She'll carry on through it all
Oct. 31st, 2006 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaI've just been debating how one goes about writing up a week spent trundling round Iceland. There's the diary style I-did-this-on-Monday report, but it's going to get a bit samey: got up, ate seven-course breakfast, got in car, saw exciting things, discovered shut visitor centre, ate muffins. You get the idea. So instead, I'm attempting a write-up by theme. Which may or may not work out, and may or may not spiral into lengthiness. There will be photos when they have been freed from their celluloid prisons. But for now there are only words.
When talking, pre-travel, to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
metame about Iceland he reported that one gets terrible blasé about waterfalls very quickly. Which, since there are millions of them, is very possible. However, we found an alternative strategy of getting childishly excited about every single one, and that worked out pretty well.
Having collected our hire-car (whom we called Snorri), our first "real" stop en route out of Reyjavik was at Seljalandfoss. We had a very vague itinerary for the day ("get to Kirkjubæjarklausturs in time for bed"), and whoever wasn't driving had the job of nosing through assorted guidebooks for interesting things on the way. There should have been scenery to look at, the but the day had dawned dank, grey, drizzly and lacking in anything beyond middle distance.
Seljalandfoss is, I think, a hot contender for Top Waterfall. Regardless of anything else: you can walk behind it. I don't mean you can scramble about through the water. You can stroll easily behind the cascade without getting wet (at least, you probably can if it isn't bloody raining). The damp rock wall behind the water is covered with things a botanist could probably identify, but which I shall vaguely call mosses and lichens, in a surprising variety of reds, greens and greys. On a windy, rainy day the water falls not in a sheet but in a confused, shifting stream; spray blows off and becomes indistinguishable from the drizzle.
(The other contender for Top Waterfall will, mysteriously, appear in a different section).
Skogarfoss is a little further along the south coast, and is, if you like height in your waterfalls, much more impressive. Massive amounts of water tumble straight down in a foaming white wall, creating a mist for quite a distance. Postcards show rainbows. On a grey day, the rocks either side of the cascade loom wet and forbidding, but are speckled thickly with perching birds.
In Kirkjubæjarklausturs we stayed within sight and sound of Systrafoss, an impressive double cascade - a huge rock splits the falls in two, sending each stream tumbling over a confusion of boulders to join again at the bottom. Foss is Icelandic for "waterfall", by the way, if you haven't got that yet. Leaving Kirkjubæjarklausturs, we passed a small water fall among the hills whose small volume of water wasn't equal to the high winds. The water ran off the cliff, but then blew sideways, upwards, anywhere but down.
We drove out to Skaftafell and, despite the weather's best efforts (rain, freezing cold winds straight off the glacier, snow) walked up past Hundafoss and Magnúsarfoss to Svartifoss. Although the falls at Svartifoss are no different from many others in the area, the backdrop is what makes the waterfall famous. Layer upon layer of basalt columns have steadily been revealed, forming a wall of what looks (to quote every guidebook, ever) like organ pipes. Again postcards show a friendly, summer scene; we saw the basalt wet from the rain, black and baleful behind the roar of the water.
All along the road (Route 1) from Reykjavik and East to Skaftafellthe hillsides were peppered with small waterfalls. Sheer drops as water ran off cliff edges, vertical streams running down rocky paths and rivulets eating large steps into the hills. Most of the water is, I think, ultimately run off from the ice caps and glaciers - which has the strange side effect that Iceland's rivers flood during hot, sunny weather.
Gullfoss is one of the attractions in the "Golden Circle", the tourist trap area immediately round Reykjavik. A massive, broad river falls over two large "steps" which have formed at nearly right angles to each other. The curtain of mist which forms is, again, famous for rainbows - but in colder weather means instead that everything is coated in ice. Every blade of grass, ever twist of the rope handrail, ever leaf was a thick, glassy white. The path down to the falls was sheet ice so only really stupid people would attempt to walk down there. Interestingly, immediately above the falls the mist blows away from you, allowing you to see clearly. Or, er, so someone really stupid told me.
