We stopped at Dimmuborgir – an area with some interesting volcanic rock – where we did some hiking.
Most of the paths were pretty reasonable. Of course everything was vivid green and volcanic black. As mentioned before, trees in Iceland don’t generally get real tall. These were pointed out as a typical example.
Near the beginning I looked past the trees and rock to see in the distance the kind of view I considered typical of Iceland.
And of course you could find wild flowers among the rock.
It’s also known as “black castles” lavaa formations and said to be a place where a lonely troll lived.
Apparently not just trolls.
If you squint you can see people walking up to a cave.
The park service had set it up to look like they thought it would while in use.
I haven’t consulted my notes, but I recall something about there actually being an intrepid Viking who made this cave his home. I’m sure if I dug through my notes I’d find quite the story.
Of course my main concern, after snapping off a few pictures, was getting back down.
From there we made our way further into the park. There are a lot of paths running in different directions. It isn’t hard to get turned around. Our guide was after a particular archway.
Along the way we past a spot in the ground that had simply opened up. Apparently this is not all that uncommon. The whole island is subject to regular seismic activity. It’s like the ground just rips itself to pieces.
Finally we clambered up to the archway.
From there the path goes on into the distance. But it’s just more of the same. We turned around at this point and headed back.
Still, it was pretty cool standing around under the raw rock
Then we retraced our steps, more or less. I was glad to see the sign for the parking lot.
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