Sunday, December 11, 2016

Magma, Movies and Mammoth Mammals

Real-life lava fields!  This was a dream come true for me.
The beauty, power, and danger of volcanoes and lava has always been a fascination of mine.  As much as they frighten, they also impress. We're standing on a tiny shell of rock and dirt that is sitting on a giant orb of hot magma. It's moving and shifting all the time, and sometimes breaks through the surface

You keep to the path, for your own good.
The extreme landscape of Iceland has been caused by the divide between the North American and Eurasian Plate.  We all remember the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull a few years ago, which is on the southern end of the island.  Well, on the north end of the island we were on the opposite end of the same fault line.  Located here was the Krafla Geothermal Power plant, and the nearby Krafla lava field.  While no longer spewing lava, you could still see steam rising from the fissures, and bubbling mud pits all around. We walked around for the better part of 2 hours, and we could have stayed for much longer and gone much further.  The field went on for about 15 km.

The rock was incredibly rough and light.

 Next we hit the road out of Mývatn and started on toward the coastal town of Húsavík.


Dettifoss was the next stop.  It is a popular stop, and we saw more people here than we had anywhere else since the beginning of the trip.  It's an epic waterfall, and is featured in the opening scene of the movie Prometheus.   It is an incredibly powerful waterfall - the crashing sound of the water was incredible.  

Dettifoss
The canyon it flows into wasn't actually created over time by this steady stream of water, but was caused by extreme glacial floods, which took place over the course of a few days. The power of water is easy to forget and hard to imagine sometimes. 


The canyon is called Jökulsárgljúfur, and the same flooding that caused the canyon, caused the Asbyrgi canyon further down river.  
The flood waters cut around this magnificent rock
It was kind of enormous.
Asbyrgi canyon is protected all the way around by these tall rock cliffs, and has created a green and protected space for lots of things to grow.  Flowers, trees, grasses, ducks and birds have settled in quite nicely in this little grove.  It is so different than most of this area.  There was a really great interpretive centre at the entrance to the park that explained the natural creation of this unique space.
T-shirt weather, for the first time since arriving in Iceland.
I was surprised at how much warmer it was here, simply by being protected a bit from the wind by the cliffs and the trees.  It was really nice to walk around and see such a lush and different side of the area.  So different from the lava fields just a few kilometers away.


Húsavík was up next.  Husavik used to be a whaling town, and they have a fantastic museum located in a former slaughterhouse.  The Húsavík Whale Museum is all about whales, the history of whaling, and the importance of conservation.  They had a full Blue Whale skeleton on display on the main floor, complete with original balene.  We didn't take any photos because we were too busy learning - but you can take  a look through their website to see what else they had going on.

We had dinner at a pub on the docks.  We sat on the patio wearing sunglasses and slathered in sunscreen, while also wearing coats and hats.  The sun was hot-hot-hot, but the breeze cold-cold-cold.  Sitting by the water had us thinking a lot about what we were going to be doing the next day.  I was so excited, I had a hard time falling asleep, and not just because of the sun streaming through our van's windows.


Sunday, December 4, 2016

Rock, Petra, Sheep

The smallest of plants, growing out of a pile of stones on a saltwater beach.

This next day was to be one of our longest drives, but conditions couldn't have been lovelier.  We were lucky to enjoy yet another sunny, cloudless day - not what I pictured Iceland to be like, even in the summer. We had a lot of distance to get through if we were going to make it back to Reykjavik in less than a week.  My stick-shift driving skills were pretty rusty at the beginning of our travels, but thanks to Daniel's patience and nerves of steel on the first day, I got over my jitters and got along okay.

This route equated to about a 5 hour drive, but we took much longer because of all of our stops.

We obviously were driving a lot, and that might seem boring, but it was one of the most incredible parts of the trip.  The roads, especially on this side of the island, were pretty empty.  They weaved along cliffsides and port-towns. There was always something magnificent to look at, whether it was sheep on the roadside or the larger than life sky. 
There were sheep everywhere, and they always seemed to be out on the road, and not in the fenced in areas.
Our first major stop of the day was in Stöðvarfjörður for Petra's Stone & Mineral Collection.  Daniel described it to me from our guidebook as an interesting place to stop. It was along the coast, would add to our drive, and we had to take a long gravel road to get there. I won't deny that I was dubious it would be worth it.  A rock collection museum, in a rock filled country?  How interesting is that?  Well, I was certainly wrong.  It was such a cool stop.


