It's hard to believe we have only one full day left. Our cabin last night was so lovely we decided to allow ourselves a sleep in and enjoyed a good, warm, home cooked, simple meal and had one more soak before we took off at noon.
There was no agenda but to get to our final hotel a couple hours north of Reykjavik. It was an overcast day and so the vistas weren't vast but we did take some time to visit a bunch of horses all facing the same direction. We've seen this all week and finally realized, they face away from the wind when it's blowing particularly hard.
Soon after it was time for a quick hot dog at the gas station. This one is wrapped in bacon and has both fried and raw onions on the bottom.
Rebecca says, if you're ever at the N1 in Staðarskáli she highly recommends a pop in.
Our last hotel is quite nice. The room isn't as big as last night's but the bathroom is very spacious. The hotel is right on the ring road and sits amidst a farm with sheep, cows, horses and pigs. Interestingly we haven't seen pigs yet - or chickens for that matter.
After we dropped off our stuff we went to find a few things to walk around. The first was a waterfall on a golf course.
We've seen a couple of golf courses here. It's hard to imagine playing golf here because the ground, when it isn't rocky is very squishy. These falls were very beautiful and relaxing with a fish run up the side. I can imagine a river full of salmon jumping up stream to spawn.
I had a couple of waterfalls I had researched and I knew which roads to take but didn't have an idea of how far away they were. After driving for about half an hour I pulled over to see if I had missed the turn off. We saw smoke in the distance and found this.
This river is 208 degrees. It's astounding. All through the valley are beautiful buildings shaped like wooden sails which, I assume, harness this heat and send it somewhere to be converted into energy.
Eventually we found the falls. These were some of the most beautiful we've seen. The water comes out in the lava. Who knows where the source is. There aren't glaciers around and everything above is dry.
By the way, I've always been told that the continent of Africa fits into the space between N. and S. America and that there used to be a super continent. It's not that I haven't believed this but it's always seemed a bit too fantastic. But here you see this sort of thing all over the place. This picture is of a common phenomenon all over this island. It's as if a bubble of lave started to cool and harden and one more gas bubble rose up and shattered them. It's like plate tectonics.
We had a drive after to a town which we had read was "happening" but we certainly couldn't find anything going on. It's was a beautiful drive and the town was cute enough but, as usual, there didn't seem to be bars or restaurants. Instead of stopping I decided to give the mighty Kia cee'd a bath. This is what 1000 miles of midges looks like.
Tomorrow will be a long but hopefully astonishing day on the Snaelfessnes Peninsula. But first, a soak and a sleep.
The Snuffleupagus Peninsula! Heard good things!
ReplyDeleteBaahaa, Maria!
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