Day 7

A long and tiring day today, but worth every minute. We made a reasonably early start for Lake Myvatn and the surrounding volcanoes. The lake is in the bottom of a valley and shaped by the many lava flows and eruptions that have taken place around it. The whole area is like a geology textbook, with psuedo craters, real craters, lava fields, lava flows, lava pillars, lava pits, boiling mud pools, thermal baths and a geothermal power plant. Unfortunately no boiling magna, but the closest you can get to a live volcano without risking your life.

We wandered round pseudo craters, lava formations and boiling mud pools and then scaled Leivhrijukur, next to Krafla. Both these volcanoes are still active and the area around them is hot with boiling mud and steaming lava. Leivhrijukur is 547 metres high, but a reasonably easy climb from the car park. The lava field streches for miles and on the way down from the crater we walked alongthe edge of the lava flows. It's amazing how green lush grass grows right next to barren black ash.

After the long walk we retired to the steam room and hot baths of the Natural Baths. An interesting experience. None of the pools are deep enough to swim in really, so you just float about in the not water soaking up the salts and chemicals. They say it does you good, however I suspect that the cleansing powers are the fact that you are floating about in dilute sulphuric acid and reminds me of a poem my chemistry teacher, David Llewelyn Jones taught me at school.

Weep for little Johnny

For Johnny is no more.

What he thought was H20

was H2SO4.

After soaking in the acid for an hour we had some food and headed onto Europes most powerful waterfall, Dettifoss. On the way we picked up a french hitch hicker who had been in Iceland for three weeks and had trecked in the southern highlands and across the Eastern Desert. He had a walk round Dettifoss with us and we dropped him off at the main road, route 1, where he was heading for a campsite.

We then turned west and went round the coast back to Husavik and then on to the hotel. A long drive with stunning coastal views and some fantastic scenery. Filled up with fuel in Husavik and got home to hotel about 10:30 pm.

Another word on health and safety. Watched a guy in a service area this morning wiring switches into the street lamps, presumably so they can be turned off individually. He joined all the cables, went to the bin and got a plastic bottle, cut the bottle in half, stuffed the wire join in and gaffer taped it up. Then he switched the light on at his new switch, demonstrating that the whole thing had been live while he did it. He was sat on the floor with no safety boards or hoardings up, German tourists were passing within a few feet of him and he was wearing sandals. This wasn't some oik from the service station either, it was the man from the local power company. I love this place.