Akureyri a port of call in Iceland

 Continuing north we sailed our way to Iceland.  We all know of it, we know where it is…. But we don’t realise how beautiful it is until we visit. 

If you are not up early enough to enjoy the scenic transit along the Eyjafjörður fjord, you can always catch it on the way out.

We watched as the sky changed colours with the rising sun

You can follow the route of the stream as it makes its way down to the fjord, by the steam of the hot water as it hits the cold air...

Not as big as Reykjavik, it has a lovely charm of its own, right down to the heart-shaped red traffic lights.

We have been here before, but as were travelling with others in our group who had not, we decided that we didn’t mind revisiting some of the must-see spots.

Our tour was with Artic Shorex, and it was Alex that I dealt with from start to finish.  We did have to pay upfront, but it was all refundable if we didn’t make it into Akureyri. 

Organising a group of 15 was easy through our cruise critic site, though I don’t normally organise tours so big, but Iceland is not cheap, and having organised a tour here before, I knew how efficient they were so I didn’t think twice.  Artic Shorex even made things simpler as they set up a private link so everyone could pay separately.

Once we boarded our minibus we were on our way. As we crossed the fjord we drove past the airport runway, which could also be seen from the ship.  There is no room for error here cause if the brakes don’t stop you, the icy waters of the fjord will. 

This is view of the runway from the ship

This is the view of the ship from the runway

As we headed towards our first stop with drove through the Vadlaheidi Tunnel,  built to make driving shorter and safer from Akureyri to Myvatn Lakes.

You may or not be aware of Iceland’s abundance of geothermal hot water.  Whilst drilling the tunnel they struck a stream of this hot water, which they did find a workaround. But a consequence is the tunnel can reach temperatures of up to 26 deg in its warmest sections, no matter what the temperature is like outside.

 

This is a picture of the entrance to the tunnel as we sailed past

Nice view before heading into the Tunnel

Throughout the day we enjoyed the amazing and everchanging landscapes as we drove to each of our destinations. Luckily for us, the day just seemed to keep improving as we went along, and we warmed up quite quickly.

Jon, our driver for the day was very informative and told many stories...  Also gave us some food for thought when explaining the meaning of  "History" and when we read it we should always remember, that history comes from those who actually documented the times... So in reality History is only as true as he who wrote it .... because it is only "His Story"

 Our first stop was at the Dettifoss Falls, said to be the most powerful fall in Europe.  You can understand why as you stand next to it and feel the thunderous roar of the water cascading over the edge.

From the car park, we had a short walk to get to the falls through an area that brought back memories of being at the Giants Causeway in Belfast.

Columns in the distance that remind us of Belfast

The falls were amazing, but alas no photograph can do it justice.

When walking back to the bus, we took a short detour that gave us views of the smaller Selfoss Falls.

Dimmuborgir is a sprawling field of lava rock formations.  Our visit this time was not quite as long as it was the last time we were here….

  Dimmuborgir has 2 claims to fame… one being the area that housed the Wildling Army in Game of Thrones ( Where haven’t they filmed GOT) and the other more sinister.

As legend has it … Grýla half-troll, half-ogre, and her submissive husband Leppalúði lived within these formations. Grýla was renowned for her insatiable appetite for children, and her gigantic pet cat, which would eat children over the Christmas period for not getting any new 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.

Guess that was one way to make sure the kids did as they were told.

Hverir is a geothermal place under the Namafjall mountain.  The smell of rotten eggs is not the only thing you can expect here.  There are bubbling mud pools, hissing fumaroles, and a cracked colourful landscape.

You can be excused for thinking that you have just stepped into a scene of The Martian,  the land is so barren and probably why Nasa used this place as a training centre for their astronauts

 

Next stop was the Jewel in the Crown of the tour…. Godafoss falls.

As the story goes, in the year 1000 a local chieftain Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði decided that Icelanders should adopt Christianity. 

He threw all of his statues of Pagan gods into the waterfall and the waterfall was appropriately named Goðafoss, which translates to the “waterfall of the gods”.

We viewed the falls from the opposite side that we were taken to on our last visit. This time we climbed down the rocks to see it from the base. 

View from the Bottom

Climbing back up

View from the top

This shot was taken in 2017 from the other side of the canyon

View down stream

Back towards the visitors centre and car park

Happy Hour

On the way back to the bus a few of us found happy hour while the others stopped in the souvenir shop.

With still more wonderful scenery to see we stopped at the Skutustadagigar Pseudocraters.

How are pseudo-craters formed?

These rootless craters form when piping hot thin-flowing molten lava flows over a wetland or boggy areas. The hot lava boils the water of the wetlands and the steam pressure causes explosions, creating clusters of pseudocraters.

Jon explained it like, think of baking a cake.  If the batter is too wet, as it cooks, bubbles form on the top and when they pop they leave craters on top of the cooked cake.

We finished our tour with some lovely stops around Lake Myvatn

It was another beautiful sail back out of the fjord made more dazzling as the sun shone down on the mountain tops....

Lots of people out on deck as we sailed away

But alas as we sailed out of the Fjord, we sailed into the foggy weather.