North East Sky High

     Seyõisfjördur is a little town at the base of a fjord.  It's off the main road by 20 miles, but it was the center of the Norwegian fishing and hering processing plants.  When I read about the old Norwegian houses there I knew we had to go.  What we didn't expect was the beautiful drive over the mountains to get there.  The road took us straight up to where there was still lots of snow and rushing streams.  The view from the top down into the picturesque down was beautiful.  We also saw one of the ski areas in Iceland which was a fun sight for Rick.  it seems like the road would be closed fairly often.  We could see a lot of snowmobile tracks as well.   Down in the town a beautiful blue, old church and many colorful houses surrounded a small bay.  My Norwegian heart was thrilled.

    We had to backtrack over the pass again and head west to our next stop.  It was a drive with many interesting sites.  The first section was along a wide valley with big cliffs on each side.  Water spilled over the cliffs in dozens of waterfalls - some endlessly long and thin, some very wide and powerful.  So many that we didn't stop for pictures for most of them.   Some of the farms in this valley had huge greenhouses that are heated by geothermal energy.  Produce including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and strawberries are grown in these greenhouses to provide the island with fresh food.   The geothermal heating is also used to heat the soill to start the growing season earlier for root vegetables.

     We left the farms and rivers and drove high up onto the escarpment.  This huge, barren, windswept area used to have trees and was farmed.  However, several volcanic eruptions and some long periods of cold weather killed off most of the vegetation and left it a rocky wasteland.  Driving through this area we could see what looked like clouds of smoke ahead.  However, when we got closer we discovered that it was puffs of steam escaping from thermal vents.  One area was a mini-Yellowstone with bubbling mud holes and whistling steam.  The sulphur smell was really overwhelming, though.  Whew!!!

     There had been no towns, gas stations, or restrooms for 132 km so I was relieved (literally) to stop at the edge of Lake Myvatn where there's a Visitor Center, gas station and small grocery store.  We loaded up on information about the area and had a picnic lunch.  Our hotel for the night, Hotel Laxa, sits high on a hill overlooking the lake and the lava fields.  The only sound here is the sweep of the wind across the open fields.