It was only a short drive of an hour or so to our next destination. On the way we passed lines of cairns marking the old paths before there were roads. We saw these a number of times around Iceland.
Our destination was Myvatn (pronounced Meevat). This name means fly lake. Apparently the flies can be horrendous there but the weather wasn't great which might have been a blessing as the flies weren't bad at all. We stayed in a hotel and it was nowhere near as good as the gorgeous cabins we'd been staying in. It was certainly comfortable enough but the noise from neighbours was such a shock.
Myvatn is literally a hot pot of volcanic activity. It sits on the major fault line that runs through Iceland and has had multiple volcanic eruptions over thousands of years, the most recent being in the 1970's.
First stop was Krafla, a site where steam hissed from the ground and the earth was scorched red.
Typically, there were no rails or anything to stop anyone getting into trouble which is fine, however the wooden boardwalk was quite slippery and if you slipped off here there's nothing stopping you falling into the hot crater!
Water boiled and bubbled.
To cross from one area to another we had to walk across snow. This sure is a country of fire and ice!
A geothermal power station was set up nearby. There are many of these geothermal power stations in Iceland, plus they have hydro as well. This makes electricity cheap and plentiful, which means the houses are always warm!
On that note, in a country where water pours out of glaciers, runs down waterfalls and is generally everywhere, water is also cheap and is excellent quality. Nobody buys bottled water here.
Viti was an old volcanic crater filled with brilliant blue water. Amazingly, snow still lingered around its edges. The weather was closing in though so we didn't hang around.
Back on the Ring Road, the site called Hverir was a popular place and we could see why. Pools of sinister-looking mud and water steamed eerily in the burnt landscape.
Thick mud boiled making big, fat, blobby sounds.
A couple of vents steamed furiously away. Piles of stones had been placed around them, presumably to protect us, but the rocks would have been so hot that they still would have burnt inquisitive fingers anyway.
The roar of the hissing was quite amazing!
Myvatn is a lake created by volcanic eruptions and is now home to thousands and thousands of birds. We climbed a relatively new volcano. There was barely a plant growing on it.
A walk along the southern end of the lake took us through weird lava formations.
Game of Thrones fans might recognise this warm pool inside a cave where Jon Snow lost his virginity! Sadly, we're not allowed to swim in it now. It would have been fantastic on this cold day.
There was a local farm that had a lovely restaurant. They milked their own cows and made cheese to use in the restaurant. We were amazed that they only had 16 cows plus calves. No wonder they have to run a restaurant to make a living. The weather had been so bad that the cows were still being shedded. I was upset to see that the milking cows were tied up and standing on concrete. They seem contended enough though.
We questioned what the harnesses and bags over the udders on some of the cows were for. A staff member with a sense of humour informed us that like humans, cows' boobies head southward as they get older. Sometimes the cows stand on their teats as they get up so the farmers put bags over the udders to protect them. They call them cow bras!
I'm going to interject here with a couple of very strange signs we saw. This one was on a toilet lid in a large hotel. Ok, we understand that we can't throw certain things down the toilet but do we need to be told not to throw shirts, bottles and engagement rings down them?
This was was in a public toilet earlier in our trip. At the risk of being seen as crass, what on earth are the middle pictures?
Those of you who have read Hannah Kent's "Burial Rites" will know the fictionalised story of the last woman to be executed in Iceland. The execution itself was real. Like so many other sites in Iceland, the site of the execution was right beside the Ring Road. A walk of 100 metres or so led from the car park to the site and it was lined with information about the events that happened and the execution. By the time we got to the mound where Agnes and Fridrik were executed, I felt sick. What must it have been like for them to be led along a track in this vast landscape to their place of execution? The place gave me the heebie-jeebies.
A platform was built especially for the execution.
We had a very long drive that day, driving from Myvatn in the north right across to the Westfjords. As we approached the fjords, the scenery became more and more dramatic.
A lonely church stood on a grassy plain.
Lush farmland was wedged between the sea and the striking hills.
A stunning beach sat near the turnoff to our accommodation. What a pity it was way too cold to jump in!
Home for the next couple of days was a cabin on an old farm. Kristinn, the owner, was about our age. He gave up farming sheep about 20 years ago and started farming tourists instead! He was an interesting guy. He had worked four winters in a row in Greenland building houses and government buildings. That's one tough guy to do that!
He told us quite a bit about Greenland but the thing that scared us is that he said it's so expensive! He's saying that and he lives in the most expensive country we've visited!
Kristinn was a great cook. The first night he served up enough food for 8 people and there were only the two of us staying there. It was crazy!
Our cabin was gorgeous but it had one problem - one window had no blind or curtain whatsoever. I woke up one night to find the bright sun pouring into our cabin straight through that window. It was 2am.....
One memory that will always live with me of Iceland is the sound of the Common Snipe. When it's mating season, which it has clearly been the entire time we've been here, the male birds dive through the air and use their tail feathers in a particular way to make this strange noise. Even better was when there were multiple birds doing this at the same time and the air would be filled with these weird 'whoop-whoop' noises. I hope you can hear this!
Bizarrely, nearby was a museum that had a couple of old planes. We were in the middle of nowhere! There used to be American forces stationed in Iceland. This plane had an interesting history as one of its jobs was to rescue people from the Vestmannaeyjabaer Islands when the volcano erupted in 1973. We visited the islands earlier in this trip.
Some pics for you dad.
Yellow flowers were a pretty change from the purple lupins!
There are often lights or cameras in remote areas that run on solar. We can't get over the angle of the solar panels! They are always on an angle like this.
We drove around the peninsula we were on and descended a steep, winding road. There were views at every turn.
Our destination was the Latrabjarg Cliffs. These cliffs are about 12 kms long and are absolutely covered with nesting birds! As we approached the cliffs, clouds started to roll in and the weather turned really murky. We walked along the cliff tops and the wind whipped so strongly up the cliffs that we had to be careful to not stray too close to the unfenced edges in case a sudden gust unbalanced us. It was freezing!
A razorbill
Birds nested in their thousands!
There were a few pretty flowers in among the nesting birds.
As soon as we headed away from the cliffs, the sun came out again. Weird.
We needed fuel and the closest town was Patreksfjordur. We could see it just across the fjord but to get there we had to drive about 30kms back along our peninsula, drive around the tip of the fjord then drive 30kms back up the other side of the fjord. We can't expect them to build bridges across every fjord. There are so many fjords that the country would go broke!
At the tip of the fjord a beached ship sat dramatically on the sands.
Lupins were everywhere. As beautiful as they are, apparently they're an introduced species and are considered to be a problem. I can see why as they've taken over huge tracts of land.
Patreksfjordur was a lovely little port town. The crazy thing is that it's named after an Irishman called Patrick! Apparently he settled here.
Even the sheds were cute.
There was an absolutely huge beach on our peninsula. It went for miles.
We parked directly behind it and it was so wide that it took me about 15 minutes to walk across it to the sea. It was stunningly beautiful but freezing.
The nearby cliffs went on forever.
A gorgeous church sat beneath the cliffs.
Hooroo!
Heather and John
Heather and John
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