Iceland Stories #6 – The Sheep Incident

Maybe you already saw pictures of this canyon in Iceland, it is rather well known by now. And this is where the Sheep Incident took place.

This canyon is just 2-3km away from the main road in Iceland, the famous Ring Road. On the day we wanted to visit the Canyon in mid-September, we already did a hike, so it was already late afternoon. When we turned on the Ring Road to reach the canyon, there was a guy stopping us. We first thought he wanted to advertise something or so, but that was far from it.

He told us, that on this day, the farmers bring the sheep back down from the Highlands. And if they come, they would block the only road to and from the canyon for around one or two hours. So he just gave us a friendly heads-up that we would be stuck at the canyon for that time if we don’t make it out again before the sheep come. He gave us a time frame of half an hour.

We still had a bit of a drive ahead that day and because it was already late afternoon, we were not keen on losing so much time. Yet, we wanted to see the canyon. You guessed it from the picture above, we decided to go to the canyon. The plan was to just try to beat the arrival of the sheep.

Being under time pressure is definitely not my favorite way of photographing, but what can you do. At least, I think I was still able to take some decent shots.

Walking up the path along the canyon a little bit, we could actually already see a good amount of sheep fenced at a farm. So we concluded we could stay and take pictures until we see those sheep moving.

And then, we saw them coming down the hills. So we ran…

I hoped you liked this post and will include sheep in your planning when going to Iceland in September. Cheers!