FRIDAY AUGUST 31st - Lake Myvatn
For some odd reason, the Farm Holiday's tour recommendations completely skipped the Lake Myvatn area when putting together our Ring Route trip. However, after reading about it I knew it was foolish to overlook this area if you are anywhere near it. Because we had to get pretty far West by the end of the day, we had to make the journey relatively short. We headed back East toward the area and decided to take Route 848 up the West side. Originally thinking this might be a gravel road slowing our trip, we were pleasantly surprised to see it paved. We didn't really stop anywhere along the western lake shore instead waiting to stop until we found a nice tourism office on the Northern end of the lake. After some great pointers, we headed towards the Hverarönd geothermal field. This field was quite big and had some nice steaming vents, mud pots, sulfur deposits and fumaroles. The sulfur smell was quite strong and the area made me think of walking in a cat litter box as our shoes were caked with sulfur filled mud upon exit.
After cleaning our shoes the best we could we headed for the Reykjahlið swilling pool to take a look. We didn't have time for a swim but I wanted to see if it was really as nice as the Blue Lagoon as I had read. While the actual pool may have been as nice the building certainly wasn't as impressive. It is a much plainer facility. However, since it costs a lot less to enter, I can understand why some people chose to go there instead of or in addition to the Blue Lagoon.
Next up was the Viti explosion crater. A short drive through a geothermal plant left us at the bottom of a short trail leading to the top of the crater. Less than a 20 minute walk put us up on the rim staring down into this blue water filled crater. No really a spectacular sight but pretty unique.
A couple minutes later and we were headed back down and back towards the lake. Neither of us are bird watchers but considering how much I'd heard about Lake Myvatn being this huge bird-watchers paradise, I expected to see more birds. Maybe the birds were already gone for the season or maybe there went enough black flies and midges (there were more than enough to pester me). Whatever it was there simply weren't many birds. On the East side of the lake I stopped briefly to marvel at Hverfell tephra ring.
Later, we stopped to admire the cool lava field and rock formations at Dimmuborgir and Markhraun. We finally finished up our lake area exploration by wandering around some pseudo craters on the South end of the lake. We had spent about 3 1/2 hours exploring the lake. We easily could have spent more but I was very satisfied with what we were able to see.
Leaving the lake and heading back West once again we stopped for another set of waterfalls at Godafoss. These large falls were quite impressive and you could walk right up to the edge of them. It took a little carefully maneuvering and one wet shoe but I managed to get myself positioned within inches of huge water drop. This would be the last significant falls we'd see in Iceland although we see literally hundreds of more small falls during the rest of our drive.
We breezed through Akureyri this time around and only briefly considered a rafting trip in the Varmahlið area before continuing on a long winding drive to our next and last farm house at Stðarskáli in Hrútafjöordur. The host greeted us nicely but told us she was thrilled that this was her last weekend dealing with the Ring Routers. Apparently her season was over and not a moment too soon. We opted for the dinner this time paying close to $65 for a simple dinner consisting of some sauce covered fish, rice, bread and a very small serving of vegetables. We were surprised to see that even in Iceland, Dr. Phil made his presence on TV.
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