We spent the night in Akureyri, which is the biggest town along the northern edge of Iceland. First stop this morning was Akureyri Botanical Gardens - not high on my list of priorities. Apparently the garden rates rather well. A surprising feature for a town of 17,000.
Flowers, flowers everywhere.
I found something of interest. A block of basalt showing hexagonal cooling structure, although that is not obvious from the photo.
Also, the northern lights were glowing... OK, it was a photo of a photo - but a nice one at that. The famed northern lights are not visible at this time of the year in Iceland. You need to come here in Winter to see them.
Some of the older houses in Akureyri.
Very well maintained.
Found some 'rellies' down at the Viking store
Mary was hanging out in the main square. (which was round)
More flowers!
And still practising 'selfies', but clearly need more work. The background was supposed to be the red building to the right.
Sorry, James, Lucy and Leo. The wooden sheep wooden fit in our luggage.
Akureyri is built on the longest fjord in Iceland and has a substantial port for fishing and for cruise boats. The sights from the far side of the fjord were good.
The causeway and bridge were very long and an airport runway was built just upstream. This is just visible in the middle of the photo below.
Looking north down the fjord towards the mouth.
The views as we drove down the fjord were spectacular.
Most of the farms had red metal roofs and were built to cope with the harsh winters. Not sure why most of the roofs were red though? Trendy? Visible in 'whiteout' conditions? A cheap 'job-lot' from the steel manufacturers?
We have seen many, many herds of horses over the last 2 days. These are the traditional Icelandic ponies, which have 5 gaits including a 'tolt' and a 'flying pace'. They are a unique breed and no other horses are allowed on the island. Any that leave cannot come back to protect the breed.
The remarkable thing is they are purely for recreation. Some are ridden to gather up sheep which have been pastured in high country in the summer, but the clear majority are ridden for pleasure. They are not used for other work. They do develop thick winter coats and survive outside in Winter.
The landscape continues to be like below. Wide fertile valleys.
The 'Godafoss Falls' were quite a contrast.
Downstream was very picturesque.
And the 'selfies' are getting better.
I even managed to get both of us in the photo - with the background as planned.
An 'off-the-itinerary' addition was to visit a friend of our guide, who lived in a traditional Icelandic home built nearly 100 years ago. It turned out to be the grey house to the right in the picture below. It was concrete and rock, insulated and then covered in steel roofing iron.
The ceilings were rather low. Everything was very compact.
The geothermal baths we visited were very interesting. The landscape was stark and un-vegetated.
The pools were 36*C with a slightly sulphurous smell, but not overpowering at all. They were tightly controlled and made for a pleasant experience, despite the very chilly air temperature.
Nearby were some other features of note. Below is a typical cinder cone volcano, several thousand years old.
But the area is noted for these 'pseudo-craters' which were formed from emissions of volcanic steam into glacial ice ... and it's all a bit complicated.
The landscape changed noticeably in this area from the generally rounded terrain to this hackly 'ah-ah' basalt terrain. The basalt is quite vesicular (many gas holes) and prickly. The name allegedly derives from Hawaiian - the sound made by someone walking over it barefoot: "ah-ah".
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