Driving ICELAND's Ring Road: Faskrudsfjordur to Akureyri

                                

Northeast ICELAND

Part 3/4

                                  Faskrudsfjordur>Myvatn>Akureyri

Fjords - Calderas - Mud Springs - Fumaroles - Craters - Volcanoes  

Rock Formations - Lava Caves - Waterfalls - Turf Houses

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More Fun Facts

In Icelandic culture, lava caves are allegedly the homes of the nation’s brutal and vile trolls. The most famous of these were the half-troll, half-ogre Grýla and her submissive husband Leppalúði. Grýla was renowned for her insatiable appetite for children, and her gigantic pet cat, that would eat children over the Christmas period for not getting any clothes (encouraging kids to finish their weaving, knitting and sewing chores before the season set in).

Grýla and Leppalúði had thirteen sons who lived in Dimmuborgir and are now known as the ‘Icelandic Santa Clauses’ or Yule Lads. On the thirteen nights before Christmas, these trolls come one by one to terrorise Icelanders, each with their own strategy after which they were named.

Sheep-Colt Clod, for example, would harass livestock; Skyr-Gobbler would steal and lick the house's supplies of yoghurt-like skyr; and Window-Peeper would stare into houses, looking for things to burgle.

Want to learn more about the Folklore of Iceland? ... click here.

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Route

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JOURNAL

I've used the Iceland font for Icelandic placenames where we stayed on our driving route or as sidetrips we took and for some Journal details.

My sincere apologies to any native Icelanders for any spelling errors I may have made.

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Photography

Cameras: NIKON Coolpix P610 & CANON DSLR EOS Rebel T8i

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Day11

Route: Faskrudsfjordur > Myvatn                                           

Sidetrip: none

Distance (Daily / Cummulative): 293  / 1602 kms 

Hiking (Daily / Total): 5.5 / 79.0 kms 

Camp07: 2 nights @ Laxa Hotel

Beautiful morning, clear, sunny, cool; might just be our nicest travel day so far. We entered the first mountain pass of the day at 7 C, dropped t0 2 C at the summit and rose to 5 C at the bottom of the far side. Driving temperature ranged from 1 - 10 C today. We did encounter some small sections of fog in places. We're also seeing much more Autumn colour change now. 

Note: All photos contained in the post, for this day; were taken around or adjacent to Lake Myvatn. This is a stunning landscape that affords many opportunities for walking, hiking and photography. You could spend several days in the area and still not have sufficient time to see everything.

Mud Pots

Mud pots are boiling mud pits that are found in geothermal areas. They are created when water seeps into the ground and is heated by volcanic activity, causing it to rise back up to the surface as steam. As the steam rises, it carries minerals and other materials from deep within the Earth, solidifying and forming the characteristic mud pots.

The best place to see mud pots in Iceland is here, in the Hverir geothermal area, in the country's north.

Krafla Caldera

Krafla is a volcanic caldera of about 10 km in diameter with a 90 km long fissure zone. The above mud pot and other photos for this day highlight a few of the features of the caldera.

This caldera, is located in the north of Iceland in the Myvatn region and is situated on the Iceland hotspot atop the mid-Atlantic Ridge, which forms the divergent boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Its highest peak reaches up to 818 m and is 2 km in depth. There have been 29 reported eruptions in history.

Fumarole

A fumarole is a vent in the surface of the Earth from which hot, volcanic gases and vapours are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids.

Hverir Geothermal

About 85% of all homes in Iceland are heated with geothermal energy. Renewable energy provided almost 100% of the electricity production; 73% from hydropower and 27% from geothermal power. 

Icelandic geothermal power plants drill wells, to a depth of over 2 kms, to extract hot water vapour. The vapour is separated into liquid water and steam in so-called separators. The steam is then run through turbines that turn to produce electricity.

The Krafla geothermal power plant is a geothermal power generating facility in Iceland. It has 33 boreholes, is considered Iceland's largest power station and is able to produce 500 GWh of electricity annually, with an installed capacity of 60 megawatts.

 
Viti Crater

The Hlioarrett Sheepfold

Today, Icelanders call this the Rettir; refer to the first blog post for this trip.

