Iceland: MYVATN

Red is the Ring Road, Myvatn lake is in the brown circle.

Myvatn is a fairly large, shallow lake (lake = vatn) south-east from Husavik.

 We drove to its western shore admiring the scenery along the way. The days in the north were beautiful - no rain, clear skies and fresh early-autumn air. Along the way we admired the Icelandic sheep and horses - both of which we had fallen in love with.



  The lake welcomed us with an amazing scenery so we jumped out of the car more than eager to take some photos. not more than a couple of seconds later the swatting started! We had no idea that "my" in the word Myvatn meant "midge". We arrived to Midge Lake!

Midges are not the blood-sucking monsters but they like moisture so they look for it everywhere they can - in your eyes, nose, ears ..... The lake is quite shallow and relatively warm, ensuring that their numerous offspring will have a good chance to develop and mature. I am sure that the many birds on the lake find the little midges useful but I just could not bring myself to saying the same. So when Lucia bought two the head nets I was the first to ask for one!
You can see that the two riders are wearing them as well.
Aside from the "my" - the midges, Myvatn treated us to something very special. There were a number of special "craters"; beautifully shaped and coloured, with the cute Icelandic sheep grazing their sides and swans swimming about the "craters". This lake is known for the large numbers of birds that take refuge and food in it.

These formations, we learned, were not the real volcanic craters but "pseudo-craters" formed by super-heated jets of hot steam that found their way from the hot sub-layers to the surface. They exploded with such force that they formed funnels - sending the blasts of top soil into the lake. Check the National Geographic site for images better than mine.

The eastern side of Myvatn had another surprise for us. In a stark contrast with the pastoral scenes of the west, this one reminded us more of the Tolkien's Lord Of The Ring.

 

Dark volcanic towers tens of meters high, rose above the vegetation. 

Were we inclined to start believing in "hidden people" such as gnomes, trolls and faeries it would definitely be there - in the Dimmuborga Valley..

 

 

 

How did such towers came to be?

It was a vast lake of burning lava that filled the depression adjacent to the lake. Thanks to the jets of water shooting up from the ground the lava started to solidify around the jets forming the dark towers above. 

Eventually, an obstruction that kept the lava lake contained gave out and the still-hot mass slithered out of the valley. But the towers were there to stay ....

Leaving Dimmuborga behind, we drove north to an entirely different set of natural phenomena. Northern side of Myvatn is in the extremely hot area - that's where we stumbled upon steaming plateaus of Hverir.

But that would lead to another entry in this blog.