Iceland 2009

CRATERS, WATER AND ICE

DAY 4 : WEDNESDAY AUGUST 12, 2009 (1/2)

Day 4 was a full day of driving a rather long loop - but well worth it.

We started with a stop at Keriò, a volcanic crater filled with a small lake. To our amazement, we were greeted with orchestral music in the distance. Looking down into the crater, on the shore of the lake, was a series of musicians in one area and another few musicians at the other end of the lake. They were having some kind of outdoor concert. The acoustics by the lake shore must have been amazing with the reflections off the crater walls.

Next stop was the huge Gullfoss waterfall on the Hvita River. While I am used to Niagara Falls, which is considered by many to be a pretty large cascade, Gullfoss took my breath away. Its power was incredible.

When you look up the river towards the mountains, you can see a massive ice sheet that feeds this incredible river. The first panorama below shows the ice sheet going up the mountains with some smaller volcanic formations in the foreground.

The falls has two drops, 11 and then 21 meters. Water flows at an average speed of 109 cubic meters per second. During the heaviest floods, jökulhlaup (glacial outbursts) flows of 2000 cubic metres per second were recorded.

There was a plan at one point to dam up the river for power generation. But the story has it that Sigridur Tomssdottier, the daughter of Thomasson, saved the waterfall by picketing the investors and even threatening to throw herself into the falls. This was well before the environmental movement - she died in 1957 at a young age of 87 years. A monument was placed near the falls in her honor.

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