The North.

On 11th May we left a bit dissapointing, uninteresting Akureyri and headed to the northern peripheries of Iceland, along Route 1 - a main road in the country. Our goal was to reach Dettifoss - the most powerful waterfall in Europe. We were riding a couple of hours and the landscape was different every 5 minutes.

Firstly, we decided to see Ásbyrgi canyon. It's a deep valley surrounded by perfectly vertical rocky walls, with a shape of horseshoe. Because it's a great shelter against wind, you can walk through birch, larch and willow wood, which is not typically for the rest of country - trees are something special for stormy Iceland, only low plants have chances to survive in this hostile environment. Unfortunately, winter stayed so long in Europe this year, that we had to walk through snowdrifts instead of admiring blooming flowers.

Snow in May is quite normal for Iceland, but we didn't suppose that two routes leading to Dettifoss from north side will be closed, so we had to make a classic U-turn and spent another 3 hours in car. At least I can say that I've been at the northernmost place in my life - Tjörnes peninsula, and according to Google Maps I reached N: 66.202521, W 17.052895, so close to the Arctic Circle!

On our way back we saw for the first time bubbling, hot springs and fuming soil with specific smell of sulphur.

When we finally arrived to Dettifoss, I was shocked by the weather there. Everyting hidden under heavy snow, so beautiful, yet so unrealistic when you think about own "pre-summer holidays" ;)

This is Dettifoss. The waterfall is 100 metres wide and 45 metres high. It drops down to the Jökulsárgljúfur canyon. It is the largest waterfall in Europe and I could feel its power when I was taking photos. The wind around it was so strong, water splattered all over us, so you can see some blurry spots on a picture above. My camera survived somehow, but I was totally soaked.

There is another waterfall close to Dettifoss, called Selfoss. I found it more photogenic that day.

It was already a late afternoon when we moved on, so Ralph and Pieter as drivers decided to take more inner route towards Egilsstaðir on the east shore. We planned to stay in Berunes, but couldn't imagine how dangerous our ride would be. A thick fog came suddenly and after five minutes we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, driving on the rocks and we couldn't see anything 1 m ahead of us. We didn't know whether it was a precipice or something else behind the road's barriers. We were driving like 5 km/h and still weren't sure if we would land on our feet. We could die there and no one would know or care about it ;) I honestly think it was the first time in my life when I felt really scared. I didn't take any pictures, everyone was so silent anyway - we were just riding and waiting for that darkness to end. Thankfully, after one hour the fog started to fade away, just in time when we almost arrived to Berunes.