Mývatn and Dimmuborgir

The weather the last few days has been fabulous, sunny, windless with clear blue skies and the light is just magical.  The days are much shorter now, dark by 6.30 in the evening and not light until about 8am...a few weeks ago there was a little window where we had what I would call normal day/night hours...light by 6am and dark by about 7.30pm.

Sunday the weather was stunning, so with geocaching buddies Patricia and Bjarki we headed off to Mývatn to do a few caches and end the day with a soak in the Mývatn nature baths.  Mývatn is about a 2.5hr drive from here, although we did not set of until 1.30 in the afternoon we managed to see quite a bit.

First stop along the way was Goðafoss the waterfall of the gods, a spectacular waterfall and very accessible...as you can see by my photos you can walk to the edge of the cliff to get a good view...at your own risk of course.  Only 3 other people viewing at the same time as me...but I imagine in the peak season it would be quite crowded.

Around the year 1000 Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði made Christianity the official religion of Iceland and it is said that he threw his statues of the Norse gods into this waterfall.

Next was the pseudo craters at Lake Mývatn

The place is stunning and felt quite out of this world

The air was cool and still, with a little ice on the lake surface.

We then headed off to Dimmuborgir where there are unusual lava formations.

You can just make out the lacy lava wall, a natural structure across this ridge,

it looked amazing with the light shining through (this pic does not do it justice)

Here are a couple of close up views

This is the incredible view from one of the caches we found in Dimmuborgir

After stopping for a bite to eat we then headed off to Jarðböðin the nature baths.

picture source

My body felt like it was melting as I soaked in the lagoon, it felt sooo good and as I floated on my back looking at the stars the northern lights also put on a spectacular display...the perfect end to the perfect day!

The Aurora Borealis apparently put on a display around the country as my little camera does not do the lights I thought I would share this video by Olgeir Andresson which was taken on the same night.