Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #251 Share Posted May 21 Eight hour tour. Eight. Hour. Tour! Just back to the ship, processing photos in the darkroom now. Spoiler alert! Iceland is awesome. 17 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo Posted May 21 #252 Share Posted May 21 (edited) 9 hours ago, island lady said: Did the captain sound the horn when you crossed? 🙂 @twangster said it was around midnight when they crossed, Guess the Captain didn't want to wake people up. Maybe on the return when they return to Amsterdam he will have a chance to sound the horn when they cross. 4 hours ago, island lady said: Awww...party pooper!! 😄 Edited May 21 by Jimbo 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare island lady Posted May 21 #253 Share Posted May 21 1 hour ago, twangster said: Eight hour tour. Eight. Hour. Tour! Just back to the ship, processing photos in the darkroom now. Spoiler alert! Iceland is awesome. Nice! Looking forward to our visit to Iceland/Greenland in August. Thanks again for your fantastic review and for taking us along on your journey. Feels like we are right there with you. 🥰 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #254 Share Posted May 21 With a mid-morning meeting time there was time to spare so I ventured up top. The included TMobile service works pretty good here. 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #255 Share Posted May 21 We board a bus and begin an hour long drive to the first stop. We'll use that tunnel I spotted earlier. It's 7.5km or almost 5 miles long. Once through the tunnel we enter a valley. Lots of water flowing with the spring run off from melting snow. 19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #256 Share Posted May 21 (edited) It's a little cooler in the valley and some lakes still had ice on them. This is a pseudo crater and in the world of volcanoes there are pretty rare, except in this region. So much of Iceland involves volcanoes. Our guide points out the rough lava formations from thousands of years ago. At some point thousands of years ago an eruption occured and lava was flowing through this valley. The valley most likely had wetlands or water so the hot flowing lava had an dramatic encounter with the water in the valley leading to these sharp formations. Edited May 21 by twangster 16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #257 Share Posted May 21 Our first stop was at Dimmuborgir. Here we can explore the rugged lava formations up close using easy to navigate paved trails. The crater is the background is thought to be unrelated to the lava flow that created the formations. They think it came much later. Basalt rock up close. Bathroom break here at this stop for those that needed it. It is after all an 8 hour tour. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #258 Share Posted May 21 Back on the bus or guide points out a geothermal electric generating plant. Basically they drill down into the earth and once they find steam they pipe it into a steam generator to produce electricity. Some of these go down 3,000 to 4,000 meters. Around the corner he points out where two tectonic plates meet. On the left is the North American plate and on the right is the Eurasian plate. The gap is because they are spreading away from each other. Right around the corner from that are naturally occurring geothermal geysers. Then just a bit a further along some active venting was occuring. 21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Sea Dog Posted May 21 #259 Share Posted May 21 Great pictures and such a beautiful landscape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #260 Share Posted May 21 This brings us to our next stop at Dettifoss. It's a bit of hike this time of year and this spring has melted like others we are told so there was a lot of snow on the path. There are two waterfalls here and the first wasn't technically included in this tour but I took the opportunity to check it out. Selfoss waterfall first: 20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #261 Share Posted May 21 Video from Selfoss: 10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cherful59 Posted May 21 #262 Share Posted May 21 (edited) @twangster I just think of Gillian’s Island every time I read “an 8hour tour”. Although I think Gillian’s was a 3 hour tour. Thanks for the pictures. I think Iceland might have to go on my bucket list. Edited May 21 by Cherful59 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #263 Share Posted May 21 Turning around and heading back from Selfoss and you can see Dettifoss from above it. To get there, there is 600m more of rugged terrain before reaching a man made walkway. Dettifoss: 18 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #264 Share Posted May 21 Video from Dettifoss: 7 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cherful59 Posted May 21 #265 Share Posted May 21 3 minutes ago, twangster said: Video from Dettifoss: That looks awesome. I love waterfalls! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #266 Share Posted May 21 Back on the bus to our next stop, Langavatnshöfði. This is an overlook 300m from the parking lot on a paved trail. It's thought there was once a glacier here with a volcano under the glacier. The volcano became active and melted the glacier creating massive volumes of water that altered the landscape. This was thought to occur around 5,000 year ago, again around 4,000 years and another time around 3,000 years ago. The effect has been to cause the land to sink sharply as seen from the cliff faces. 17 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #267 Share Posted May 21 By this time it was nearing 4pm and lunch was in order. We stopped at Veggur restaurant which served soup and fish. There were no choices, everyone received the same dish. The fish was Arctic Char. No pics, too hungry. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #268 Share Posted May 21 Back on the bus to drive towards the coast before arriving at Húsavík. First we cross a section where an earthquake in 1996 created a new lake and altered the landscape. This gap formed in the otherwise flat land before the quake. It runs for miles in each direction. Húsavík is becoming a whale watching hotspot and we had a short ten minute stop to check out the harbor. I'm not really sure why we stopped here. Perhaps the local business owner or chamber lobbied to be included. It's a pretty little spot but ten minutes wasn't enough to really do anything. 15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #269 Share Posted May 21 Back on the bus we pass some horses. Then we rejoin the road we had taken in the valley after the tunnel. From here we can see another waterfall from the bus. Goðafoss waterfall wasn't included on this tour so we didn't stop. The outflow below the waterfall was pretty cool too. That's as close as got as we needed to get back. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #270 Share Posted May 21 What a beautiful day this turned into. Back into the tunnel. It's only three or for years old. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #271 Share Posted May 21 Back to the ship just after 7pm. After wearing a hat most of the day, most of us looked like this bird. 7 17 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #272 Share Posted May 21 Our route from a GPS tracker. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #273 Share Posted May 21 Back on the ship with my view of the airport I wondered what the impact, if any, the ship presented to aircraft using the airport. It turns out not much. This plane climbed high well before reaching the ship. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare twangster Posted May 21 Author #274 Share Posted May 21 It was a pretty great tour and well worth the money. The lunch was pretty tasty. A long day and pretty exhausting but we saw so much. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RFerrington Posted May 21 #275 Share Posted May 21 Just. Wow. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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