Greylag Geese

 Hverfjall Volcano

Hverfjall is a tephra cone or tuff ring volcano in northern Iceland, to the east of the Myvatn volcanic lake. It's volcanic explosion crater is a 1 km wide and about 140 metres deep. It is dark, round, almost symetrical and utterly captivating.

 
Dimmuborgir Lava Field

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Day12

Route: Myvatn > Husavik > Asbyrgi > Hwy 1  > Myvatn  

Sidetrip: none

Distance (Daily / Cummulative): 263.7 / 1865.7 kms 

Hiking (Daily / Total): 7.4  / 86.4 kms 

Camp07: 2 nights @ Laxa Hotel

Low cloud and a cool morning, warmed to a high of 13C with mostly clear skies for the remainder of the day. The locals tell us they haven't seen this much good weather in weeks ... they probably say that to all the tourists! Big stone formations and 'the second most powerfall waterfall ' in Europe. Spending one more night here, but doing a daytrip to a few 'out-of-the-way spots'.

... heading north to the coast today.

Hljooaklettar Rock Formations

These are the remains of an ancient row of craters eroded for centuries (after centuries) by the strong currents and floods of the Jökulsá á Fjöllum glacial river.

The Jökulsá á Fjöllum glacial river from a viewpoint above. The following 2 photos show some of the canyon walls that shape it.

XOverland was at the falls.

Detifoss Waterfall

Dettifoss is reputed to be the second most powerful waterfall in Europe, after the Rhine River Falls.

Selfoss Waterfall

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Day13

Route: Myvatn > Akureyri

Sidetrip: > Laufas

Distance (Daily / Cummulative): 110 / 1975.7 kms 

Hiking (Daily / Total): 5 / 91.4 kms 

Camp08: 1 night @ Hotel Kea

Low fog at 7 am, visbility 50 feet. Cleared mostly but stayed cool, high 7 C. Just another waterfall and an ancient Turf Manor Home.

Godafoss Waterfall  ... the outflow

Goðafoss waterfall is located in the river Skjálfandafljót in north Iceland, the fourth-largest river in Iceland. It is one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the country, falling from a height of 12 meters (39 feet) over a width of 30 meters (98 feet).

Laufus

Laufás was designed to house up to thirty people; turf farms would often be quite crowded, with the household, their staff, dependents of the state, seasonal workers and often vagrants and travellers (inhospitality was considered extremely taboo in Iceland’s history). To accommodate this number, it has several houses adjoined together, with a few more buildings dotted around them.

The Entrance

Generally, the photos that follow begin at the top floor (painted finishes), then move to the lower level where corridors provide access to a number of rooms used for specific purposes.

Helen took this picture, she moved me into a single bed recently, note firearm ... 💡!

Bedroom

Down a steep flight of stairs to the lower level.

Bedroom with single beds, wool carting brush, dresser, desk ...

Wood stove, pots, kettle ...

Dish rack, rolling pin, wooden cutting board, lantern ...

Dried fish, gaff hook hanging?, lantern, awls on wooden board, barrel, open door to corridor ...

Barrels for churning, grinding ? ...

Washtubs, washboards, stone fire pits, water pots ...

Wool carting ...

Horse saddles, firewood ...

Akureyri

A bit of a walkabout ...

View from our nights stay in Akureyri ...

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About Litter

This is one of the few litter containers we have seen in Iceland; they don't appear to be needed. We've been in cities, towns and villages - on paved and gravel roads - in urban, rural and remote regions of this country and it's extremely clean ... everywhere. Peoples yards and properties are neat, tidy and orderly. There are some fast food restaurants in the larger cities, but many of the large international franchises are not present; McDonalds was, but is no longer. People don't eat in their cars and dispose of their food waste and other garbage by throwing it from the car window, as it's done all over North America. And, very little graffitti also; we saw a couple of old, abandoned barns away off in fields with some and a few older (destined for renovation) buildings in Rekjavik; that's it. Maybe the Ogres 👹have something to do with the cleanliness ... they are purported to eat human flesh afterall ... not just any human though, just the litterbugs?

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Next

The drive continues with, " Akureyri to Laugarbakki Village " 

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We're Kanoe Tripping with a Mitsibushi Eclipse Crossover Hybrid this adventure 

... LOAF stayed at BASECAMP. 

  

You can follow all our travels from here.

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