secretly relieved to find it cloudy outside and accept our hunt is officially over.
Instead, a few hours later, we stroll along the Budir beach, where angry waves have since retreated, leaving soft ripples in the sand.
In that moment, we have our own aurora wake-up call: the northern lights are sublime but in Iceland, daylight hours are equally enigmatic, if not more so.
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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