Midges & Mudpots: Exploring Myvatn & Detifoss [photojournal]

Hello friends |

Driving approximately Lake Myvatn as well as its surrounds was similar driving on a different planet - milky bluish pools contrasted alongside the sprawling orangish deserts , as well as steamy mud pots gurgled as well as bubbled underfoot. 

It was an alien place.  The air was filled alongside midges (Myvatn literally agency 'midge water') but they weren't the biting kind.  They only filled the air as well as clouded your confront as well as made every displace to infiltrate your eyes as well as mouth.  When it wasn't total of bugs , the air stifled y'all alongside the overwhelmingly putrid olfactory belongings of sulphur.  I'm non selling this identify , I know - but i time y'all adjusted to the discomforts , it held a for sure magic.

Lake Myvatn

Beautiful homes for hidden people surrounding the lake itself.

Just close the lake is "the Blue Lagoon of the North" - the Myvatn Nature Baths.  With the same pearlescent silt , masseurs as well as cocktails , this identify is perfect for ultimate decadence.  Once you're warm as well as soft-skinned , it's fourth dimension to brand your way to Hverir , for the almost unforgettable site inward the area.

Hverir is a super geologically active expanse , alongside bubbling hot mudpools as well as steaming fumaroles (which are literally openings inward the crust of the public , which totally blows my mind).  The contrast of colours as well as sites hither is something different anything else , but the sulphur stink takes a petty flake of getting used to.

A petty lesson inward Icelandic spelling as well as pronunciation - nix is phonetic here.  Nope , nothing.  "Hv" together , is truly pronounced "K".  Go figure.  We learnt this on this petty excursion , as well as realised that nosotros were definitely mispronouncing the "hervagerdi" hot river we'd visited a few weeks ago.

From Hverir nosotros continued driving toward Detifoss - targuably the almost powerful waterfall inward Europe.  The pictures don't create this i justice.  As luck would cause got it , the pelting started to autumn only every bit nosotros pulled upwardly to the parking lot.  This compounded alongside the spray from the waterfall , as well as nosotros were chop-chop drenched.  Camera , lenses , spectacles , jackets... everything was soaked through.  

This was i of those times , though , when y'all truly create acquire a feel of how intense as well as powerful nature tin dismiss be.  There are several walks y'all tin dismiss create approximately the waterfall , as well as if we'd had a petty flake to a greater extent than fourth dimension , nosotros would've liked to hike downwards approximately the base of operations (I recall this is a 4 hr walk , but at that spot are signs when y'all arrive).  We had to settle for scrambling over the rocks that are the closest y'all tin dismiss safely walk , where a modest river separates from almost of the menses , as well as the H2O carves out foreign shapes inward the rocks.

We stumbled upon some beautiful long , lonely roads on our way dorsum northward to Skagaströnd , where the Sun was setting/rising over the harbour when nosotros arrived only earlier 2am.