Tuesday – August 29, 2017
We cruised away from Djupivogur last night and into fog and rain. The ship traveled northward for several hours then turned west along the vast northern coast of Iceland. The Rotterdam crossed the Arctic Circle in the middle of the night to arrive in Akureyri at 8:00 AM.
My alarm woke me abruptly at six this morning because we had a long excursion which would take us into the interior of Iceland. I looked out of our window and saw only dense fog and rain. It was 46 degrees. I dressed in layers and made sure I had my umbrella and waterproof shoes.
The ship moved slowly down the Eyjafjordur, the longest fjord in Iceland, to dock in Akureyri at the end of the fjord. Akureyri is the capital city of the north and the second largest city in Iceland after Reykjavik.
View of the countryside from the bus. Icelandic horses are a special breed.
We joined 200 other passengers in the theater to board buses to go on an excursion called Jewels of the North. We drove through the city of Akureyri and crossed to the other side of the fjord as the guide, Machina, told us about Iceland.
We drove along the fjord and across a mountain pass and the Fnjoskadalur Valley. The weather was gray and overcast. Low clouds hung over the mountains.
The bus drove around Lake Myvatn, a popular vacation spot for Icelanders. The terrain is incredible, miles of lava fields and dormant volcanoes.
The river cut its way through the lava fields:
Our first stop was the spectacular Godtafoss waterfalls which means the “waterfall of the Gods.” Machina explained the name comes from the last pagan king of Iceland who threw statues of pagan Gods into the waterfall to show that he adopted Christianity. We walked out to the falls to take pictures. The rain subsided a bit.
The next stop was the geothermal field of Namaskard to see the bubbling pools of hot water and purple and yellow sulfur. Steam hissed out of the ground and made an eery sound. The smell was awful!
Lake Myvatn is ringed with active and inactive volcanos:
The bus drove around Myvatn Lake to Dimmuborgir lava labyrinth. Circular paths twisted around towering lava formations and caves. They were formed after the eruption of a volcano 2000 years ago. There are folk tales about trolls and other mythical creatures who live among the lava formations.
We had tomato soup and salmon for lunch at the Sel-Hotel Myvatn. We walked across the road and looked at the pseudo-craters of Skutustadagigar. These were formed by steam explosions when burning lava encounters wetlands.
The weather cleared on our ride back to Akureyri. The Icelandic terrain is open and vast and very impressive.
We returned in enough time to explore the city of Akureyri. We walked up to the center of town and took pictures and did a little shopping.
The ship left the dock promptly at five o’clock and slowly progressed along the beautiful Eyjafjordur fjord and out into the Icelandic Ocean.
We went up to the Crow’s Nest in the bow of the ship to look out at the fjord as the sun faded. There were many others there with the same idea. Someone mentioned whales and when we looked out, we saw intermittent spurts of “steam” coming out of the water. There must have been several pods of whales in the fjord and it was exciting to look out in anticipation of seeing a whale. We just saw spurts of spray emanating from the inky water and an occasional break on the surface, but exciting nonetheless. The northern coast of Iceland:
