Tuesday 11th August - Husavik

It was quite a bumpy ride to Husavik, where we berthed at 7am. It was good to see the weather had improved considerably.

Silver Explorer in the port of Husavik

Before a quick breakfast, we called Matthew to wish them a safe journey and a good time in Malibu. Matthew said he had finally had a very brief response from Edward, which was good.

At 9am, we boarded one of three coaches taking everyone on the tour. Our guide was a very nice elderly local man, Oliver, who spoke excellent English. We also had Will, Elizabeth and Danny from the Expedition Team. It was a forty-five minute drive and, on the way, we drove past large areas covered with flowering lupins. Apparently, the plant, Alaskan Lupin, was imported in the 19th century to combat erosion, but now has spread widely, impacting on the native flora.

Alaskan Lupin

Our first stop was at the Namaskard thermal springs, with gurgling purple and yellow sulphur cauldrons. It reminded me of Yellowstone Park. It was good to be able to get really close to the hissing steam vents and the bubbling mud pools. No health and safety here!

The geysers at Namaskard

Close up to a steaming vent

Wonderful colours of the chemicals from the vents and the surrounding hills

Bubbling mud pools

Black thermophiles thriving in the hot springs

The fault line where the North American and the Eurasian plates are pulling apart and splitting Iceland in two!

After about half an hour, we drove to Dimmuborgir, an area of large towers of lava in fantastic shapes, including one that looked like a squirrel. Here we had quite a good walk and stayed for about an hour, admiring the different formations.

Oliver, our Icelandic tour guide

Some of the weird lava shapes at Dimmuborgir

 'The cockerel'?

The Squirrel

Looking down on the lava field

It was then on past Lake Myvatn to the collapsed lava cones at Skutustadir. We walked to the top of a couple of cones, taking photos and looking over towards Lake Myvatn. Skutustadir is on the south shore of the lake and is protected as a national monument. The pseudo-craters or rootless vents were formed by repeated explosions in many locations. 

 One of the collapsed volcanic cones

It was time for lunch at the Sel-Hotel Myvatn, just across the road. The lunch was not bad at all, consisting of a good tomato soup and very tasty Arctic Char.

Sel-Hotel Myvatn

After lunch, we drove about twenty minutes to the waterfall at Godafoss. At a meeting of the Althing (Parliament) in 1000AD, the Icelanders voted to adopt Christianity. The wooden Norse idols were thrown into the waterfall in a symbolic gesture. Godafoss means "Waterfall of the Gods".

With the sun now shining, we walked three hundred metres to the falls, which are about 11 metres high and 30 metres across. The main falls are very beautiful and were slightly spoilt by a drone buzzing around taking aerial pictures. We spent about 30 minutes taking photos and video.

The river below the falls

Godafoss Falls

A dreaded drone taking photos of the falls and us!

The full width of the waterfalls

Cascading waters

Me, standing too close to the edge!

We walked back along the river path to the gift shop and then boarded the coaches for the 30 miles back to Husavik. We stopped in the town to visit the whale museum.

The Whale Museum

This was followed by a short walk around the centre, passing the church, which was not open.

We went inside the Husavik Museum, which houses the Folk, Maritime and Natural History Museums, but we had no time left for a proper visit. Our last stop was outside the Exploration Museum, which had a plaque listing all the Apollo Astronauts who came to the Husavik area in 1965 and 1967  to train for the moon landings.

 

Our bus was operating a shuttle service to the ship, so we took advantage of that, arriving back on board at around 4.30pm.

When we returned to our cabin, we had this lovely 'Welcome Back' sign made out of cotton buds on our bed, done by our butler Bisht and Elizabeth, our suite attendant.

We had tea in the Panorama Lounge with Tim and agreed to have a Hot Rocks dinner with him and Jo and Pauline and Jan before the end of the cruise.

Tonight we set sail for Akureyri, a town at the head of the next fjord to the west of Husavik.

We met up with Pauline, Jan and Tim for the evening meal. Unfortunately, Jo wasn't feeling well, but we invited Judith to join us. I started feeling queasy as we headed for Akureyri, so I didn't have a dessert or coffee, but returned to the cabin and crashed out.

At 1.45am I woke up and realised we were stationary. I looked out of the window and saw the lights of Akureyri. In the sky were very faint Northern Lights. A good way to end the day, or should I say, the night!