Sunday 22 May 2016

The Long and Winding Road - Day 6

Today was a bit of a stressful day, and didn't go the way we had planned, but it all worked out in the end! We left Egilstardir as early as we could, because we knew we had a scheduled to meet today.  We had a reservation for Whale Watching in Húsavík for 1:30pm.  


On our drive we encountered a pretty brutal snow storm! Driving in the mountains, we had to be careful not to end up in a ditch.  We had no internet signal up there, and the cliffs were pretty extreme.  We did see one car who appeared to have driven off the road unfortunately!


Our first stop was meant to be Dettifoss Waterfall, but the road we had driven to was closed! So we had to detour through the blizzard to find it.  Once we got to the location, there was a small hike to the falls.  We had approximately 15 minutes to see the falls and be back on the road.  The snow was difficult to walk in and Logan kept yelling "WINDY!" so we gave up, got back in the car and decided to head to Húsavík.

On our way, we drove past a number of sights in Mývatn that we knew we would be returning to.  Steaming hot mountains, and lakes.



We made it to Húsavík without much time to spare.  Logan was very impressed with the schooner (this was the boat we were meant to ride on for our whale watching tour).  Unfortunately, due to the weather, the captain asked that we not do the tour - they were strongly recommending that no children go out today.  So we were a bit disappointed, and Logan was super excited to see the whales, so we went to the whale museum instead!



Once we were in the museum, he was mostly interested in finding other kids to play with and stacking blocks!



He also fell in love with this Puffin "hockey hat".  (You will see that this hat has nothing to do with hockey - but all ball caps to him are hockey hats).

When we finished up at the museum, we made our way back to Mývatn.  Our first site was Grjótagjá - a natural thermal spring inside a cave.  This location was also used in the show Game of Thrones!



We passed by this sulphur lake on our way to our next stop! the turquoise colour was gorgeous!  ...this lake was far too hot for bathing with scolding temperatures. 



Our next stop was the Namafjall geothermal field.  This field was full of boiling hot water springs, boiling mud pots and steam vents. Logan was yelling "stinky" the whole time we walked around!









After all of that, we made our way to the Mývatn Nature Baths. This is a natural hot bath which we all enjoyed.  Logan wore water wings, and loved being in the water! My hair did not love being in the water, and is still recovering from the sulphur! 







Logan fell asleep almost as soon as we got in the car, but Angus and I decided to make one last stop! We headed over to Dimmuborgir which is a huge eerie area of lava formations.  Even though it's quite common for people to leave their babies unattended here...(We have walked past many cafes where babies are sleeping soundly in their prams around the corner in the ally)....I wasn't comfortable leaving him out of my sight.  So after a quick peak, I went back to the car while Angus went on to explore for a bit.  

Tomorrow we make our way to Akureyri.

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