Fire & Rain

We slept pretty well in our tiny room last night, then had a breakfast which matched dinner for quality. The cereal was a bit stale, the only fresh fruit was some watermelon slices. There was bread and butter. The coffee was okay. Then we were off to see the sights of this region.

The headline site for me is Dettifoss, the largest waterfall in Europe (in terms of water volume). It's about an hour away, and there's a new paved road to get you there. The GPS' all seem to know only about the older unpaved road, but 20 miles on a dirt road didn't sound exciting. While the weather was okay(1) when we left, about five miles from the falls, the fog got so thick that I had to drive slowly. Not a good omen! Fortunately, we went over a small ridge and the fog disappeared, so it was dry when we got to the parking lot.

You have to walk about a half mile to get to the falls through rocky terrain. Once you get to the viewing areas, the mist from the falls are coming your way. This makes just standing there a bit uncomfortable, but makes photography very difficult - the mist and water drops get on your lens easily, ruining your pictures, if you're not really careful. I had to clean the lens repeatedly, then quickly frame, focus and take the pictures in between waves of mist as the wind changed.

Dettifoss and Selfoss, June 2016

All of these pictures are full color - I didn't convert anything to monochrome. There's just not a lot of color between the grey rock, the gray sky and the grey water. The picture on the lower right shows Selfoss, another really big waterfall about half a mile upstream. The Jokulsla River, which makes these falls, flows north about 20 miles from here to empty into the Greenland Sea, which looks to me on the map like part of the Arctic Ocean.

This spot is 65.8 degrees north; the Arctic Circle is about 66.5 degrees, or about 50 miles away. This is the furthest north Sally and I have ever been on the ground(2).

We drove back to town for lunch, where we found Daddi's Pizza. Which is garlic-free, and decent. Actually, it tasted great to us after the last couple of meals. It started raining as we were driving there, but cleared up while we were eating.

Daddi's for lunch, June 2016

We may wind up back there for dinner.

There are any number of hikes in and around Lake Myvatn. I did none of them. Here's one reason:

Midge city, June 2016

These midges dive bomb you the minute you step out of a building or the car, get in your hair, land on your eyeglasses, and go in other unpleasant places. The only saving grace is they don't bite. If they did, this place would be uninhabitable. Frankly, we don't know how the locals can stand to live here. Incidentally, the sign says "Don't open this door" (in Japanese). I wonder why they don't want the door open? Here's a clue as to how bad they are: the hotel had bug nets to cover your head for sale, on display at reception.

The other reason is that it keeps raining on and off. I've got rain gear, and I don't mind if I'm doing something interesting and its starts to rain lightly. But a big part of hiking is enjoying being outside. And I don't really enjoy hiking in the rain. And I really hate hiking in an insect infestation.

Viti: what color is it?, June 2016

We did make a couple more stops after lunch. This area was created by volcanic activity. There are thermal hot spots and volcanos all over the region. So we went first to the Krafla volcano area. There's a huge thermal power plant there supplying hot water for heating and electricity generation. After an eruption a few hundred years ago, the Viti crater was formed and filled with green water (according to the guide books - it looked blue to us).

The ground is alive, June 2016

Then to an active area filled with fumeroles and bubbling mud pots. Similar to Yellowstone, but smaller. They were interesting and very accessible.

We're back at the hotel now, enjoying happy hour and counting down to when we leave in the morning.

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(1) "Okay" for Iceland weather means it's not raining. Too hard.

(2) I'm not counting air travel; I flew directly over the North Pole once. Sally and I both flew to Asia over Alaska, where we were at least 63 degrees north but perhaps further.

 

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans