Waterfalling in love in Iceland … My top 5 lazy Icelandic waterfalls

 2008, 2012, Europe, Iceland 2008  2 Responses »
Jan 252012
 


There are a couple things I really happen to like in this world …

If you love waterfalls as much as I happen to … then the next place on your bucket list should be Iceland. The land of fire and ice has a couple great things about it

  • Extreme landscapes with raging glacial rivers
  • Vast sand deserts
  • Simmering hot springs
  • The cleanest air and tap water in the world (Probably some of the coldest tap water also)

however, you can’t really pass up looking at waterfalls in Iceland.

As you navigate the country on the Ring Road in your rental (and you really must rent a car in Iceland, even though it can be horrifically expensive … it is one place in the world, where it is completely worth it), you can see most waterfalls with a simple detour off the Ring Road.

As you drive from Reyjavik, your first waterfall stop will probably be :

1. Gullfoss.

I don’t know why it’s called the Golden Falls, but it is the most famous waterfall in Iceland because of its size, volume and accessibility – it is also by definition a major tourist spot.  The Hvita River, coming off the Langjökull Glacier, falls 32 meters into a deep canyon that is hidden by a wall of mist.

A safe walk way has been built for people to walk rightup to the falls, while at the top of the falls is another viewing deck where a different vantage point is available – I do love the fact that there aren’t a gazillion safety rails blocking you from the falls

2. Seljalandsfoss

Your next stop from the road will probably be Seljalandsfoss. Seljalandsfoss is another famous waterfalls – due to the fact that you can walk behind the falls with no issues whatsoever. Also it’s right by the ring road and you can see the falls from the road – how much more convenient, would you like your attractions and waterfalls?


Now you have two options for viewing this waterfall.

  1. You can take the safe route and go see it in the day … this is understandable and you’ll enjoy yourself.
  2. Or you can go the waterfalls in the darkest night at 2am with wind and freezing rain slapping you in the face and then traverse the trail that goes behind the waterfalls


Guess which option, I prefer? Obviously, excuse my pronunciation of the Seljalandsfoss – but I did manage to figure out how to say Kirkjubæjarklaustur (pronounced [ˈcʰɪrcjʏˌpaɪjarˌkʰlœɪstʏr]

 3. Skógafoss

Your next stop about 15 minutes down the road from Seljalandsfoss is Skógafoss. Again, super convenient and awesome … how much better can you get for a lazy Trinidadian. I want all my highlights quick and easy to get to – to hell with all this damn nature hiking and fresh air and clean water! The cliffs are a former coastline, much like Seljalandsfoss. Those cliffs, among other mountains, mark the borderline between the coastal lowlands and the highlands of Iceland – that’s a nice fact isn’t it?

Want another awesome fact : Skógarfoss is astonishingly white, just like everyone in Iceland!

Along the way, if you manage to get some sunshine (the weather can be notoriously fickle in Iceland), you run into random waterfalls just to grant you awesome pictures. Foss a Sidu (or more accurately Foss á Siðu, which literally means “waterfall at Siðu”) was a conspicuous waterfall as we drove along Southern Iceland along the Ring Road … and thankfully the sun made for a great picture.

4. Svartifoss

The first waterfall that we actually had to get out and do a bit of hiking was Svartifoss. You can see the people walking on the rock bridge in the distance.

Svartifoss was one of those memorable waterfalls thanks to hanging hexagonal basalt columns underlying it. While basalt columns aren’t anything new around waterfalls nor is this waterfall very big (it’s only 20m tall), it seems that the basalt columns on this waterfall are very pronounced.

Unlike Gullfoss, which I couldn’t figure the Golden Falls nickname … The name of the falls is translated into something like “black falls,” … it’s pretty easy to figure out the name. With the basalt columns, it looks like something from Star Trek …  but it is definitely another tourist haven. I really liked these falls …

Driving along the Ring Road, you’ll continue to see more waterfall at the side of the road, again with very little hiking or walking. Litlanesfoss is shown below.

5. Barnafoss

Another one of my favorites is the little hike to see the children’s falls …

We did a little bit of a walk to reach this rapids flanked by lava walls and rocks. The walk probably takes around 20-30 minutes round trip.

I am missing two obvious waterfalls in Dettifoss and Goðafoss – the days we passed by those waterfalls, we had extremely bad weather … and it was pretty unfortunate, since those are also great lazy waterfalls.

 Posted by rishiray at 7:25 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Kirkjubæjarklaustur – Höfn

 Iceland 2008  No Responses »
May 282009
 

I can’t tell you how many people were tickled by our attempts to pronounce the name of this town. It was ridiculous and I think that while travelling through Iceland, the two trickiest town names that we tried were Kirkjubæjarklaustur and Höfn.
Trying to pronounce Höfn is like trying to inhale and speak at the same time, and there doesn’t seem to be a firm rule on how it should be pronounced. Its seriously pronounced like you hiccup and get startled at the sametime. Another blogger described pronouncing Höfn somewhere between “hep” and “hup”, with a glottal stop. I always wonder about how people come up with this stuff… the same question comes up when I think about the rotting shark dish : Hákarl or kæstur hákarl. Who exactly decided that they would eat this stuff??

I found a receipe on how to prepare “rotten” shark but the awesome thing about this webpage was the warning that you shouldn’t try this at home unless you know what the end product is supposed to taste like and that Putrefied shark can become spoiled. WHAT!?!?!? How can something that is rotting become more spoiled?? It is like a dead person being more dead – you dont have more than one type of “DEAD”. Dead is always dead! Yanno!!!

So quoting from http://www.simnet.is/gullis/jo/shark.htm

I read in a book that fresh shark is unsuitable for eating because there is uremic acid in the flesh. This I am inclined to believe, considering that cured shark smells like stagnant urine or ammonia. It has also been claimed that that there is cyanic acid in shark meat. Fresh shark meat is said to have caused people to vomit blood. The curing process removes the acid from the flesh and makes it easier to digest. Connoisseurs of strong cheese generally like cured shark on the first bite. Others find it to be an aquired taste…

Traditional method:
Take one large shark, gut and discard the innards, the cartilage and the head. Cut flesh into large pieces.Wash in running water to get all slime and blood off. Dig a large hole in coarse gravel, preferably down by the sea and far from the nearest inhabited house – this is to make sure the smell doesn’t bother anybody. Put in the shark pieces, and press them well together. It’s best to do this when the weather is fairly warm (but not hot), as it hastens the curing process. Cover with more gravel and put heavy rocks on top to press down. Leave for 6-7 weeks (in summer) to 2-3 months (in winter). During this time, fluid will drain from the shark flesh, and putrefication will set in. 

When the shark is soft and smells like ammonia, remove from the gravel, wash, and hang in a drying shack. This is a shack or shed with plenty of holes to let the wind in, but enough shade to prevent the sun from shining directly on the shark. Let it hang until it is firm and fairly dry: 2-4 months. Warm, windy and dry weather will hasten the process, while cold, damp and still weather will delay it.

Slice off the brown crust, cut the whitish flesh into small pieces and serve, preferably with a shot of ice-cold brennivín.
 
The modern method for curing shark relies on putting it into a large container with a drainage hole, and letting it cure as it does when buried in gravel.

Like seriously! Who figured this stuff out??? How does that first person figure out that they can eat this stuff??? It still amazes me!!! The Icelanders have a festival in which the goal is to eat the most crap. Its called Þorramatur and this consists of many different foods. The only thing in the list that I would even consider eating would be the dry bread.

It includes:

Kæstur hákarl, putrefied Greenland shark
Súrsaðir hrútspungar, the testicles of rams pressed in blocks, boiled and cured in lactic acid.
Svið, singed and boiled sheep heads, sometimes cured in lactic acid
Sviðasulta, head cheese or brawn made from svið, sometimes cured in lactic acid
Lifrarpylsa (liver sausage), a sausage made from the offal and liver of sheep kneaded with rye flour
Blóðmör (blood-fat; also known as slátur, meaning slaughter), a type of blood pudding, which is prepared like lifrarpylsa without the liver and adding blood.
Harðfiskur, wind-dried fish (often cod, haddock or seawolf), served with butter
Rúgbrauð (rye bread), traditional Icelandic rye bread
Hangikjot, (hung meat), smoked and boiled lamb or sheep meat
Lundabaggi, sheep’s loins wrapped in the meat from the sides, pressed and cured in lactic acid
Selshreifar, seal’s flippers cured in lactic acid

 Posted by rishiray at 11:37 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Jökulsárlón – Have I mentioned that Icebergs are pretty??

 2008, Iceland 2008  1 Response »
Sep 192008
 

Jökulsárlón is the best known and the largest of a number of glacial lakes in Iceland. It is situated at the south end of the glacier Vatnajökull between Skaftafell National Park and Höfn. Appearing first only in 1934-1935, the lake grew from 7.9 km² in 1975 to at least 18 km² today because of heavy melting of the Icelandic glaciers. Approaching a depth of 200 m, Jökulsárlón is now probably the second deepest lake in Iceland.

Jökulsárlón is separated from the sea by only a short distance, and the combined action of the glacier, the river that empties from the lake, and the ocean may eventually transform it into an inlet of the sea. There are plans to prevent this from happening, since the only road in the area passes over the narrow isthmus.

After loving the icebergs, then it was back to the road again

 Posted by rishiray at 11:28 am  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Myvatn in a nutshell….

 2008, Iceland 2008  No Responses »
Sep 182008
 

So after heading past Myvatn… we decided that of course we would attempt the Western Fjords… but Myvatn is full of a lot of things to see…from awesome convection rainbows, mud volcanoes, real volcanoes, lava fields, dormant volcanoes with lakes in them….you get the idea… Iceland is a nature lover’s paradise, but definitely if you are into Volcanoes … Iceland is really one of the must go places in the world….

 Posted by rishiray at 11:11 pm

So day three of the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge continues…..

 2008, Iceland 2008  No Responses »
Sep 182008
 

Two days ago, our intrepid travellers braved the dangers and stupidity of crossing a slightly dried out river bed downstream from a glacier. I of course, fell into a nice little sinkhole but bravely jumped out and ensured no catastrophe, while Lev decided that Ice Caverns were his things, thinking he was a mountain barashka, hopping from boulder to boulder, realized that you couldn’t hop, if a boulder disappeared into the river. We passed test 1 of Iceland, which would be Glacier diving and falling!

Yesterday, we attempted the Super 4X4 relay, where an adventurer decided to go hard core off road driving, but in an attempt for Bonus points for the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, we decided that off roading was too tame for us, we would create our OWN road through foot high rocks, crevasses and soft mud with a Santa Fe Hyundai (Korean made) 4×4. This in the end left us with mild heart burn, took 4.5 yrs off our lives, when we realized that in doing this, we could destroy the axles and be stranded 50km at the end of nowhere with only some sheep and horses to keep us company. Oh yeah and how I could forget the gales… oh the lovely gales!!! In the end, we passed test 2 of Iceland, which would be exhibiting superior driving skills and not destroying the undercarriage of a vehicle.

Well today, since everything comes in 3′s, it was time for the Toyota Rock/Wind Challenge, where our intrepid explorers will attempt to sightsee across Myvatn and environs with Hydrogen Sulphide gas in their faces from mud volcanoes, climb volcanoes with 85 km/h winds whipping pebbles and stones at their skin and faces, walk across lava plains and sulphuric pits with -5C wind chills caused by the 85-100 km/h winds.

So today’s path will lead our explorers through the following terrain and areas of Iceland from Myvatn to Blondous. Take a look from the Center of the Map to see where  Myvatn is… and then we are heading to the end of the Map.

The Myvatn area looks like the following

Things to see and do in Myvatn would be on our list include:

  • Höfði, where one-of-a-kind lava clusters rise out of the lake
  • Dimmuborgir, where the interaction between the magnificent lava formations plays with the imagination. Dimmuborgir sports a lava formation that can be walked into and looks like a church dome
  • Grjótagjá chasm is yet another wonder; it has an underground flow of hot water and can be explored on foot.
  • Hverir are natural clay springs with boiling clay. They are quite a remarkable sight.
  • The volcanic area Leirhnjúkur, which last erupted in 1984, is a breathtaking area where you can explore the lava fields and see how new life emerges in the fresh lava. This route has been called the “diamond route”. Trips to Herðubreiðarlindir and Askja with a stop in the great Drekagil canyon are also available. The astronauts involved in the lunar landings were trained in Drekagil before their historic voyages to the moon. These trips are available either in organised group trips in super jeeps or in a sightseeing flight (only available during the summer time). 
  • Whale watching is offered from Húsavík and has become extremely popular. Since the whale watching started, 12 whale species have been spotted in Skjálfandaflói bay. There are various reasons for the good whale watching conditions in the bay, one of which is that a deep current runs through the bay, which is 755 feet deep at the most, relatively close to shore.
  • Dettifoss, Europe’s most powerful waterfall, and Jökulsárgljúfur national park within which you will find Ásbyrgi and Hljóðaklettar
  • Herðubreið mountain, which is considered the queen of all Icelandic mountains and Askja mountain, which has Askja lake and Víti crater.

So this was the path today, yesterday we went to Dettifoss, but the high winds made viewing it quite tough, Lev and I walked down the path and within two minutes our pants were soaked from the high winds carrying the mist from the waterfalls. Dettifoss is quite the waterfall, but having seen so may waterfalls here in Iceland, it kinda just looked like another of all the others. It is quite the huge waterfall though.. it is the most powerful in terms of Volume in Europe. The roar is quite loud!!! Due to its size and the canyon it comes down from, you can walk right down to the bottom like most of the other waterfalls.

So really our day started with two things, the Hverfjall Volcano Crater

If you look closely in this picture at the center of the road, you can see a white dot .. that is our trusty 4X4… but this was the first part of the challenge, since the winds and pebbles taken by the wind served to hinder us… not just hinder us, but smack us around ..literally… Lev has a video of his hat and everything being taken off by the winds.

and back to the mud/clay volcanoes at Hverir…. but anyway .. time to head out back on the road <to be continued>

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
 Posted by rishiray at 9:39 am
 Older Entries
© 2005 - 2012 Rishi Sankar: Ah Trini Travelogue Monday Morning Consultant | How to play mas! | About Rishi Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha
Copy Protected by Tech Tips's CopyProtect Wordpress Blogs.