Day 8: 7/14/07 Husavík, Ásbyrgi, and Dettifoss
Trip Start
Jul 08, 2007
1
8
21
Trip End
Jul 23, 2007
Reykjahlið,
Iceland
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Today was a day of exploration of a part of Iceland I had not visited before. After breakfast we drove to Husavík on the north shore and stopped for an hour to explore the town. Matt, Jeff, and I walked around the harbor and fotografed the fishing boats. The highlight of the town is unquestionably the Iceland Phallological Museum, where we had a Brevard College foto taken. I wonder what Guto would do here!?! Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it was closed. We stopped by the whaling museum, but I refused to pay 500k to support whaling so we all left.
We continued up the road to our northernmost point. We all walked to the shore of the Arctic Ocean. The latitude was N66˚ 12.2', less than 18' shy of the Arctic Circle. Around the bend, we stopped at a clifftop overlook for lunch. To our delight, dozens of puffins swam in the water below. Audrey, Matt, and Bill got good close-up fotos on the cliffs. I got good video of them in the water.
We drove down to the delta of the Jökulsá a Fjöllum and across the river to Ásbyrgi and the Jökulsárg National Park visitor center to take in there excellent displays about the natural history of north-eastern Iceland.
Then, we drove into the point of the Ásbyrgi which is where two waterfalls eroded back through the basalt flows to join in a single massive fall which suddenly turned off when the Jokulsá changed its course. We hiked back through the forest to the base of the dry falls and into the arcuate fossil plunge pool which was 8-10 m deep. Then we walked to two higher platforms getting views of the whole pool and finally a downstream view over the top of the trees. That's right! Trees! It was the first time I'd seen a forest in Iceland!
We drove southward on the east side of the river stopping off to get a breathtaking view of the canyon at the Hafragilsfoss. It looks a lot like the Columbia river gorge with its layers of columnar basalts.
Just a few kilometers farther south is Dettifoss, Iceland's biggest waterfall. We walked to the edge of the fall and took turns lying on the rock to feel the power of the pounding water. Magnus had me stand with my hands out and eyes closed to let the power of Dettifoss enter my body and help it heal. It was a very emotional experience for me.
The final 80 km south back to the pavement is all washboard. We flew over it at about 100 km/h in less than an hour. On the way back to camp we made two short stops: one at the bridge over the Jokulsá where we found Askja pumice and the other at Grotgjá to see the underground hot bath at 50˚ C (too hot to use since 1974). We had a great vegetarian meal prepared by Audrey, Kathy, and Rain. Afterward, I went up and met with Sigfus to give him the names of the different types of Mývatn volcanoes. The fog had rolled in preventing our viewing them from the far shoreline.
I went back to camp and discovered most people had gone to the Mývatn nature baths. I wrote for awhile but dozed off. When I awoke at 12:30 I went and took a shower. The others had returned by the time I got back to camp. We all went to bed soon after. What a great day!
