Hraunfossar and Barnafoss Waterfalls

Can you believe it?  This is our last waterfall stop while in Iceland.  It feels like of sad like a chapter you don't really want to end.  This was another case of two waterfalls that are nice and close together.  The first one was Hraunfossar.  This one was really cool because the water came cascading in over lava fields.  The lava is so porous that the waterfall actually comes out in the middle of the cliff so it looks like the cliff is just leaking.  It's a wider waterfall, not very tall, but somehow incredibly fascinating to just sit and look at.  Every waterfall we saw was so different and beautiful!

A short walk up the path took us to Barnafoss.  The legend says that two children used to live nearby here, and one day they were playing on some of the natural bridges that cross this river.  They fell in and were drowned, so the mother had the bridges destroyed.  

This snowman surprised us as a happy little welcome committee when we arrived at the waterfall.

We decided to give him a little family so he wouldn't be so lonely when we left.

Hraunfossar/Barnafoss Memories

Kelton: This waterfall didn’t count as one million?  We made little snowman guys.

McKenzie: We made little snowmen.  We were first planning on making balls to throw at the boys right before they got in the car so they couldn’t’ retaliate.  But then we saw the snowman and wanted to make a little snowman family.  The water was pretty chill though, get it?

Cambrie: I made a really smooth ice ball and then it broke and I was heart broken.  Along with the snowball my heart broke too.

Jeremy: It made me happy watching Daxton take pictures.  He was so invested in it. 

Akureyri

A city!  Akureyri is the biggest city we've visited so far on our journeys.  We made a quick stop at the mall in town and McKenzie sighed audibly and said, "Oh, this is so much better."  This girl has missed her fashion.  

Before going to our hotel, we stopped at the Christmas house, only to learn that the internet lied once again and it was closed.  We walked around peering into windows anyway and dreaming of the candy apples we couldn't eat.

Our hotel tonight is a historical house in old town. It was built in 1911 by a merchant and is one of the last timber homes to be built in the area before construction switched to concrete houses.  Ironically even though this was the oldest house we stayed in, it wasn't even the weirdest.  In fact it was the perfect kind of quirky.  

Roller skates!

She found the vanity

Kelton found an old game on one of the shelves and we did our best to play it.  It felt similar to Sorry, although there were obviously some rules we were missing.  The way we were playing I don't think we would have ever had a winner.

I was kind to Cambrie during one of my moves and the other kids were not happy about it!  They vowed to only give me frowny faces in all of the pictures the next day.  They made good on their promise.

The view from our window.  Every house in Iceland had a glowing star and an advent candelabra in their window for Christmas.  I love that.

In the morning Jeremy and I decided to go for our first run the entire trip.  We have had a hard time adjusting to the time and dark, so even getting up by 8:00 has been a real challenge.  Here in Akureyri we had real sidewalks and a real running trail for the first time and decided we needed to move.  We didn't need as many layers running as we've needed for our other sight-seeing trips, and got by with only three!  We ran up and down the harbor enjoying the beauty of exercising, and freezing.  Being a triathlete in Iceland is a real challenge!

The next morning we explored downtown Akureyri.  While the girls and I shopped, the boys found a sledding hill and lived there the whole morning!

Christmas cat.  He belongs to the Yule Lads' mom, Gryla

Gryla...and the promised grumpy face.

Akureyrarkirkja Church

Akureyri Memories

Jeremy: I enjoyed the house.  I thought it was cool being in a house that was that old.  But man, that water stank.  That’s where we learned to not drink the hot water.

McKenzie: I liked this house. There was a little doll and I did her hair.  I also had a little make up station.  I did not like how you let Cambrie win.  You could have stopped her but you didn’t.  Why did you do that to us?

Daxton: Mom, you were mean.  You sabotaged our chances at stopping Cambrie.  Any other person would have stopped her, but not you. Any time McKenzie yelled out the word, “coconut,” we all needed to frown.

Kelton: That made up game was fun.  Mom kept wanting to change the rules, just like the evil person she is.  We got to slide and slide and slide and slide.