When talking, pre-travel, to
metame about Iceland he reported that one gets terrible blasé about waterfalls very quickly. Which, since there are millions of them, is very possible. However, we found an alternative strategy of getting childishly excited about every single one, and that worked out pretty well.Having collected our hire-car (whom we called Snorri), our first "real" stop en route out of Reyjavik was at Seljalandfoss. We had a very vague itinerary for the day ("get to Kirkjubæjarklausturs in time for bed"), and whoever wasn't driving had the job of nosing through assorted guidebooks for interesting things on the way. There should have been scenery to look at, the but the day had dawned dank, grey, drizzly and lacking in anything beyond middle distance.
Seljalandfoss is, I think, a hot contender for Top Waterfall. Regardless of anything else: you can walk behind it. I don't mean you can scramble about through the water. You can stroll easily behind the cascade without getting wet (at least, you probably can if it isn't bloody raining). The damp rock wall behind the water is covered with things a botanist could probably identify, but which I shall vaguely call mosses and lichens, in a surprising variety of reds, greens and greys. On a windy, rainy day the water falls not in a sheet but in a confused, shifting stream; spray blows off and becomes indistinguishable from the drizzle.
(The other contender for Top Waterfall will, mysteriously, appear in a different section).
Skogarfoss is a little further along the south coast, and is, if you like height in your waterfalls, much more impressive. Massive amounts of water tumble straight down in a foaming white wall, creating a mist for quite a distance. Postcards show rainbows. On a grey day, the rocks either side of the cascade loom wet and forbidding, but are speckled thickly with perching birds.
In Kirkjubæjarklausturs we stayed within sight and sound of Systrafoss, an impressive double cascade - a huge rock splits the falls in two, sending each stream tumbling over a confusion of boulders to join again at the bottom. Foss is Icelandic for "waterfall", by the way, if you haven't got that yet. Leaving Kirkjubæjarklausturs, we passed a small water fall among the hills whose small volume of water wasn't equal to the high winds. The water ran off the cliff, but then blew sideways, upwards, anywhere but down.
We drove out to Skaftafell and, despite the weather's best efforts (rain, freezing cold winds straight off the glacier, snow) walked up past Hundafoss and Magnúsarfoss to Svartifoss. Although the falls at Svartifoss are no different from many others in the area, the backdrop is what makes the waterfall famous. Layer upon layer of basalt columns have steadily been revealed, forming a wall of what looks (to quote every guidebook, ever) like organ pipes. Again postcards show a friendly, summer scene; we saw the basalt wet from the rain, black and baleful behind the roar of the water.
All along the road (Route 1) from Reykjavik and East to Skaftafellthe hillsides were peppered with small waterfalls. Sheer drops as water ran off cliff edges, vertical streams running down rocky paths and rivulets eating large steps into the hills. Most of the water is, I think, ultimately run off from the ice caps and glaciers - which has the strange side effect that Iceland's rivers flood during hot, sunny weather.
Gullfoss is one of the attractions in the "Golden Circle", the tourist trap area immediately round Reykjavik. A massive, broad river falls over two large "steps" which have formed at nearly right angles to each other. The curtain of mist which forms is, again, famous for rainbows - but in colder weather means instead that everything is coated in ice. Every blade of grass, ever twist of the rope handrail, ever leaf was a thick, glassy white. The path down to the falls was sheet ice so only really stupid people would attempt to walk down there. Interestingly, immediately above the falls the mist blows away from you, allowing you to see clearly. Or, er, so someone really stupid told me.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 07:38 pm (UTC)a) Icelandic hotels all seem to serve buffet breakfasts
b) eating is so expensive that you want to fill up while the chance is there
accordingly, we ate until toast came out of our ears each morning.
Seven courses is a bit excessive, but I reckon I managed 5-6 visits to the buffet table each morning (eg cereal, muesli, dried fruit and yoghurt, bread with eggs and pickled fish, bread with salami and cheese, fresh fruit).