Iceland:Reykjanes Peninsula :KLEIFARVATN

Now we are going to cross the peninsula - we will drive from the South up in the northeastern direction - from Grindavik to Reykjavik.
The route will take us across the lava flows (what else) and into the vicinity of the largest lake (vatn) on this peninsula.

The lake is settled in a deep volcanic fissure - maybe a kilometer deep. It is surrounded by bizarre rock formations and it is a home to a legend!
A large lake monster lives in this lake! Something related to Lochness of Scotland or Ogopogo of the Okanagan Valley! I have no idea what they called the Icelandic creature - it is just as good to know that it is there! There means in the imagination of many. The world needs elusive, harmless monsters.

Another interesting feature of Kleifarvatn is, that at one point it started to drain out. That was after an earthquake of the year 2000.
The quake must have opened a crack in the bottom of the lake resulting in the escape of water and for nearly a decade the lake level was diminishing. Then, in 2008,  it stopped as if someone plugged the sink. Maybe the monster had enough and swept some rocks into the bottom to keep its lake from draining out. 
In any case - the water levels seem to have stabilized and with all that rain have even bounced back to the pre-2000 level.

To a geologist the lakeside must fell like a textbook. To the rest of us ....it is a place of many shapes and subtle colours. It is an eerie environment - it feels like being on another planet.

 Except for the heavy machinery that is upgrading the twisting, undulating road. 

Someone in cyberspace stated that this road is used a lot for shooting car commercials. Well, it would not be our rental car anyone would like to see driving madly on these roads. 
Besides - would it not be a shame not to take our time and observe.

These plants shone in the rocky plane like two vivid lanterns. They were in  a lowland at the end of the lake; perhaps to please the monster on a full moon's night. No, don't worry - I am just being silly. It feels good to finally spot a bit of colour in that monotone land. 
Back to Earth so to speak.

Rock Lady's Mantle     (perhaps Alchemilla wichurae)

Sea-campion      (Silene acaulis)

Iceland: Reykjanes Peninsula: SELTUN

Next to Grindavik there is a geothermal area called Krysuvik. 

It consists of several colorful fields of yellow, green and red mineral deposits formed by the chemical reactions between the sulfuric gases and the rocks.

 One of  those fields is the area named SELTUN.

 

Just before turning left to Seltun we came upon a lake of unearthly turquoise waters. It looked like the weather has finally decided to to give us a break.  

It was still rainy and wet but the peeking sun prepared an amazing scene for us and our vehicle screeched in pain as we forced it to make an abrupt stop. 

Those who love to take photos know that a rainbow might not last long enough! 

And, it did not.

The lake is actually a crater of an old volcano and its waters are colored with dissolved minerals and microscopic organisms common in the volcanic areas. The last time we saw something similar was in Yellowstone N.P. though that was on a smaller scale.

This is Graenavatn - the Green Lake (vatn = lake)

Like Genie in a bottle - the steam vent is waiting for its moment.
There had been an earlier attempt here to gather some of the energy but it ended up in a destruction of the equipment.

Seltun is relatively a small area but it happily exhibits an array of stinky solfataras, hot fumaroles and steaming hot springs all along with mudpots and their heavy bloop-blooping skin-scolding mud bubbles.

 

This acidic water is capable of dissolving metals present in sulfide ores, which results in brightly colored, toxic streams.

 

There were sulfur mines here in the 18th an 19th centuries -  with the product exported many countries of the world.  Sulfur from here had been used in the manufacture of gunpowder.

 There is much more to be explored around Krysuvik - we are turning back and inland to see what we can find about the largest lake on Reykjanes - Kleifarvatn (vatn = lake)

The idyllic meadow scenes won't last - we are heading straight for another set of vast lava fields.

The tiny white dots in the grass are the soft heads of arctic cotton weed.

And, knowing where the water came from, I would advise the horses to abstain!

Iceland: Reykjanes Peninsula: GRINDAVIK

Grindavik is the only town on the southern edge of Reykjanes Peninsula.
Most of the nearly 3000 people here make their living by fishing, some work at nearby Blue Lagoon, the tourist industry, the geothermal power plant and probably at the nearby Biotechnology geothermal greenhouse.





