Sunday 29 June 2014

Adventures from Akranes

A 10 hour day exploring..Akranes (camp) > Rekholt >Husafell >>

See Museum at Reykholt and learn about Snorri Sturluson...(Very Important Person..there's always Google). Fascinating. Sue spots her birthday present in the attached shop...I'm still recovering. Talking of which, recovering the  tax is a convoluted process involving passports, forms, envelopes and more. Taxing is the word..but worth it.

See the biggest hot spring in Europe. Apart from completely misting up the shades, this is truly incredible - they pump the water at 97 degrees Celcius 75km and get a temperature drop of only 5 degrees or so. 180 litres/second, that's how. Hot stuff.

See the Hraunfossar falls, emerging from under the lava field then move on, deciding to take the 60km Kaldidalur interior route on an unmade remote road through the Kaldidalur valley, seeing the  Eriksjokull, Okokokull, Langjokull and Porisjokull (Glaciers), then passing through a large grey desert (known for sandstorms). Checked out it's passable on the interweb earlier and it proves to be rough in places but fine. Much easier than the 4x4 track we did last week. Uplifting. Magic. Words can't describe it..I'm no Wordsworth...but you"ve worked that out already...

As if that wasn't enough, we emerge in the 'Golden Circle' and see some of the historic sites here.....but what makes it truly fascinating is that it's here that we can see the North American / Euasian rift.  The plates are moving apart at 1.5cm/yr....I make that 0.0000029 cm/minute. Can't see it myself.

Finish our stay here with a communal meal, entertained by the family of our hosts who run the local museum and restaurant. Special moment.

See lots more but you're bored by now. How about some pics?
Damn....forgotten the tea bags
Only another 50km to go....
We"re drifting apart...luckily, only at 1.5cm/year
Family talent....very Icelandic
By a local artist....

No comments:

Post a Comment