Geo-thermal Activity

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The other 5 members of our small tour group had arrived at the Kex Hostel yesterday afternoon and evening so this morning we packed hurriedly and went down to try and get some breakfast. I say 'try' because breakfast doesn't start being served until 7am and we had an internal flight scheduled at 8am. Fortunately Reykjavik's domestic airport is much closer to the city centre than the international one, just a 10 minute taxi ride from the hostel (also free WiFi at both!).

Our 40-minute flight to the northern town of Akureyri was on time and our Icelandic tour guide Oskar was there to meet us at Akureyri airport with a 4-wheel-drive minibus. Akureyri is Iceland's second largest urban area (with obviously the capital being the largest) with a population of less than 20,000, and we had a good view of the town as we came in to land. For the last 5 minutes of the flight we followed the route of the main river which flows into Akureyri's fjord, Eyjafjordur. Running alongside the river we could clearly see the town's main hot water supply pipe. All houses in the town have both a hot and cold water supply with the hot supply being used to provide domestic heating. The hot water supply is normally around 70°C and this gave us our first indication of how important and widespread geo-thermal activity is in Iceland.

There are a number of main roads in Iceland which are of a 'normal' tarmac construction but the majority of minor roads are referred to locally as 'gravel' roads. When you leave a tarmac road to go onto a gravel road there are normally signs saying that only 4-wheel drive vehicles are permitted on these roads, so throughout the country you see many vehicles equipped with those extra-wide 'chunky' tyres. Roads are simply numbered from '1', with road number 1 being the main highway which circumnavigates the whole country, though still being just a single carriageway, two-lane road for the vast majority of its distance. After a short driving tour around Akureyri we then set off east along road 1.

Our first stop was at the Godafoss waterfall which is significant in Iceland's history because it was here in about the year 1000 that the Icelandic leader Thorgeir supposedly threw into the waterfall his images of Norse gods as he made the decision to convert to Christianity. Iceland is blessed with many spectacular waterfalls and this was the first of a number that I was able to visit on this trip. There were no parking charges at any of the major natural wonders that I visited in Iceland. Also, even though many of them could obviously be quite dangerous if you stood too close to an edge, there were only low rope guidelines to gently warn you that it might be a good idea not go past them - quite a refreshing change from the over-signed, over-cautious nanny state situation in the UK!

Leaving Godafoss we continued on road 1 to the large lake called Myvatn. Myvatn is situated in one of the most volcanically active areas in Iceland, very close to the Krafla caldera, and around it are many examples of recent volcanic activity as well as on-going geo-thermal features such as boiling mud pools and fumaroles. As we drove around this area we could regularly see plumes of steam rising into the air, either occurring naturally at the surface or being part of geo-thermal power stations. After stopping for a while at the side of the lake to look at the lava scenery we then parked at the foot of the tuff ring volcano Hverfjall and walked up and around the full circuit of the 1 kilometre diameter cone. Hverfjall apparently last erupted about 2500 years ago but in the Krafla area generally there were 9 volcanic eruptions between 1975 and 1984.

Our next stop was at the thermal spring cave called Grjotagja. Here there is a large and long prominent crack in the earth's surface underneath which is a cave containing a hot spring. Apparently this cave was often used for bathing before the eruptions which started in 1975. As a result of that activity, the water in the cave rose to over 50°C which made it too hot to bathe in. We were able to go into the cave and put our hands in the water and it would definitely have been too hot to keep them in there for any length of time. Some scenes from season 3 Episode 5 of Game of Thrones were filmed here.

Continuing our tour of active volcanic sites we then walked up the Viti crater in the centre of the Krafla area - this crater contains a stunning green lake. As we drove towards and away from Viti, the whole area was clearly the centre of a large geo-thermal power station. The landscape was littered with long pipes collecting the hot water and delivering it to the generating plant and plumes of steam were rising all around us. The most dramatic site we saw, however, was the Namafjall area where there were numerous hot water pools, pools of boiling mud and fumaroles which are opening in the earth's crust emitting steam and gases.

After all the hard work of sight-seeing we now needed to relax, so our final visit of the day was to the nearby Jarobodin Nature Baths. The Blue Lagoon, between Reykjavik city centre and Keflavik airport, is one of Iceland's best known tourist attractions and many visitors stop there on their way to the airport when they leave. However there are a number of other open-air thermal pools in Iceland and although I didn't visit the Blue Lagoon I am confident that I didn't miss anything as the Jarobodin baths were much less touristy and I was assured that they were just as good. The temperature in this pool was just below 40°C. We certainly enjoyed an hour's bathing before having a meal in the restaurant there, and then on to our hostel at Reykjahlio. There are actually quite a number of places in Iceland whose names begin 'Reykja' which I believe variously can mean 'smoke', 'mist' or 'steam'.

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Photos

Reykjavik domestic airport
Boarding the plane to Akureyri

Myvatn
Lava scenery around the shores of Lake Myvatn

Hverfjall
A volcano in the Krafla geo-thermal area

Grjotagja
Lava cave and thermal spring

Krafla
Geo-thermal power station

Viti
Volcanic crater with green lake

Boiling mud pools
Namafjall geo-thermal area

Fumarole
Namafjall geo-thermal area

Jarobodin Nature Baths
An out-door thermal bathing pool near Myvatn