3 posts tagged “waterfall”

Detifoss

Detifoss is the largest waterfall in Europe by volume of water discharged.  The foss is fed by melt from the Vatnajökull glacier, which is the largest glacier in Europe.  Detifoss is in a remote, desolate part of northeast Iceland.  One must take a 45 km (28 miles) dirt gravel out to the falls.  Luckily the speed limit on these gravel roads is 80 kph (50 mph), only 10 kmh less than the paved roads. 

Noosha under a double rainbow
(We loved the freedom of being able to walk up to the waterfall and cliffside)

 

Hverarond Mud Pits

The Hverarond mud pits are probably one of the worst smelling sights one should ever visit.  The pungent odor of sulfur hits you the moment you step outside the vehicle, and proceeds to get worse the closer you get.  However inspite of the smell the location of the pits and the pits themselves are spectacular. 

 

Lake Mývatn

The Lake Mývatn area is the garden location of Iceland.  Located in the north of Iceland the lake is situated in an active volcanic region and is know for lush vegetation and abundent wildlife including fish, birds (especially duck), and insects.  The name of the lake is Midge Lake named for the resident irritant in abundance, the Midge fly. 

We toured two areas around the lake.  The first is an area known for numerous pseudocraters.  These craters were formed by lava covering pools of water.  The water was heated to such a temperature they exploded creating craters from the lava.  The pseudocraters are now covered in grass and are quite striking.

The second area we visited was a small penninsula that was gated and had several small walking trails.  The penninsula was forested and had many beautiful views of the lake and its wildlife.  We were there on such a beautiful day the lake was amazing.

Brian finally got a good photograph of the lichen in Iceland

Here are a few random shots I thought were pretty.  They are from our driving tour along the eastern part of Iceland.

These are pictures from one of the farms.  This was the closet thing to still functioning farm with 150 head of sheep.

One of the many falls on our trip.

Huge U-shaped glacial valley.  This picture was taken from a picnic pull out on the Ring Road just before heading into a 3 mile tunnel through the other side of this valley.

We didn't take too many photos of the famous Icelandic horse.  They are a beautiful species.  See WiKi link for more information on this interesting bread of horses.

We missed the birth of this horse by minutes.  We saw it takes its first steps.  This photo was taken from the road on our way to get gas in the morning.  This field is in between two gas stations and a major intersection.  It was pretty crazy to see something so "wild" right in the middle of this town.

The picture below was taken from a high pass on the Ring Road.  We went over several passes like this one.  The road on some of the passes was gravel and there was generally nothing around on the passes.

By Brian

Southern Iceland was a beautiful mix of lush green rolling terrain, views of the Atlantic Ocean, waterfalls (or foss in Icelandic), and glaciers (more on those in another post).  We departed Reykjavik heading east on our counter-clockwise tour via Route 1 which is known as the Ring Road.  There was plenty of time to visit waterfalls and enjoy the views on the first day as we only needed to drive 150 KM. 

A few of the waterfalls we saw along the way.

One of the nice things about visiting sights in Iceland is you can walk right up to the thing you are viewing.  Rarely are there ropes or barriers preventing you from jumping right into the waterfall is you so desired.  Paths allow one to get within inches of cliffs to get up close and person photographs. 

They drive these really big off road vehicles with huge balloon tires in Iceland.  All over we saw these huge vehicles.

Here is our little SUV next to the Viking SUVs.

Our "farmhouse" guest house for the first night of the tour ended up being one of our nicest (now finally writing this post on our last night of the tour we can look back and make this judgment).  The place looked as if it had very recently opened.  From the outside it was rather non-descript and down a gravel road in a rural area many miles from any developed town.  Inside everything was modern and new.  The views out our windows was beautiful (windows which opened in two directions, 1) tilting from the bottom with a 3"-4" opening, or 2) swinging all the way open on side hinges). 

Fancy Euro shower

Dining area