Just a small corner of Petra's Stone & Mineral Collection.


It is an outdoor rock garden, with incredible stones covering every single surface. Throughout her life Petra collected stones from all over the nearby mountains.  Where someone would see a pile of unremarkable rubble, she would be able to pick out a lovely and interesting rock easily.   Even as she was getting on in years, her favourite thing to do would be to climb up a mountain, fill a backpack with rocks and bring them back to her garden.  There were a few geodes that she would roll down the hill, or hide away and come back later with friends and a sledge to help her bring the rock back.


This particular specimen was about the size of a medicine ball, and was Petra's favourite stone.
Now, this was just her own personal garden, with her own collection - and yet people would come over from all over to marvel over it.  For years she never charged anything, because she knew these rocks belonged to the country and not to her personally.  Eventually, the number of tourists, and their use of her washroom, convinced her to start charging a nominal fee.  Since her passing, her family runs the garden so all that pass by can see it. Stop by if you ever get a chance - or read about Petra and her life if you want to smile.  She also collected pens and matchboxes, but they were kept safe indoors.

Also in that little town we found a beautiful wool and craft market, and a yard sale in a warehouse (trust me to find wooly goods shop or a yard sale, wherever we are).  I picked up a few random post cards at the yard sale, and at the craft market, instead of buying a knitted item, I purchased some Lopi yarn for a sweater.


Now, pretty much everything in Iceland is expensive, and for good reason.  It's a remote island and any town that isn't Reykjavik is exponentially more remote. The further away you are from the capital, the more expensive everything is. The only exception to this rule is wool. Istex purchases raw wool from Icelandic farmers, and it is milled and spun in a town called Blönduós. It's about as local as you can get, and I got this sweater quantity of wool for a steal of a deal.  I have a pattern in mind, and once I knit it up, I have no doubt it will be one of the warmest things I'll ever own. 

Back on the road! Onward to Seyðisfjörður!  We had to drive up and over a mountain range to get to the charming town, and it was worth it. 
I forgot to take any pictures of the town itself, which was a shame - but I did remember to take  a picture of the wool in the grocery store.  Also a steal of a deal here.


There was a pond in the middle of the town, likely fed by the waterfalls that flowed down the mountain we drove down.  There was a little island in the middle of the pond that one kid had got to, and there were a group of 4-5 others who were trying to make it there as well.  The water was clearly frigid, and the shrieks and screams of joy and discomfort as others tried to cross to the island were hilarious and endearing.


So. Many. Waterfalls.

Again, we enjoyed our time there so much that we forgot to take any pictures.

Onward again, for a few more hours to our final campsite in Mývatn, Just a half hour away from  our final destination for the night, we  stopped at Hverir to check out some of the amazing geothermal activity in the area.  The smell of sulfur was intense, though it bothered me much more than it did Daniel.  All across this field of red-brown dirt there were large bubbling blue mud-pits, marked off with bits of string.  All across Iceland, even at the most dangerous and precarious stops, you are responsible for your own safety.  If you decide to stand on slippery rocks next to a waterfall, or step over the 4 inch high string boundary keeping you from hot bubbling sulfuric mud - that's on you. There is no one to rescue you from yourself.


Mars-like landscape



While the smell of sulfur did turn my stomach, it was a remarkable sight to see in person.  The landscape did make me think of Mars, with the red-brown rocks and strangely shaped mountains in the background.  This geyser was covered in a small  tower of rocks, and it made the most amazing whooshing and hissing sounds along with quite a bit of heat. I had never seen anything like it.



At this point, the sun was on its way down, which meant it was pretty late.  We'd soon be settled into our bed for the night, bellies full of delicious pizza (served in a small outbuilding next to the campground)  ready for the next day of adventures.