May 31 - Start early driving to the east. The weather has changed a strong freezing wind with dark clouds but no rain. I do not catch the situation early enough when we head through a tunnel (8 km) that ends up being a tollway. Only find out the damage days later, when we are charged Kr 6349 ($45).
Go first to Goðafoss, just off Highway 1. This is a waterfall 12 meters tall but very wide. Like most, it cuts through a thick basalt lava flow. Its fame in Icelandic history is that in 1000 CE, Þorgeir, chieftain of the Ljosavatn district, and at that time acting as Lawspeaker for the Althing, was in a position to decide whether the clans would convert to Christianity or not. Once he decided to convert, he took the pagan statues to the top of the falls and threw them in. The falls were named after this event.
The next area of interest is Mývatn, a freshwater lake in a volcanically active area (more or less the point where the bearing of the rift changes from NE to NNE). The last period of great activity here occurred underneath a previous water body, creating some unusual landforms. We stop first at the main visitor’s center on the western side of the lake. Just outside are the pseudo-craters of Skútustaðagígar. These little, round craters were formed when lava flowing from the last major eruptions rapidly covered areas with water-saturated mud (like wetlands). The water and mud trapped underneath began boiling and spewed out as mud-saturated gases. Hence the name pseudo-craters, since they didn’t form by the expulsion of magma.
Besides Iceland, they are known from only a few other places in the world, such as Hawaii.
In the visitor’s center, there is an example of an amazing algae type that occurs only here, a lake in Japan, and another in the Ukraine. It is called a marimo, and is a spherical ball of a relatively common variety of algae. It is not clear how they form, though it is proposed that they are torn from rocks by constant agitation of shallow water, and grow while rolling around on the lakebed.
Another unusual volcanic feature here are fumaroles formed in a similar way, in that water was trapped underneath a lava flow and bubbled out through it. In this case, the exiting water cooled the lava to solidify it into vertical tubes, while the lava around flowed away, leaving pillars of basalt behind.
Shortly after this we enter a large area almost completely devoid of vegetation. Patches of discoloration indicate high-temperature alteration. Just past a geothermal plant is Hverir, a flat expanse of fumaroles. Some are bubbling with mud, others jetting steam. Much sulfur smell here.
The weather has not improved today and I don’t know how enthused everyone is for the next destination, the Mývatn Nature Baths. We go anyway, as they have a restaurant and view over the lake and geothermal activity. In the end Mike and Debbie stay in the restaurant, while Janet, Odette, and I pay a total of $120 to go in. We change in the locker rooms and brave the cold walk from there to the pools.
Spend about an hour in the pools (some cooler than others), then back in the car and east to a small road that goes north to Dettifoss. This waterfall is the largest yet we’ve seen, as is reputed to be the second largest in Europe after the Rhine Falls. It is 100 m wide and 44 m tall. The trail there covers barren, boulder-strewn lava flows and patches of snow.
I recognize it as the location of the first scene in the 5th Alien movie ‘Prometheus’. There is a decent amount of water going over it, and the mist has generated patches of snow on the nearby flat areas (must crystalize when the ambient temperatures go below 0).
The way east passes through the town of Egilsstaðir, largest in the eastern part of Iceland, and on to where our apartment is located, in the coastal village of Reyðarfjörður. The scenery approaching the latter town is incredible, helped along by the occasional appearance of the sun.