Cambrie: I won a game. There were roller skates.  They were bad. They did not roll.  I sat in a rocking chair and read my book and drank hot liquids and McKenzie called me a grandma. I was quite incensed by her comments.  But I was living my best life.  There was a really nice lady in the yarn shop.  She was about my age and really nice.

Godafoss Waterfall

Today's waterfall is Godafoss.  I think that the crampons deserve a post of their very own.  Each one of us had a pair of crampons. Jeremy and I had intense very spikey ones.  For the kids, I didn't want to spend that much on them, and I was afraid of what they'd do with metal spikes attached to their boots.  So I bought them the coil style crampons.  I don't know if it was user error (like Daxton and Kelton kicking every piece of ice they could find...which was a lot in Iceland), or if they just aren't as good, but we were constantly having to find and reattach the crampons.  Every hike we lost at least one if not more.  Sometimes the kids knew when they lost them and sometimes they didn't.  Ironically we found just as many crampons as we lost.  By the end of the trip I think we still had a pair for everyone, but they weren't the original sets we started out with!

So onto Godafoss.  You can view Godafoss from either the west or east side.  It's a simple as crossing a bridge across the ravine.  We chose the west side.  The waterfall was pretty, as always.  And we could see the path where during the summer you can go right up to the base.  It was covered in snow, ice, and was fracturing away from the shore...so that wasn't happening today.  

Time to get creative with our family waterfall pictures.  "We're falling in!"

Dog pile

What was happening today was that Jeremy and McKenzie each found a huge slab of ice and they decided that the best thing to do was obviously throw it off the bridge.  They each hauled their chunk of ice back the beginning of the trail then hurled it off the bridge.  They made a great slapping sound as they hit, but they each said it was a little anticlimactic.  We laughed at them anyway.

Godafoss Memories

Cambrie: I had dad take a photo for me because I was scared to take a photo off the bridge. I thought that if it fell then he could take the fall for me.

McKenzie: We carried giant hunks of ice just for the fun of it to throw off the bridge.  It was so worth it. 10/10.  The water was so clear, I wanted a glass of it.

Daxton: Remember the time when Kelton got a little one.  But then McKenzie said, “look at me!” and she got a bigger one?

Kelton: I wish we had gathered more ice to toss off the bridge. I just wanted to toss the ice off the bridge.  I didn’t know it was a competition. 

Dimmuborgir Lava Field

It's hard to top an experience after dog sledding, especially when it is more nature :)  We went back to Dimmuborgir to explore the lava field where the 13 Yule Lads reportedly live. (The Yule Lads are 13 mischievous men who come the 13 days prior to Christmas.  They lick spoons and pots, eat candles,  slam doors, steal smoked meat, and sometimes just sniff the good things cooking inside your home.)  It felt like the Goblin Valley of Iceland.  There was a maze of paths through the lava towers and caves.  Once again, because of the snow it was hard to know exactly where the walking trails were, but we figured out enough to explore the area.  

There were so many windows and caves.  My favorite was in the middle of the park, it looked like a carved goblin arch and I loved it. 

 McKenzie and Daxton found a different path that took them right to the middle of the lava field where they found a clearing where the Yule Lads generally gather together. It was a super fun place to explore.

The Skutustadagigar pseudo craters at the south end of Lake Myvatn.  Otherwise known as the lava blurps.

 

Dimmuborgir Memories

Jeremy: These were some of my favorite adventuring and exploring memories.  With the snow if felt like we were some of the first people to find the caves.

Kelton: The hiking was fun.  That’s when I quit the dilly-dally team.  It was fun.  I liked being ahead.  Dad and I tried to find the backside of a hole but couldn’t find it.

Cambrie: The kids were walking really slowly. I thought it was cool.  They were nice shaped caves.  You don’t see caves shaped like cathedrals all that often.

McKenzie: We thought we were lost. We were following the yellow sticks but Daxton and I had no idea where we were.  There was a little cave with decorations but we thought a homeless guy was living there so we ran out.  Afterwards we realized it was a lookout point.

Daxton: Kenzie and I got lost on the way back.