Whirlwind Tour of North Iceland - Part 3

Locations: Dettifoss, Husavik


















Dettifoss
Another gem within Jökulsárgljúfur National Park (the same one from the last post which I can't pronounce) is Dettifoss. As previously mentioned, "foss" means waterfall, and Icelanders are particularly proud of this one because it's considered the most powerful in Europe.

As usual, we had to park and take a short walk to get to the good stuff. Fortunately the path followed along a cliff which provided a great view of downstream. Here's an example.

And another.
And here is Dettifoss from afar.
I followed up on what exactly is meant by "most powerful" because I already knew this wasn't the tallest in the country. Glymer is. It turns out that "most powerful" implies flow rate, and it doesn't disappoint with a whopping 200 cubic meters per second (almost 53,000 gallons going by each second). This translates to 4.5 billion gallons of water each year.
And as always, one pic with me partially blocking all the natural beauty :)

Husavik
This is one of the few towns in the North, and it also offers some good points of interest despite its small size. We were lucky enough to be there during a week-long "candy" festival where locals and tourists alike would spend the evenings down on the harbor with bbq, beer, and live music. And although I saw very little candy, it's hard to pass up a chance to grab a beer and mingle with the locals.

Here is a picture of the cafe right above the harbor.
One of the main attractions of the town is its Whale Watching tours, which are supposed to be far superior to those offered in the South. For a moderate price, we boarded a boat and set out for ~3 hours. Here is the one we were on.
Despite the foggy day, we were successful. The boat took us out to where some whales had been recently spotted. This particular species (I can't remember which one anymore) fed by diving up and down with their mouths open, essentially sucking in and expelling large quantities of water while filtering out their food.

They would surface briefly about every four minutes, but since the time & place was never known, we were constantly moving around to keep up with them. We saw 3 in total, and they didn't seem to care that we were there at all. My videos came out better than my pictures, but I did get one good one.

When they go completely vertical for a deep dive their tails come almost straight up, which gives those of us watching a good show. Here is what it looked like.
The captain was saying they tend to see the same few whales everyday, and since they can tell them apart by the tales, they tend to name them. The one in the pictures is Freddy.

They tend to surface pretty fast and we had to keep our eyes open in all directions, but luckily one came up really close and directly in front of where I was looking. Here's the short video I got (assuming it works).

Also one funny side note. Near the end of the tour Freddy surfaced right in front of us while our boat was still moving ahead slightly, and we actually collided with him. Someone yelled out "we rammed Freddy!", much to everyone's amusement except the captains. If you're reading this Freddy, thanks for not getting angry and sinking us.


We felt famished when we got back into town, so we walked up the harbor a few minutes to one of the two restaurants in town for an early dinner.

I really liked the place not only for its terrific food but its traditional Icelandic selections. We had a local bird named Puffin for an appetizer. I thought it tasted similar to duck.
And a few people in the group ordered a reindeer entree (they live in the East), which I also really enjoyed. I thought it tasted just like a really good beef steak.

Probably one of my favorite destinations of Husavik, however, is the Iceland Phallological Museum.

Seriously, I wouldn't make this up! The owner has collected over 250 specimens and aspires to get at least one penis from every mammal on the island. In case you don't believe me, here is front sign.
Located at the beginning of the tour, I found this diagram helpful because it gave for a sense of scale for what I was about to see. You probably can't read the text, but mankind is the smallest one on the far right.
I think this one belongs to a sperm whale.
I would attempt to guide you through which specimen belongs to what, but I found it more fun to just wander through without trying to remember the details.
And some more...
The guys in the group really seemed to enjoy taking their picture with this one, although I think we all tried our best not to feel inadequate in its presence.

And thus ends the long weekend (4 day) tour of North Iceland. I really don't think we possibly could have squeezed in anything else. We didn't even get back until 4:30am and still had to wake up for work in the morning!

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Bouncing Around Southern Iceland (Part 1)

Location: Skogafoss

Iceland is not a particularly large country. It's about the size of Kentucky and includes ~300,000 people. The majority live in the capital, Reykjavik, located on the Southwest part of the island. Here is a map to provide some reference - the star shows where the various destinations are in each post.
On Saturday we hopped in a car and drove about 3 hours away to a village in Southern Iceland called Vik (the only town on the Southern tip). Along the way, we quickly learned that what passed for a town on the map was actually a farm. We drove past a town sign which reported the population to be 7. I wonder how they elect a mayor...

While Vik was our terminal destination, there were a few interesting places to stop by along the way. The first was Skogafoss, which has some amazing waterfalls running strong this time of year with snow melt. Here is a picture taken right when we got out of the car. I don't know how tall it was, but the people below provide a sense of scale.

NOTE: I've purposely not shrunk the resolution down on any pictures but if you want to see its full quality you'll have to click on it.
Even cooler, there is a trail which runs behind and then up alongside it. The water was coming down pretty hard and kicking up a lot of mist once we got close. This made it harder to take pictures, but its one benefit was that it created rainbows everywhere. It didn't matter where we were standing...there was always a rainbow staring back at us. Here's a pic taken along the trail I just mentioned.
This was actually taken at another location about 30 minutes away from Skogafoss, but I can't remember its name. At the top there is this rock formation with a face overlooking the main waterfall, and I thought it looked like something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie.
We also hiked up a hill to get a better look at the entire ridge line, and here's what we saw.
I particularly like this one because it gives a sense of just how green everything is here. You know that old schoolyard fact about how the Vikings purposely mis-named Iceland (which is actually very green) and Greenland (all ice)? It's true.

More gorgeous pics of Skogafoss are here.