Even in the still pouring rain, the small museum on the edge of town caught our attention.

There are not many land mammal species living in Iceland so the reindeer antlers looked like a good lead for a discussion. But then ... the place looked quite abandoned so we just kept on diving.




Shooting from the moving car driving through the empty streets made me think of the wild west.. But neither my camera nor the rest of the crew we willing to stop and step out into the cold downpour.

The talks of the first settlements in the area start at about year 950 but the real municipality has taken roots much much later - some 900 years after the first settlers had shown up.

The Old Church
Raised in the 1909 mostly by recycling materials from another old church served the people of Grindavík until 1982. As we traveled Iceland, we found out that many of their churches have beautiful, super-modern architecture - someone noted that many old churches were either damaged or destroyed by the earthquakes and had to be rebuild.

 

An old industrial building on the edge of town. I have no idea what purpose it served - we just liked the rustic appearance and the ghostly feeling of it.

Someone said that the Icelanders love to eat ice cream. They love it so much that they will even queue for it outside in a blizzard. This shop window painting supports the claim .... I just loved the whole works,

 

There was going to be no queuing up outside for us. With the cold wind ripping our clothes right off (well, OK, leave the underwear and such), we managed to push our way into the local cafe. There we got a good talk about the recent economic crisis, coffee and klejna - the oh-so-good Icelandic pastry.

All presented and served by the locals who know the first-hand best. It was a real treat.

We also learned that somewhere in the area is one of the the tallest Icelandic structures  - a 305 m tall transmission tower of sorts ..... wow, with all those earthquakes and wild weather!

We just liked the appearance of these neat houses.The only things that we, the avid gardeners, were missing was the presence of greenery. No gardens nearly anywhere. I guess that one would have to experience more than just a touristy visit to a place to fully understand a place.

Touring the area one will come across some interesting sites in the wind-rain battered lava fields. Just a few kilometers from Grindavik we discovered a cave that seemed to have been made by a burp in the sizzling flow. A large bubble of sorts - man. how painfully little we know!

 

 

"Boy in a bubble" - solidified lava, thankfully; cold and harmless. 

At one end inside the cave there was a low and narrow opening that seemed to lead into an under-the-lava corridor. 
Maybe a bubble-to bubble tunnel - THAT we  shall never know.

But even there, dark, cold and humid, was a thriving carpet of  first colonizers - the invisible bacteria and lichens and mosses slowly but successfully claiming the new frontier. 

Not far from Grindavik is a geothermal power plant and, on the other side of it, the Blue Lagoon.

A life-line between the geothermal and Grindavik - the red pipes carry their gift of the Earth to the people in town. Their water and electricity are cheap, they told us. Not exhaustible for now. But some are raising their voices against the global companies that realized the potential of the cheap production of .... smelting the aluminum for example ..... and who are trying to move their works to Iceland.

Just about in the mid-distance between the power plant and the town this small sign caught my eye:

A greenhouse! Huh?????

Not just any greenhouse! A sophisticated  Biotechnology lab in the middle of nowhere! Now, that really talked to me since in one of my previous jobs this was very much what I did!

I must admit that there, in the middle of the Smoky Peninsula ( Reykjanes translates as such) a heavy pang of nostalgia knocked me to my knees 

(well, more likely to be able to read and to protect the camera since it was raining so hard).

I raised my head and there it was - far away, shining like a jewel in the fog. We wanted to drive there but there was a padlocked gate on the access road - no visitors, thank you!  

Back to your retirement and keep on driving!

What an amazing day.

Check them out for yourself: http://orfgenetics.com/

Iceland: Reykjanes Peninsula: GUNNUHVER

A fence made of lava boulders - this. I think, would be a neat project: to document the structures made of different materials - according to the available materials of the area. 

I am sure that it has already been done many times over, but still ....

