View of Myvatn Lake from a lookout at Hofdi...
12:22am, Fjalladyrd farmhouse…
Man, this journal keeps me up at night, but gotta stick with it… I wake up at 8:30am this morning, 15 minutes before the alarm, and decide to check out the breakfast buffet. It's just bread, sliced cheese, ham, salami, and cereal, so decide to pass (not hungry anyway). I lay around until the alarm kicks in, and decide to research places to stay for the remainder of the trip. The hut attendants let me borrow their phone, and I call tons of places, but most everything is booked. I'm able to find reservationss for Thurs and Fri night fairly quickly, but can't' find any for tonight (Wed). I'm on the phone for ~1hr calling places while Wendy packs the car. We decide we'll have to camp tonight, though the thought of setting up a tent and camping is somewhat disapointing, as we've been getting used to sleeping bag accomodations in guesthouses. Finally it's time to head for Myvatn at 10:10am for some sight seeing, despite being dissapointed about not finding accomodations tonight. The 1st stop is along the south edge of the lake where there are "pseudocraters". Boring. Kind of looks like a golf course. The bugs are terrible here, and we abort our hike shortly.
Next we drive to Hofdi (where we got confiused last night), and follow a short trail through the forest that leads to a view above the lake. We don't spend long here, and soon drive to Dommel café, the next attraction up the road. There are lava formations, and some arches, but nothing compared to Moab. We abort early here again.
View of Myvatn Lake from a lookout at Hofdi...
The trails near Dommel cafe led into a sculptured lava landscape...
Next stop is the Vogarfjos café, which has it's own dairy farm. The menu is awesome, and we order a hvelsbread ice cream, which turns out to be a cookies and cream type thing with choc chips. The bread is super yummy bread, but there's too much chocolate that overpowers it.
We stop at a craft store on the edge of town, and Wendy browses wool sweaters. This store sells fresh, geo-thermally baked bread (takes 24 hours to bake buried in the warm earth), and buy some with smoked salmon, for lunch. The bread is delicious, with just complex earthy-molasses flavors!!! Similar to the bread we had at a Reykjavik restaurant. Turns out this geo-thermally baked bread is a signature food of Myvatn, and is a must to eat while visiting.
We had some hvelsbread ice cream, and later bought some of the bread to eat for lunch, with smoked salmon...
Drive to Helvir, eating our bread and salmon on the way, and continuing to eat in the parking lot. Helviv has steaming pools, and mud pots, similar to some areas of Yellowstone. We decide to climb Namesmith, a reddish clay hill that rises above Helvir on a steep slippery trail.
Bubbling pools...
We watched some paint pots gurgle and spit, before starting our hike up the mountain...
The trail was pretty hard and slippery, but we managed...
On top, the mountain was wide...
A look west to Myvatn Lake (1st pic), and east towards the hot pools where we started our hike (2nd pic)...
The earth had a lot of color to it...
From the top of the high, we see an easy path leading back to the highway. Wendy takes this short cut to the highway, while I run back to parking lot, and drive to pick her up. Efficient!
A look at a scratched up section of red earth on our way down...
I pick up Wendy along the highway, and we head back to Myvatn lake to visit the bird museum. But first we stop by the craft store to buy to buy 2 more still-warm, fresh, hvelbreads. At newly opened bird museum (2008), we view swans in the lake through a telescope. This museum is one of only 2 places on earth (the other in Japan) where a rare algae exists.
In addition to stuffed birds and eggs, they had these extremely rare "algae balls"...
Outside the museum, lots of ducks and swans swam in the lake...
We return to town to buy gas and groceries. There's long lines at only grocery store in this small resort town. Our last stop in the Myvatn region is Kafla, a geothermally active area, where a large geothermal plant captures the earth's energy. It's similar to imagining if a big geothermal plant opened up in Yellowstone. We drive to the end of the road, but decide not to hike much here, and start our drive to Dettifoss.
A crater lake at the end of the road in Kafla...
We head back to the ring road, and drive east for ~1hr, until we reach the turn-off for Dettifoss, the largest volume waterfall in Europe. It's a 30km drive on a gravel road, which Wendy largely sleeps though. I make good time on the road, averaging 80km/hr. Several cars at this remote parking area. Wow, there is truly a massive amount of water at Dettifoss. I take lots of pics.
Pretty intense waterfall...
We could see people on the west side of the falls. We were on the east side (which has a non-4x4 road)...
We hike 1km to the south, and reach Selfoss, which is equally, if not more impressive and pretty waterfall. I feel very weak hiking across the rocky riverside, and realize I mostly skipped breakfast, and didn't drink much today (might be the reasons). I stay away from the edge of the river.
We hike back to the parking lot...
Once back to the car, we drive back to Ring Road (again good speed across the gravel roads -- helps having a large Ford Taurus to keep things smooth), arriving ~8:05pm. Time to decide where to stay tonight. We could camp in a fishing village (after a long drive), or camp in a farm just 40 minutes away. We end up deciding on the farm (which also has a café). After a 40 minute scenic drive, we arrive, and discover that the place looks amazing! It's like disneyland with a Icelandic old-time village theme. We inquire about accomodations, fully expecting to have to camp, but there is a 2 bed sleeping bag accomodation room available, for just 6300isk! We take it, and each buy a bottomless bowl of lamb soup at the cafe. The lamb is from a local farm. Yummy! We eat 4 bowls each, along with some of the bread we bought. We are both very happy to end up at this place. The more we explore, the more amazed we are.
We arrive at the Fjalladyrd farmstead, our place for the night...
The 8:35pm sun lit everything up in a golden glow, adding more enchantment to the Icelandic farm charm...
We ate 4 bowls of lamb soup at the cafe...
A look at the grass roofed cafe...
Behind the cafe was a campground and kids playing in the grassy dikes...
The camp kitchen is like a museum re-creation of a viking shelter. We drive across a bumpy/uneven grassy field to reach our grass roofed room for the night. I eat a few bowls of cereal (milk, granola, protein powder, jelly, PB), while Wendy goes off to take pics of sunset. It's getting cold. The sun sets at 10:30pm now. We're losing 6+ minutes of sun per day, and it's getting noticeably darker at night since we arrived 10 days ago.
We found a white rabbit while taking a walk. Must be a pet. We'd be staying in a grass roofed cabin tonight (2nd pic)...
Some pictures of the country-side, just prior to sundown...
I stayed near the car and cabin, eating a late night cereal snack, while Wendy walked around taking pics of sunset...
Our cabin was small, but fun. We had our own space heater...
I get ready to brush my teeth, and notice that the front passenger tire is flat! No!!!!!!!!!!! I get the jack out, and inspect the full size spare (good thing). The jack just sinks into the soft ground, so I'll probably have to drive back to the pavement to jack the car up, or ask for assistence. Bummer, I have to go to bed with the complications of a flat tire on my mind…
The electric heater in room makes this place cozy and warm.
Almost fell asleep typing this log on my laptop….
Good thing we already have accomodations for the rest of the week, since I may need some time to address the tire tomorrow. 8:45am alarm tomorrow.