Waterfalls and other interesting things across North Iceland

We set out north from where we were staying, to visit Vatnajokull National Park.

Along the way, the roadsides were gorgeous…

… as well as the views -

We were intending to visit an area in the park called Echo Cliffs, but the roads were being constructed (re-constructed?) with huge machinery. We did manage to maneuver around them without having any boulders dropped on us, and found a very out-of-the-way trail in Holmmatungur, that led to Katlar. (again, I’m only including the names in case someone uses this blog to find some of the sites we visited)

This is from the top of the trail - we’re heading to the brown area in the middle:

Once there, we found a racing torrent of glacier melt and numerous waterfalls -

I just can’t get enough of basalt columns -

The darker water on the left, in the picture below, is actually “fresh” water (from snowmelt or springs?) that is joining the silty glacier melt on the right -

Next up were the two jewels of the park, Selfoss…

… which paled in comparison to Dettifoss -

This is Europe’s most powerful waterfall - (make sure to open this blog in your browser to see the video)

The rainbows were mesmerizing -

… and led to way too many pictures. :)

OK… so… this is going to be a really long post, as I’m going to combine two days of visiting “all” the sights (and then some) along the Ring Road in the North. Godafoss was our first stop the next morning -

We then ventured 40 km down a dirt road (that’s a looong way on dirt) and through two gates…

… to reach Aldeyjarfoss, and were amazed to find that someone else had beat us to it!

Ahhhh… my favorite -

Aldeyjarfoss -

Heading west across North Iceland, we passed through Oxnadalur Valley…

… on our quest to find - sod stables:

… and a sod church (built in 1834 from turf and driftwood) -

note how thick the turf is to the right of the door

Another (relatively) short detour led us to this unique basalt and limestone church constructed in 1877 -

My favorite side trip of the day led us to Kolugljufur canyon…

… and waterfall.

Another stop, at this natural basalt “fortress”, Borgarvirki -

… gave us quite the expansive view over the surrounding lakes and valley -

Well, the day wasn’t quite done with us yet…

We were just driving on to our night’s lodging, and these beauties were running along the fence for the joy of it! Note the unusual gait of the black horse closest to the front. This is the “tolt,” which is unique to the Icelandic horse.

Our ending view of the day, from the hot tubs on the edge of the fjord, at 11 pm.