Akureyri, Iceland

On our first day in Iceland, we docked in Akureyri, a fairly big city on the north coast. We just came back from our tour, which took us to several interesting natural sites. Most of the tour was spent around Myvatn, a lake about 1 1/2 hours away from Akureyri. Myvatn had an amazing variety of landscapes and features surrounding it - the lake itself is a habitat for waterfowl, which come there to eat the many, many midges that breed in the still waters. Around it, though, are different types of volcanic formations. Our first stop was at an area with sulphurous mud pits and vents, which you can see in the top picture. It smelled terrible, but was fascinating to watch! I made a small movie of a bubbling mud pit which is too big to upload while on the ship, but I'll put it up when we get home. We then also stopped at some lava tube formations, and an area with a number of "pseudo-craters," which are crater-shaped volcanic formations that do not actually have lava coming out of them.

After Myvatn, we stopped at Goðafuss, an impressive waterfall. The name means "god falls," and supposedly they are so named because it's said that here Thorgeir the Lawspeaker, a chieftain in the year 1000, contemplated his decision to rule that Iceland should convert to Christianity. The falls and river are in a gorge that you can't see too well from the road, so it's pretty impressive to be in a fairly flat valley floor, then suddenly come upon this wide, thundering waterfall.