Andre and Wendy: Lake Myvatn, Goðafoss and Ólafsfjörður

We are spending a good part of the day in the Lake Mývatn Area. You could easily spend quite a bit of time in this area, except this area is also known for the midge flies. We were lucky today as there was some wind which kept the flies away except for one of our stops, but we have seen pictures which would have made this area unbearable.

Our first stop was at Námaskarð geothermal area. We had seen some geothermal areas already on our trip, but this one was very different. There were walkways right up to and sometimes over the bubbling clay, the clay was surprisingly colourful. There were lots of hikes around the mountains here, but we decided to just walk around and look at the different bubbling clay, the strong smell of Sulphur may have had something to do with this decision.

We next moved on to the Dimmuborgir lava formations which were formed by an eruption 2,300 years ago. This area had many walking paths you could choose from. Some wheelchair accessible, to very difficult over lava rock. Some of the rocks looked like scary creatures. It really was a pretty spot and a nice walk with lots of unusual lava formations. Andre even went into a cave that legend has were once inhabited by trolls know as Yule Lads. He put on some little costume that is left behind in a cave for tourists for pictures.

Time for another crater visit, this time Hverfjall crater. It is a bit of a steep climb to get to the top, and then about an hour to walk around the entire crater. We just did part of the walk around for the best viewing spot, at this point I don’t care if I see another crater. When you have so many volcanos, you are bound to see many craters.

We then visited Skutustadir Information center, maybe the most beautiful information center we have been to. Beautiful scenery from the inside of the center, and some really pretty views outside on the walking paths. There were a couple of Icelandic Horses, we have seen lots of horses now, but many are not too close to the road, these 2 were nice to see up close. Lots of birds as well, eating flies. We saw some very cute baby ducks, always seemed to be one not sticking close enough to Mom and needing to be called back. We also saw some these pseudo craters which are formed by gas explosions when melting lava flowed over pockets of water in the wetlands. We read that you only find these pseudo craters here and in Hawaii, they are very pretty. This is the first place we have seen lots of those non biting midge flies, but they are very annoying. We could have done more walking around here, but the flies were extremely annoying.

Right across from the information center there was a farm that sold home made ice cream, so that of course was a stop. They also had some horses, dogs, sheep, and pigs. Best of all was the licorice ice cream. When we are done the day Andre always keeps records of our spending. The total for a 1 scoop and a 2 scoop ice cream was $24.00 Cdn!

We then move on to Goðafoss, which of course is another waterfall, along with the smaller Geitafoss. You can easily walk to both of these falls over a bridge. It seems like there is lots of new parking areas here, and some nice picnic areas along the walkways. A very pretty waterfall that you get up and quite close.

We next found our way to Jarðgangalaug (Hot Thermal Pot). A hot pot that is down a little road that is free to enter. I did not find it in any way hot. Only one other couple were at the pool when we arrived, and the woman was standing outside in her towel. A few other couples arrived as we were leaving. I am pretty sure we were on private land, but we had read about this hot pot. Lots of these are around Iceland, you just have to do a little research to find out where they are. I had read that it is warm, not hot, that is right. I also felt like the water was going to rush us over the cliff to the lake below. Our pictures do not show it well just how high it was. A tour boat went by and waved to us. No facilities here, but this is one of the few places that had a few trees around so you could kind of have some privacy getting into and out of your bathing suit.

We are then looking for a campground for the night. We had planned on camping at Akureyri but when we got there it was a huge camp ground and a big line up to pay, not what we were looking for so we decided to move on to find another site.

Our next camp ground was really cute, in Dalvik, a really nice kitchen and common area. But when we headed back to our campervan to park where there was only 1 other van we quickly learned why. The smell from the fishplants was unbearable. We would have never gotten the smell off ourselves or inside the van for days, so time to move on again.

On the road again to Ólafsfjörður, which would have been a very nice place to camp, but by far the least clean. No smell, a nice kitchen, and decent bathrooms. This is the first time no one came around to pay, they just had a note up if no one comes to send them an email and they will send you a link to pay. I was tempted to not let them know we were there as it really needed some attention to the cleaning, but there are cameras all over the place and I was worried they may have our license plate and we would get charged with an admin fee added by our rental agency. This was also the place where we met a interesting Icelandic lady who is living out of here van here for the summer. We spent quite a bit of time visiting with her in the kitchen area, lots of good stories from her.

8:30 AM leaving Campground

6 Sightseeing spots

7:00 PM at Campground

375 KMS of driving

16 KMS of walking

We get 10% off as they have a deal with the campground. So a 12 inch pizza is only $40 Canadian instead of $45. Tax is always included in Iceland and no tipping.