Life in a Northern Town

By kagsy

Hverfjall

This is crater of Hverfjall, which dominates Lake Myvatn - it erupted 2500 years ago and it's a fabulous hike around the 2km perimeter. You can see from the first extra how it towers above the lake - we stayed in one of the little white houses you can see below it. I have also included a shot in extras of some of the hikers enjoying the view. Personally I was knackered, and that's where I lost my compact camera somehow.

We then went on to Dimmuborgir to see the errie lava formations (Game of Thrones fans - the site of the wildling camp) and took the obligatory daft photo. Also we had some completely fabulous coconut curry soup that will live in my memory a long time! Both these excursions involved some of Iceland's famous gravel roads - the gravel isn't a problem, it's the potholes. Still, our trusty Rav 4 made it through unscathed - well apart from the slow puncture it already had when we collected it from the airport! Thanks Europcar for that....

Then we went to see the blue cave in extras - site of Jon Snow and Ygritte's famous scene in GOT - bathing is expressly forbidden (this is unusual in Iceland where there are virtually no signs forbidding anything. Also the concept of "You Are Here'" on a map is not a thing in Iceland. Nor are signs giving you advance warnings of junctions!) because the water is hot. It didn't say whether it was ok to recreate any other parts of the scene. 

To round off the day we went to the Nature Baths - very like the Blue Lagoon in that you poach yourself alongside almost naked people of all nationalities in the effluent from a power station, but slightly less commercialised in that there was no bar offering cocktails as you cooked yourself. My sister in law refused to pay the £5 to hire a towel and then discovered that her travel towel was in fact only slightly bigger than a flannel. That was £5 very well spent by me!

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