Iceland August 2013
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Day Nine: Back to civilisation. Thingvellir
Thingvellir is a national park. Wild camping in the national parks is not allowed, so we had to stay in the campsite. We chose the campsite in the northern part of the park, not far from the information centre. Thingvellir is a place where the North American and Eurasian plates come together, or rather drift apart from each other. The fault between them gets deeper by 8 mm every year. The fault formed the largest natural lake in Iceland: Thingvallavatn.
The green tent shows the place where we stayed overnight.
We did not want to spend whole day in Thingvellir, and in the evening we drove towards hot springs on the other side of the mountain where we pitched our tents at the end of the first day of our trip. Zoom in to see our tracks in Thingvellir and around hot springs.
We went to explore the cracks in the ground. Surprisingly, we did not meet anybody, all visitors flock to the sights a bit further south. We also got there in the end.
We are walking on the bottom of the crack. The undergrowth is very tall, like in the jungles. Waterproofs saved us from getting wet in a drizzle.
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It was not so easy to climb out of the cracks, the walls are very steep. |
The frozen lava is everywhere.
We walked up to the lake. Here there were lots of people. This is the place of the first parliament of Iceland, Altingi.
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The cracks near the lake are filled with water. |
The cracks are probably connected with the lake The water is surprisingly clear. |
We noticed some ruins on the lakeside, close to the other campsite. A farm probably stood here in the past. The wind has died down and suddenly for the first time during our trip we were attacked by small flies. They did not bite but were quite annoying. Some local people were wearing mosquito masks.
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After lunch
On the other side of the lake we noticed some steam. It looked like it was coming from hot springs. We made our way to these springs.
Wed drove along the eastern side of the lake and did not regret it, it was very quiet and peaceful. The island looks like a turtle.
The weather was changeable but there was no rain. The weather further improved in the evening.
We left the car at a car park and went to look at the hot springs. There is a map with marked trails at the car park.
Everything is bubbling and boiling.
These are hot puddles with fluid mud. The sulfur smell is noticeable but not too bad.
The steam from the hot springs destroyed all vegetation.
This fumarole has its entrance covered with sulfur. We collected some crystals, and burned them. They melted, burned and smelled just like sulfur should do.
Another hot spring.
The sun came out. Hard to believe that this is real. There is a lake in the distance, and the steam in the distance reveals the presence of a geothermal power station near the lake.
No vegetation, like in a desert.
The geothermal wells are scattered around the mountain. The steam is piped towards the main plant building.
The Thingvallavatn lake behind the steam.
Our tents were close to a geothermal well. We are not sure if camping here would have been OK on a week day, but we did not see anybody on the weekend.