There is a smooth splash of different colour amongst the rocks. A small passerine - all wet and cold! It looks like we came over a Water Pipit, Anthus spinoletta, but do not take this for granted. 

It was quite far and this is the best I could come up with for identification. It does have several cousins in the Pipit family - I am not sure if Water Pipit lives this far North. In any case, it was there, a pipit of sorts, and it made the wind and rain more bearable for us.

it was actually only a couple of kilometers away from this place: the steaming and stinky area of red and yellow iron and sulphur deposits. Primeval,  warm and diverse in shapes and colours. Fascinating. My kind of a place!

There is a sad and frightening legend  floating about the harsh lava fields. It a story of Gunna - a young, and  beautiful girl. 

They say that Gunna was a poor and could not pay her rent. This probably sounds familiar to many ... in any case a man of power came over to her and demanded the payment. 

Since she could not pay, he took her only possession - a cooking pot. 

(Hmmm.....what would a rich guy do with a cooking pot? 

My feeling is that, seeing a beautiful young girl,  he asked for more than that. ) 

They say that Gunna got really angry (who would'nt ? ) refusing to drink Holy Water. 

A holy what?????  Why? Com'on - this really sounds like a setup. 

Who offered her that ?????

Soon they found her dead! 
(Sounds like someone needed to cover their tracks.)

Well!

And the funeral:  the bearers felt the coffin becoming lighter and lighter. Too many drinks to keep the cold at bay? 
Then, in the squealing wind they heard: "No need to dig deep, no need to lie long." 

They swore that this was Gunna talking! I am not convinced - in the howling winds we are experiencing (and probably having a drink or more ) one can hear MANY things. 
Did someone help by spreading around a potent rumor? 

The day after the funeral they found dead and badly beaten body nearby the village. It was the lawyer, who at the beginning of our story, confronted Gunna. 
Remember the "cooking pot" ?

Well! 

They all blamed it on Gunna's ghost but I am inclined to believe that a beautiful young girl had a boyfriend ... who guessed what happened and took his and Gunna's revenge.  
Soon after others paid price as well (... who came up with an idea of holy water anyway?)

All blamed on Gunna's ghost! 

Then someone came up with a suggestion of luring Gunna's ghost away.
Take a ball of yarn throw it in the hottest spring and have a lead thread coming out a long way. form there!
Was Gunna fond of knitting? 

(Although I cannot fathom how, since she had nothing but a cooking pot, was she able to obtain any wool while she was alive ). 

Anyway. The trick worked! 

Gunna's resourceful ghost grabbed the lead, followed it to the hottest spring, and in order to reach the ball of wool, it had fallen into the scalding water to die the second time! 

Com'on, a ghost would go for THAT?

The killings stopped.

As for you, boyfriend, that was some clever work, I thought,  when reading Gunna's story while vicious wind and nauseous sulphuric gases were making my head spin. 

No wonder they believed anything.

As you can see, I have this really strong feeling that an awful murder(s) happened here some three centuries ago. And I am walking away being totally on Gunna's side.

In any case, this is why the area we are to explore is called GUNNUHVER.

Who said that photographing wind was difficult?
Just have a look at the two strong men barely standing up on their feet.
The jacket says it all.

A group of foreign tourists arrived by a tour bus; clad in their nice dresses and inappropriate footwear they jumped out, iPhones and point & shoots ready, they click-clicked their photos and ran back to the safety of the bus.
Probably one of the weekend tours doing the Iceland's famous Golden Circle Tour.

No need for explanation - just stay on the trail and try not to step elsewhere - the crust is fragile.

It is challenging to stay still with the wind howling at ones' back.
Yet, even on a day like this there are hundreds of shots one could take. 
The problem is to figure out how to keep the lens from shaking while holding onto ones' hat and trying to have both feet planted firmly into the twitching platform.

If that's not multitasking, I do not know what is. 


There in the background is one of many of Iceland's Geothermal Power Stations - I am not really sure of the name but it could be the Reykjanes Power Station.

There is a trail leading to the coast and to the lighthouse there. But, once again, we are not going to explore that one today - and we are off to Grindavik.