Day 5 - Return to Reykjavik

The two-day journey to Skaftafell became a one-day, five-hour trip today. We made a few stops along the way, of course, which I will relate to you in words and images.

First, we stopped for a hike around a cluster of waterfalls. The water is all glacial runoff and a few of us stopped to fill our water bottles with the crystal clear river. I've never tasted such delicious water, and it's there for the taking, free of charge. I've never enjoyed drinking water as much as I have in Iceland. Still, I shouldn't have to travel to the ends of the earth just for water that isn't filled with crap. As I write this post, I'm in Helsinki and, sadly, have gone through the bottle of glacial water I made sure to fill before leaving Iceland.

Back to the hike, the first of the waterfalls, Svartifoss, was difficult to photograph, because we only saw it from the top, never from the base. Still, this provided for some interesting photographing opportunities.

This shot was taken just a few steps from the crest of the waterfall, with the flat landscape of the glacial floodplain in the background. I've never been able to get that close to the top of a waterfall before. With the landscape behind, the experience felt close to flying.

The second waterfall we visited, Sjónarsker, was the most underwhelming of the three but the walk there was quite pleasant. We criss-crossed a river, drank some more clean glacier water and spent a few minutes exploring the waterfall and pool. There wasn't much to discover, so we continued on to the final waterfall, Morsárdalur.

Morsárdalur is a few meters high and surrounded by a wall of basalt. The molecular structure of basalt is hexagonal and when rocks break off or break apart they do so in hexagonal cylinders. When sections break off, they do so from bottom to top. The result looks like a crystallized wave.

The area around the base of the waterfall was strewn with broken pieces of basalt.  These rocks were, inexplicably, a lighter shade of brown than the basalt wall. A closer look at the wall itself revealed small rivulets of water streaming down, which I'm thinking contributes to the darker shade. We paused at Morsárdalur to sketch the basalt formation. The most difficult thing for me was capturing both the dark shade of the stone, and the light/shadow relationship. Here's a sample page from my sketchbook:

Drawing stone is already difficult for me. The more regular shape of the basalt made things a little bit easier, but I need to do a better job of capturing the essence of unpolished, raw stone. I tend to focus on the outline, relying on the single line of the border of the object to tell most of the information about shape, size as well as texture. "Wild" stone is never completely smooth (unless found in a riverbed or on the beach) and describing that special texture is a useful skill to have.

Our visit to the waterfalls had to end, as all things do. We piled back on the bus and slept through the next few hours to Reykjavik. Before entering the city itself, we stopped at Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant. Our bus driver had a connection at the plant and secured a tour for our group!  It was obvious from our visit that Icelanders are proud of the plant and its technology, since the facility is already well set up to handle guest visitors. At the top of tall flight of stairs in the lobby we gathered around a large touchscreen with a digital diagram of the power plant's electric conversion process. Our tour guide was a real pro and really at ease explaining the plant's inner workings. According to him, the plant runs itself and only needs to be watched by two people who spend most of their time reading or playing Solitaire!

For more information about the power plant, you can visit the main website for Hellisheidi here. I must have been too awestruck by the facility to take any pictures, since I seem to have none. The website has the digital diagram, so please go check it out if you are interested!

To end for the day, here's a picture of me at Morsárdalu: