An easier day today than yesterday, and just as well.
But first a word on the Covid situation in Iceland. There isn't one. At least that's how it appears. There are no formal requirements to report, isolate or whatever. Since our arrival, the only people we have seen wearing masks have been us, with very few exceptions. Sanitising isn't easy, as sanitiser stations are rare. We continue to use masks indoors unless eating or drinking but we are in a minority of two. For example today we kept count and saw two masked Asian women, then another single woman. That's all day. Between all the places we have stayed or visited in Iceland, i.e. accommodation, restaurants, cafes, ticket offices and shops, there has been one receptionist masked. On the other hand, there are significant numbers of people clearly with winter-like symptoms of coughs and throat-clearing, presumably mostly Covid-related given it is summer here. Two nights ago, 3 of the 4 rooms had coughers the first night, and 2 of the 4 at the next place.
We can only presume that the population as a whole has decided to get on with life as it was, and accept the risks. It is practically impossible for accommodation hosts to avoid being exposed to Covid, though if they opted to wear masks they'd definitely reduce their chances. They have so many people coming through their premises. Even our last night's hosts with their 2 rented bedrooms are having 4 new strangers arriving every night, and the place before that 8. It is not a comfortable situation for anybody but I guess they have made the decision to open up and make what money they can over summer. Icelanders, and no doubt many other parts of of the world, seem to have accepted that Covid is part of the landscape.
Speaking of landscapes, today was very much about them. Our first objective was the geothermal area of Hverir. We could smell it coming up! Not a large area, but full of interesting little bubbling mud pools, hissing sulphur vents, and a few good steam vents, all with that great Rotorua smell.
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| Hverir Geothermal Area |
Next on the list was the perfect crater cone of Hverfjall. This was a cinder cone of about 1km diameter, with a perfect dished interior. We climbed up the side on a diagonal, but on reaching the top decided it really wasn't must advantage walking around the rim (c=2𝜋r sounded too far), so back down we went. Hverfjall is in the lovely Myvatn area, covered in many attractive lakes, and for Iceland, quite well treed.
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| Hverfjall Crater interior |
Indeed the next stop was Dimmuborgir, an area where windblown sand had almost buried some fantastic lava stacks. Locals and I think the Government had got together and cleared the sand, planted special grasses to lock remaining sand back up, and done a tree-planting campaign with native birches. The result is lovely.
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| Dimmuborgir |
Last place to visit in the morning was Godafoss, our last major waterfall. Despite being smaller than most of the others we've seen, it was very attractive and one of our favourites. Not as brutal as most of the others.
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| Godafoss |
Lunchtime was a chance to stop, take a breather and eat a cracker or two. The driving up north has been much more pleasant than down south. The roads are far less busy, much smoother, and even have a reasonable number of rest areas to pull over, one of which we took advantage of to sit in the car and have lunch. Yet again, the grey showery weather that had been forecast had moved off to the next day, and while we had little sun, we had only a few spots of rain.
We'd seen George Clarke going around Iceland on TV some weeks ago, and after lunch visited Laufas, north of Akureyri, where he had been. It was a gorgeous ancient farm complex of turf houses.
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| Laufas turf houses |
From Laufas it was only a few minutes' drive back south to Iceland's number two city, Akureyri. The word 'city' is probably over-generous, as it has only 18,000 people compared to Reykjavik's 123,000. It is a pretty little place on the water's edge. Our hotel is a bit of a laugh. We are sure it must be a training hotel for the hotel trade. The staff are perhaps 16-18 years old, lost and flustered, but very pleasant. They were frantically trying, and failing, to get rooms ready as people arrived.
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| Akureyri |
We had an hour or so off before heading into the town for a look around and to choose somewhere for dinner (only our second meal out on the trip). In the end we plumped for a nice meal of smoked salmon on pita bread. Sort of Icelandic, unbelievably generous on the salmon front, and very tasty. Our next alternatives had been iskender or Chinese!
