Hringvegur Plus #9: Dramatic Landscapes, Yummy Food and Cows

Mývatn is a geothermal area with active volcanoes

The next day we headed back to Mývatn, where we would be staying for the night. Only 52 miles away (and filled with bugs), we could have skipped this area and moved on. But, it was too late to cancel our reservations and I was intrigued by our next lodging. 

Staying on a Farm

We stayed at the family-run Vogafjós Farm Resort on the eastern shore of the lake. The guesthouse is situated on a working farm, with a restaurant in a barn!

An interesting accommodation and restaurant

Our companions

We found the farm to be less picturesque than we had anticipated, but I think that’s because it is actually a farm (not a storybook version of a farm). When we waited for our table at lunch, we sat on the patio in front of a line of dairy cows.

 

Some had such large udders, they wore slings

And, at breakfast, we sat by a glass window where we could watch the cows being milked. It was kind of a cool concept and the homemade cheese in the restaurant were delicious. 

Watching the milking while we eat

Our room

The room itself was across the highway in a more recently built cross between a cabin and a motel. The room was tiny, but it was in a wooded area that was filled with some very entertaining White Wagtails.

A pretty bird

Geothermal Areas

Despite being near the verdant lake, we actually spent most of our day at Mývatn visiting nearby geothermal features.

The mountain at Hverir

The process was confusing. Some things on my map were hard to find. Some were not what I thought they were (we thought we were walking to a lake, but ended up at a crater). 

Hverir mudpots

Almost everything had multiple names. 

And, sometimes signs petered out before we found what we were looking for. 

But, we managed to successfully find a few things. 

We started the day looking for Grjotagja Cave, which looks beautiful in photos, but failed to impress us. 

I didn't see this; Photo: Trips to Discover

The “azure” hot spring inside a cave was featured several times in Game of Thrones. In real life, you can’t go into the cave and it was just a dark puddle we could barely see through the tiny opening. 

I think the trick is to go at a time of day when the sun shines in. Otherwise, nada!

Photo: Scott Stevens

Allegedly the water has gotten much hotter than it used to be, making it dangerous. 

In addition to the cave being a dud, I did something weird with my camera that day and most of my photos were out of focus. Perhaps it’s a lucky break that I was unimpressed with what we saw.

The coolest thing was the big rift on top of the cave. That was something!

Next, we headed to the Námafjall Geothermal Area, also known as Hverir (see what I mean about names!) on the east side of the lake. It features smoking fumaroles and boiling mud pots, surrounded by multi-colored sulfur crystals. 

A geysir; Photos: Scott Stevens

Once again, I find the geothermal areas in Iceland to be less impressive than Yellowstone, but the bubbling mud pots were pretty neat (despite the thick clouds of midges). 

What was really impressive was the industrial area where hot water was being pumped out of the ground and piped away.

Pipes carry steam away to provide heat and power

The giant pipes snaked over the hills and then even made an arch over the road, looking futuristic. 

This was really awesome

A stream that was so filled with minerals that it looked like it was flowing milk was pretty interesting. And, a random constantly running hot shower in the middle of a pull-off was intriguing.

Milky stream and a hot shower

The dominant volcano in the area, Krafla, sits atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which forms the divergent boundary between the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate. There have been 29 reported eruptions in recorded history, the most recent from 1975-1984. Krafla includes the crater Víti (“hell” in Icelandic), one of two well-known craters by this name in Iceland (the other is in Askja).

A tortured landscape

Of course, the photos I saw of the beautiful blue lake when I was doing research was the other one. That explains why we never found it. 

A brief walk up to a crater

Anyway, in search of Víti (the lake I never found), we hiked up to Leirhnjúkur, a rhyolite formation on "an active lava field on the active volcano on Krafla." 

Yeah, I don’t quite understand what was what either! But it had a sign and an arrow!

Basically, we walked up to the edge of the caldera. The rhyolite of the hill is porous due to the geothermal heat and has in several places turned into clay, hence the name. Leirhnjúkur means "clay hill." 

You can see clay, mineral deposits and some opportunistic plants and algae

The trail starts as an even, well-maintained gravel path that then connects with a boardwalk of a Trex-type material. This, I assume is to protect you from the steam venting from the ground and the uneven terrain.

It's a little scary to walk where steam comes out of the Earth

Unfortunately, the dynamic nature of the ground has wreaked havoc with the trail. There are large areas of buckled planks, making part of the trail more treacherous than the surrounding lava field.

At one point when we were descending after visiting the crater, I had to slide on my seat the get down the hill where the planks had broken off.

The trail start nicely, but then falls apart

There was a small bluish white pool, some smoking vents, small hardy plants and lots of lava. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it was interesting. I think Víti Crater (the one in Mývatn) was nearby, but we didn’t find it.

We did find this small pool

Dinner, But No Hot Baths

We went back to the actual lake to look for birds and then a heavy rainstorm moved in.

We ate dinner at Vogafjós Farm Resort. Lunch had been good and we hadn’t seen any other nice restaurants, so it was a good choice. The food is beautifully presented and quite tasty. 

Yum!

One thing we didn’t do, which is ironic, is take a soak in the Mývatn Nature Baths, the most famous thing in the area and one of the places I had originally planned to visit. We drove up to the parking lot, but decided we just weren’t in the mood to change, soak and change back.

A very bucolic visit

I like hot pools, but I think they are better if you can just walk to them from a hotel room.

Our visit to Mývatn was interesting, but, as I said, I think we could have just hit the area as a drive-by rather than staying. But, watching cows at breakfast was novel.

The next day we were leaving the Hringvegur briefly for a visit to Iceland’s northernmost town, Raufarhöfn. 

Trip date: August 13-September 1, 2021