August 31 - Northern Iceland

Before continuing our way around the Ring Road today, we decided to go to on a side-trip to the port village of Seyðisfjörður. While the town wasn't that exciting (mostly a port for ferries), the drive there yielded a few nameless waterfalls with apparently no safety guidelines whatsoever.

I recognized the valley into Seyðisfjörður as the one in the skateboard scene in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". (In fact, thanks to our wireless router we watched the scene in the car while parked at the waterfall visible at 1:18 in that clip.)

The theme of waterfalls and movie locales continued several hours' drive later when we arrived in Hólsfjallavegur. The opening scene for "Prometheus" was filmed at Dettifoss here, where the alien stood on top of the waterfall and killed himself rather than endure the embarrassment of being associated with the steaming turd of a movie that would play out over the next two hours.

For scale, see those tiny people on the other side of the waterfall. I'm fairly sure some of them were thinking about throwing themselves over the falls as well, rather than live in a world where pieces of crap like "Prometheus" get a sequel.

While Dettifoss is larger and more powerful, a few minutes walk brings you to Selfoss which was a much more picturesque and approachable, reminding us of a much smaller version of Iguassu Falls in South America.

Finally, just before arriving at our hotel near Lake Myvatn we happened upon Hverarönd, a hellscape of bubbling mud pools and steaming sulfurous vents.

Another long day of driving behind us, we were thankful that the weather cleared and our hotel has a nice patio over the lake to relax for the evening with a drink.

(P.S. I normally have a rule of no more than five photos per blog post (and preferably only three), but Iceland lets you do so much in a day (and has such good internet access for loading posts) that it's proving impossible to follow my own restrictions.)