The forecast was fine and sunny, so we set off in a freezing wind and driving rain to explore the Jokulsagljufur canyon. That’s the Anglicised version of its name as the Icelandic language has about 12 additional characters in its alphabet to cope with its complexity – and my keyboard can’t handle that.
We travelled across more lava flows, they are stark and beautiful
Beautiful patches of forest can grow in protected areas, this one was surrounded by lava flows.
There’s no crops in the fields, they grow their produce in hot houses – this one is powered by geothermal heat – the pool of water in the foreground was on a rolling boil
This region lies smack on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – the boundary between the Atlantic and Eurasian plates, hence the geothermal activity. The Jokulsagljufur canyon was thought to have been formed in one day when a volcanic eruption under a glacier melted it and caused a catastrophic flood. A mighty river fed by the Vatnajokull ice sheet now powers through it and over some massive waterfalls.
But first we walked for hours around and through some intriguing basalt configurations, heavily eroded to form incredible patterns.
These are the familiar hexagonal basalt columns, but they are in a horizontal position, stacked up like a pile of wood.
Then on to 3 mighty falls. We saw 2 of these yesterday from the other side of the canyon. This was the entrée – Hafragilsfoss
Dettifoss is the mightiest of all – check out the spray, the people on the other side are being drenched by it – as we were yesterday. I got my figures wrong yesterday – 400 tonnes of water go over its 44 metre drop each second. My calculator thinks that is 24,000 tonnes per minute or 1.44 megatonnes per hour. We saw at least a megatonne go over. Half of that seems to be deposited in the form of spray onto the spectators on the other side.
The power is jaw-dropping, especially when you are standing about a foot from it ..
1.5km upstream is the beautiful Selfoss. The same amount of water goes over it of course, but it’s about 100m wide in a parabolic shape and not as high. This is my favourite foss so far.
Back home late and there was just time for a pizza and some Black Death. There are worse ways to die!
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