LIVE from Jewel May 15, 2024 - 27 nights

twangster · May 21

Eight hour tour.

Eight. Hour. Tour!

Just back to the ship, processing photos in the darkroom now.

Spoiler alert! Iceland is awesome.

Jimbo · May 21

9 hours ago, island lady said:

Did the captain sound the horn when you crossed? 🙂

@twangster said it was around midnight when they crossed, Guess the Captain didn't want to wake people up.

Maybe on the return when they return to Amsterdam he will have a chance to sound the horn when they cross.

4 hours ago, island lady said:

Awww...party pooper!! 😄

Edited May 21 by Jimbo

island lady · May 21

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Eight hour tour.

Eight. Hour. Tour!

Just back to the ship, processing photos in the darkroom now.

Spoiler alert! Iceland is awesome.

Nice! Looking forward to our visit to Iceland/Greenland in August. Thanks again for your fantastic review and for taking us along on your journey. Feels like we are right there with you. 🥰

twangster · May 21

With a mid-morning meeting time there was time to spare so I ventured up top.

The included TMobile service works pretty good here.

twangster · May 21

We board a bus and begin an hour long drive to the first stop.

We'll use that tunnel I spotted earlier. It's 7.5km or almost 5 miles long.

Once through the tunnel we enter a valley.

Lots of water flowing with the spring run off from melting snow.

twangster · May 21

It's a little cooler in the valley and some lakes still had ice on them.

This is a pseudo crater and in the world of volcanoes there are pretty rare, except in this region.

So much of Iceland involves volcanoes.

Our guide points out the rough lava formations from thousands of years ago.

At some point thousands of years ago an eruption occured and lava was flowing through this valley. The valley most likely had wetlands or water so the hot flowing lava had an dramatic encounter with the water in the valley leading to these sharp formations.

Edited May 21 by twangster

twangster · May 21

Our first stop was at Dimmuborgir.

Here we can explore the rugged lava formations up close using easy to navigate paved trails.

The crater is the background is thought to be unrelated to the lava flow that created the formations. They think it came much later.

Basalt rock up close.

Bathroom break here at this stop for those that needed it. It is after all an 8 hour tour.

twangster · May 21

Back on the bus or guide points out a geothermal electric generating plant.

Basically they drill down into the earth and once they find steam they pipe it into a steam generator to produce electricity. Some of these go down 3,000 to 4,000 meters.

Around the corner he points out where two tectonic plates meet. On the left is the North American plate and on the right is the Eurasian plate. The gap is because they are spreading away from each other.

Right around the corner from that are naturally occurring geothermal geysers.

Then just a bit a further along some active venting was occuring.

Sea Dog · May 21

Great pictures and such a beautiful landscape.

twangster · May 21

This brings us to our next stop at Dettifoss.

It's a bit of hike this time of year and this spring has melted like others we are told so there was a lot of snow on the path.

There are two waterfalls here and the first wasn't technically included in this tour but I took the opportunity to check it out.

Selfoss waterfall first:

twangster · May 21

Video from Selfoss:

Cherful59 · May 21

@twangster I just think of Gillian’s Island every time I read “an 8hour tour”. Although I think Gillian’s was a 3 hour tour.

Thanks for the pictures. I think Iceland might have to go on my bucket list.

Edited May 21 by Cherful59

twangster · May 21

Turning around and heading back from Selfoss and you can see Dettifoss from above it.

To get there, there is 600m more of rugged terrain before reaching a man made walkway.

Dettifoss:

twangster · May 21

Video from Dettifoss:

Cherful59 · May 21

3 minutes ago, twangster said:

Video from Dettifoss:

That looks awesome. I love waterfalls!

twangster · May 21

Back on the bus to our next stop, Langavatnshöfði.

This is an overlook 300m from the parking lot on a paved trail.

It's thought there was once a glacier here with a volcano under the glacier. The volcano became active and melted the glacier creating massive volumes of water that altered the landscape. This was thought to occur around 5,000 year ago, again around 4,000 years and another time around 3,000 years ago.

The effect has been to cause the land to sink sharply as seen from the cliff faces.

twangster · May 21

By this time it was nearing 4pm and lunch was in order.

We stopped at Veggur restaurant which served soup and fish. There were no choices, everyone received the same dish. The fish was Arctic Char.

No pics, too hungry.

twangster · May 21

Back on the bus to drive towards the coast before arriving at Húsavík.

First we cross a section where an earthquake in 1996 created a new lake and altered the landscape.

This gap formed in the otherwise flat land before the quake. It runs for miles in each direction.

Húsavík is becoming a whale watching hotspot and we had a short ten minute stop to check out the harbor.

I'm not really sure why we stopped here. Perhaps the local business owner or chamber lobbied to be included. It's a pretty little spot but ten minutes wasn't enough to really do anything.