Goðafoss is a waterfall in northern Iceland. It is located along the country's main ring road at the junction with the Sprengisandur highland road. The water of the river Skjálfandafljót falls from a height of 12 metres over a width of 30 metres. The river rises in the Icelandic highlands and runs through the Bárðardalur valley.
Aerial panorama of Goðafoss
The origin of the waterfall's name is not completely clear. In modern Icelandic, the name can be read either as "waterfall of the goð (pagan idols)" or "waterfall of the goði (chieftain)." Linguist and placename expert Svavar Sigmundsson suggests that the name derives from two crags at the falls which resemble pagan idols. In 1879-1882, a myth was published in Denmark according to which the waterfall was named when the lawspeaker Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði made Christianity the official religion of Iceland in the year 999 or 1000. Upon returning home from the Alþingi, Þorgeir supposedly threw his statues of the Norse gods into the waterfall. However, although the story of Þorgeir's role in the adoption of Christianity in Iceland is preserved in Ari Þorgilsson's Íslendingabók, no mention is made of Þorgeir throwing his idols into Goðafoss. The legend appears to be a nineteenth-century fabrication.
Text adapted from Wikipedia.
Tags: Iceland Waterfall hdr Clouds lonely ring road
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This church is located at Hjarðarholt Farm, approximately 3 km north east of Búðardalur Village. The farm is well known from the Icelandic Sagas.
It is believed that a church has stood at Hjarðarholt from the early 12th century, but the first written record of a church there dates back to 1355.
The present church was built in 1904. It was designed by Rögnvaldur Á. Ólafsson, the first Icelander to study architecture. It is a wooden building with a cross-shaped foundation, and its length and width are equal, or 10.06 m. A square tower, with a high pyramid roof surrounded by four gabled facedes, extends from the northwest corner of the church.
Text modified from
everythingiceland.com/portfolio/hjardarholtskirkja-church/
© Rainer Merkl
Tags: Iceland Church architecture Clouds HDR graveyard
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M. Davidsen was the name of a passenger ship in Iceland which began operations in 1891. It was 217 Gross register tonnage and 35.25 m long by 6.21 m wide by 4.86 m deep.
It had room for 14 passengers. The ship was purchased from Denmark for 225,000 Icelandic króna in 1919 and used to move people and goods between Reykjavík and locations in Faxa Bay and Breiðafjörður. After its purchase it was renamed to Suðurland in 1919.
Suðurland is now a derelict hulk near the abandoned herring factory at Djúpavík, Iceland. It was docked there in 1935 to serve as living quarters for men who worked in the factory.
The Djúpavík factory was unique. It was the first fully automated fish factory in Europe, with conveyor belts running from dock to basement storage rooms, then to coal-fired steam cookers, oil-extraction presses, coal-fired dryers, and meal grinders. Powerful electric fans then blew the hot fish meal through ducts that passed outside the factory for cooling and finally to chutes in the upper level where 100 kg meal bags were filled for transport. Electricity was generated by four German-built diesel engines salvaged from submarines and an Icelandic guard ship. The 60-tonne boiler used to generate steam for cooking was also salvaged from a ship. Herring catches started to decline after 1944.
Luckily, I could photograph the wreck, when the sun came around a sharp edge.
Text adapted from Wikipedia.
Tags: HDR Iceland abandoned factory sun
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The Westfjords or West Fjords is a large peninsula in northwestern Iceland and an administrative district. It lies on the Denmark Strait, facing the east coast of Greenland. It is connected to the rest of Iceland by a 7-km-wide isthmus between Gilsfjörður and Bitrufjörður. The Westfjords are very mountainous; the coastline is heavily indented by dozens of fjords surrounded by steep hills. These indentations make roads very circuitous and communications by land difficult. In addition many of the roads are closed by ice and snow for several months of the year. The Vestfjarðagöng road tunnel from 1996 has improved that situation. The cliffs at Látrabjarg comprise the longest bird cliff in the northern Atlantic Ocean and are at the westernmost point in Iceland. The Drangajökull glacier is located in the north of the peninsula and is the fifth-largest of the country, but the only glacier of the region.
As you can see, some costs are spectacular.
Text from Wikipedia.
Tags: Iceland westfjords coast sand HDR walking patterns
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Hverfjall (also known as Hverfell) is a tephra cone or tuff ring volcano in northern Iceland, to the east of Mývatn.
It erupted in 2500 BP in the southern part of the Krafla fissure swarm. The crater is approximately 1 km in diameter.
Tephra has been carried from Hverfjall all over the Lake Myvatn area. A landslide apparently occurred in the south part of the crater during the eruption, which accounts for the disruption to the round shape of the mountain.
The rim of the crater is only accessible by two paths, from the northwest and south. It is strictly forbidden to use other routes in ascent or descent.
Text adopted from Wikipedia.
in explore 9/21/2020
© Rainer Merkl
Tags: Iceland Island Mývatn Myvatn vulcano tuff walking
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