Things to do around Myvatn lake area
I continued my trip to go beyond Akureyri by the road number one for one full day. And so many interesting places to see within 100km after.
One of the first place is Myvatn lake. This beautiful lake is a wildlife park. We can see a strong volcanic activity on this place and we can find very rare species of bird. The lake is not deep, just around 2 meter. The lake is located on the fault between america and europaea tectonic plate.
Myvatn is surrounded by numerous craters, hot springs and lava formations. We can find verny nice paths to go for a walk around the lake and to admire the view. I climbed Vindbelgjarfjall, a moutain of 529m, it is the highest point to see the lake. And in fact it was great the view was perfect. I advice to climb this moutain in order to see the lake. The picture of this moutain and about the view just here.
Then i saw the crater of Krafla. Krafla is a volcano with a big crater. The particularity of Krafla is to have a lake inside with a beautiful blue/green color. We can make the turn of the volcano walking. Just few meters after Krafla on the same site, we have a geothermal factory and the noise is very strong. It is strange and frightening at the same time because we have the feeling that the ground is going to explode just under our feet, like the ground was totally in a constant pressure.
Just beside Krafla and other nice place of interest to see is Hverir. Hverir is a geotermal field that contains pools of boiling mud, hot springs and hissing chimneys. The colors on the place are unreal and it is one of the best place in iceland which gives us the feeling to be in an otherwolrd. When you see pictures about Mars, here can give you this incredible sens. It is not for nothing that many movies have been filmed in Iceland to retranscribe an other planet landscape.
And next, to finish this full day trip around this area, i stopped to Selfoss and dettifoss. Dettifoss was definitely one of the most impressive waterfall that i have ever seen. And it is the most powerful in Europe. The environment is perfect and we can have different views of the waterfall.
Selfoss is a set of many small waterfalls located to 1km forim dettifoss. We can link the two easily walking. The place is beautiful and special because we can walk around a big canyon.
One full day wasn’t enought to see all this places of interest but i had to stay just two night to Akureyri. Si it is a pity because i didn’t have the time to really see Myvatn lake and i just have had a general idea of the place. And probably we can make a lot of pleasant hiking around the lake, and to swim in a hot spring. For the rest Godafoss is a unique experience and it is for me the best waterfall in Iceland. It is definitely a other very beautiful whole area to discover in the country with waterfall, wildlife reserve, hot spring, typical icelandic landscape… And it is for me the best experience here, and in my opinion better than the golden circle. It is just less known because it is in the north of the coutry but its is very nice because less tourist in this area.
I can advice you if you are the time to link Akureyri city and from the location to go to see these beauty spots.