Day 4 - Midge Country

We spent the night in Akureryi and did a little souvenir shopping before heading east to the Mývatn Lake area.

First we stopped at Goðafoss - waterfall of the gods. According to legend, after converting the country to Christianity, Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði (one of the main rulers of the island at that time) threw all his pagan idols into the waterfall, thus changing the Viking gods for the Christian god.

On to Mývatn, which means midge lake, and volcano country.

What you don't see in those pictures are the thousands of midges flying around our heads. Best 4000 kr spend of the trip was for four mosquito nets.

Wearing our mosquito nets we moved on to Dimmuborgir, which means dark castles. These lava formations are said to be the home of the Yule Lads in summer. The Yule Lads are the sons of two trolls. They come to town one by one during the last 13 nights before Yule. They leave small gifts in shoes that children have placed on window sills, but if the child has been disobedient they instead leave a rotten potato in the shoe.

Hverir geothermal area is a barren landscape full of boiling mud pools and steam vents. It's located at the foot of Namafjall (fjall means volcano). It smells very strongly of sulphur. Robin stayed in the car for this one.

The next stop was the Leihrinkur crater.

Then it was on to Dettifoss, a waterfall in Vatnajökull National Park. The river is fed by glacier run off and it is the largest waterfall in Iceland by volume. The walk to the falls is about 1 km and rhe falls get louder and louder as you approach.

We stayed at the Dettifoss Guesthouse which I highly recommend.