Posts Tagged ‘basalt columns’
Adventure Continues
As I shuffled toward the farm guesthouse kitchen on the morning of our 8th day, I found Mike finishing up a watercolor painting as Barb was setting out fixings for our breakfast.
We soon set off from our fantastic farm visit toward the Hraunfosser and Barnafosser waterfalls. I thought I had seen pretty much everything there is to see about waterfalls, but the spectacle of the “lava falls” wowed us beyond expectations.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Once again, photos in no way do justice to the stupendous wonder of nature in the way the water gushed from the side of the wall of the river gorge for a surprising distance up and down the river from where we stood to view it. I think we all found ourselves involuntarily uttering random exclamations of wonder over what we were witnessing.
Just a short distance upstream, the spectacle changed dramatically into a raging turmoil of rushing water around impressive rock formations.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
At the same time, I still found myself equally amazed by the ripples of hardened lava that vividly reflected the volcanic activity shaping all this some thousand years before.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Like I felt so many other times on this trip, we could have spent much of the day exploring the scenery right here, but this was just an “appetizer-adventure” for this day. We had an appointment at Krauma Hot Spring & Spa.
Ours was one of the first sessions of the day, so the spa wasn’t crowded yet. This plush facility offered pools of several different temperatures, including an ice-cold pool that I dipped into twice (because I could then immediately move to the 102°F infinity pool). As the pictures above show, we were graced with another blue-sky Icelandic day that made a blissful soak at this classy spa all the more sublime.
Just down the hill from the spa, we found a food trailer run by an Icelander offering tomato soup and fish & chips. I regret not learning his name or getting his picture because he was wonderfully gregarious and informative, sharing personal information and waxing eloquently about the reason he believes there are so many horses in this island country (hopeful breeding to win their national competition).
After lunch, we continued our exploration of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula with a visit to the basalt rock columns of the Gerduberg cliffs. Just another Icelandic visual extravaganza.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I felt a need to stretch my calves, but Cyndie took a picture because it looked like I was trying to push this rock uphill.
Next stop, Yrti Tunga Beach, a hidden gem on the peninsula with golden sands and playful seals. I found two smooth stones here that traveled home with me as souvenirs for my kids.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In the distance, a great view of the most prominent landmark on the peninsula, the glacier-capped Snæfellsjökull stratovolcano. Just plain remarkable scenery everywhere we look.
Finally, we set out to find our beds for the night. It happened to be our most expensive hotel of the trip, Hotel Budir, a real charm.
It was a great old hotel, although the bathroom in our room had been squeezed into such a small space that we could barely fit into it around the door, resulting in much laughter each time we tried.
Continuing a trend, we were given another showing of awesome Aurora at nightfall to cap off another brilliant day in Iceland.
.
.
After Lagoon
After the exhilaration of the zodiac boat tour, it seemed like it would be hard to keep the thrills at such a high level, except our “super-planners” had packed each successive moment with more to see or do. There would be no time for a letdown. Even travel time in our rental SUV offered a constant barrage of unique and fascinating landscapes to keep our minds overflowing with wonder.
Plus, learning to decipher unfamiliar highway signage and coping with a combination of other unfamiliar tourist drivers and local business vehicles with their own sense of purpose on the narrow Ring Road offered video-game levels of challenge. We relied heavily on the voice directions coming from Mike’s phone plugged into the dash.
The glacier lagoon was the farthest eastward we would travel on the southeast coast, as we then circled back the way we’d come to visit the Svartifoss waterfall in the Skaftafell Nature Reserve. Just an easy 2-mile hike from the car park.
Barb’s step-counter tallied our total distance hiked over the whole trip at 54 miles. (That’s 87km for those of you wondering.) Two miles was hardly a blink for us, although all the hikes tended to involve a fair amount of elevation gain to be climbed, making mere distance an incomplete measure of effort required.
.
.
.
The afternoon warmed considerably, making our stroll along the trail toward the main attraction more pleasant than we believed possible. Remember, we had been prepared to face cloudy days with chilly horizontal rain pelting us head to toe.
Each time we experienced more sun than clouds, I pinched myself to check if I was dreaming.
Ten miles further down the road, we arrived at our hotel for the next two nights. Appearing somewhat like a motel we might find on Route 66, Hotel Skaftafell proved to be classier than meets the eye. The restaurant was truly fine dining.
When I reached the pomegranate seeds in my salad, I remembered I had wanted to get some photos of our food.
For our entrees, Cyndie selected lamb,
and I chose cod. It was a work of art.
It was the end of only our second day. Wow. Really, just wow.
.
.
Relative Something 