Mývatn Waterfalls and more

Photos: August 10-11, 2014

Our day started with a visit to waterfalls. The weather was bleak, foggy with off and on rain. Selfoss is a picturesque waterfall, curving from bank to bank.



Detifoss, a little further along the river, thunders down. Its bottom can't be seen but its force can be heard. Great plumes of water droplets leap up. It was hard to know if it was raining or if the droplets were showering us.



Lake Mývatn is teeming with water fowl. No sailing is allowed on the lake during breeding season. And the lake and its shores are dotted with pseudocraters. These small islands and hills by the water have indentations like craters, but they were formed by steam explosions when lava met water.



A great variety of ducks can be seen.



Around parts of the lake are interesting lava formations.

More photos: Iceland and Faroe Island album

Northern Iceland

Photos: August 9, 2014

The northern part of Iceland is more mountainous than the southern coast. Mountains seemed to go on forever, many with snow tops.



Iceland has magnificent waterfalls - this is just one of the small ones: Geitafoss.



Lake Mývatn has arms reaching in all directions. The views everywhere are extraordinary, with glaciers in the distance, volcanic mountains (dormant at the moment) and a profusion of water fowl.



We went to Dimmuborgir where the lava formations are fascinating. In Iceland at Christmas there are 12 Santas. They come to Dimmuborgir one day at a time.  http://www.iceland.is/the-big-picture/news/celebrating-christmas-with-13-trolls/7916/ And after Christmas they each leave - one day each. Some say that Dimmuborgir was formed by lava hitting a lake bed, cooling and then the trapped surface water was forced through steam vents creating these odd shapes. Others say that the trolls were playing and didn't notice that the sun was about to rise and they were all turned into stone.



This formation is known as The Church. You can walk right into the "chapel" under the arch.


We climbed Hverfell, a dormant volcano. From a North Iceland site: "Hverfell has a large, circular explosion crater, about 140 metres deep and with a diameter of 1,000 metres. Hverfell is one of Iceland’s most beautiful and symmetrical explosion craters, besides being one of the largest of its kind in the world. It is considered certain that the crater was created during a volcanic explosion, and its age is estimated to be around 2800 - 2900 years."


The whole mountain feels like walking on pebbles. Nothing grows here.

More photos at: Iceland and Faroe Islands album

The Earth Breathes and Water Rushes

Photos: August 1, 2014

Nothing quite prepared me for seeing a geyser shoot up. This one, Strokkur, erupts about every ten minutes. It is near the geyser that gave all geysers their name: Geysir (it only erupts rarely now). The height of each eruption varies, but each is astonishing. A column of boiling hot water shoots up, then falls leaving steam in the air. Much of the earth around is hot with steam venting out of holes. We had to walk on marked paths.



There is a slight sulphur smell in the air.



Smaller pools bubble and send up small eruptions. Warnings state the water is between 80°C and 100°C - the boiling point.

A short drive away we stopped to walk to Gullfoss, an impressive waterfall. The view from the parking lot went all the way to Langjökull - the nearby glacier.



With few trees we can see long and wide.



We walked down the path to Gullfoss, a waterfall that tumbles in two stages, first a smaller drop and then a long drop to the river below. Mist (now cool water droplets, not the steam of the geyser) rises high above the falls.



A last stop that day was to Skogar folk museum where, among other things, they have relocated some houses representative of the way people lived in the past.



These sod roofed houses and sheds kept the cold out.

These and more photos: Iceland Album