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| Heart-shaped red lights are gorgeous - where there are traffic lights! |
First thing after breakfast, we loaded into 3 buses each with an Icelandic guide on board and headed inland sightseeing from the port of Akureyri, the self-acclaimed capital of northern Iceland. Before I go on, I have to say that some of the most fascinating Arctic coastline was sailed past in the dead of night – for an expeditionary journey this was extremely disappointing to say the very least. However, back to the ‘tourist route’ this ‘expedition’ was following. In spite of being required well before we embarked on this voyage to select our preferred Day 6 bus tour. That was ignored no explanation and we were allocated to one of the buses with a set destination - not our choice but they would do nothing to change it. We had already been to the places on our ‘allocated’ route 2 weeks earlier as part of the self-drive tour orchestrated by this same company – I will say no more ….. or maybe I will. The upshot was that didn’t get to go to the places we had chosen to visit! We were disappointed to say the least. This was beginning to feel like a day trip with the local Probus club – no offence to Probus groups but this trip was NOT cheap. Rather than keep banging on and on, I will post pix from the day the highlights of which were the plants I discovered.
First stop on our route was a visit to the Akureyri
Botanical Gardens, or Lystigardurinn. These are among the world’s northernmost
botanical gardens, sitting just 50 kms below the Arctic Circle. The gardens were established in 1910 by the women from Akureyri who still maintain them. Interestingly it was the first public
park in Iceland. It is a place of beauty
and also research. Besides Arctic plants, there are many species from temperate
zones as well as high mountains area proving that shrubs, trees and other
plants can survive on the edge of the Arctic.
It was a pleasant interlude.
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| Reflections |
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| Godafoss is a powerful body of energy |
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| The land is dotted with ash craters |
We were traveling in the volcanically-active part of Iceland and the whole area features barren volcanic ash hills, looking a little like I imagine Mars might look. Beneath this otherworldly landscape, very hot water 100C ++ rushes, swirls and in places bubbles, sometime spurts to the surface. A lot of people were excited about experiencing this phenomenon and chose to take a long dip in the thermal baths near Myvatn – way too hot for me!
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| The smell of hydrogen sulfide hung heavy in the air. |
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| Myvatn - midget lake where billions of midgets provide food for the flora and fauna |
Then it was on to more volcanic marvels - the weird rock formation of Dimmuborgir. This area is pock-marked with volcanic caves and strangely shaped rocks formed thousands of years ago after a gigantic volcanic eruption resulted in lava bursting out along a 12 Km fissure to flow over the ancient lake. The hot lava caused the water to boil pushing the lava into weird crumbly towers. Over time many of those towers have collapsed leaving crevasses and caves and holes through to the sky – enchanting and eerie.
This is a place of trolls! According to Icelandic legend, many of the lava formations are in fact trolls that have turned to stone. They travel at night because they can’t tolerate the sun. If the sun gets in their eyes they turn to stone ….. believe it or not. This wee statistic might surprise you, but an Icelandic University survey in 2007 reported that 80% of respondents refuse to deny the existence of elves and the like. A magical land indeed. And as we walked we were reminded that we were moving in a region crazed by deep fissures, big and small, where the North American and Eurasia tectonic plates are pulling apart.
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| Are we looking into the bowels of the earth? |
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| The hiking trails around Dimmuborgir |
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| I could definitely see trolls lurking in those rocks. |
While many were climbing the gnarly troll rocks I was – you guessed it – looking at the plant life which has developed here and which clings quite successfully to life through this rocky, hostile terrain. Amongst the undergrowth, there were many birch and alder trees. I love the little fruiting bodies/cones on the alders; they’re called strobiles. They’re normally an autumn fruiting tree but were fruiting a little early this year. Despite their early appearance, the strobiles will remain on the trees until next spring providing winter food for birds and small mammals.
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| Delicate alder tree cones |
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| A message to - from ? I have no idea. |
So many people walk right past dense mats of lovely flowers in myriad colours. As I was stooping over photographing some of these at the falls a few people gathered and asked what I was looking at. One chap was blown away when I showed him orchids and Arctic heath.
The tangled 'gardens' of wild flowers along the side of the paths were full of colour and shape - dainty Sulphur Buttercups, Mouse-ears, strangely-named plants such as the Hairy Lousewort, small Adder's tongues (a fern). Twisting in amongst that are the hardy ground-hugging arctic willows. My enthusiasm for and delight at the strange and delicate plants I had been finding was topped off that evening with a very interesting lecture about the plants and mosses of Iceland and how they have adapted to survive this unique wind-swept environment with its often-extreme temperatures. Some have evolved to be parasitic in areas of nutrient-poor soil, for example the Northern Green orchid and the Alpine bartsia (top two images). Others are carnivorous again in order to extract as much nutrition from the environment as possible. The beautifully illustrated lecture was presented by the expedition botanist – thankyou Joselyn.
The day ended with a deck BBQ – it is an Aurora tradition. Mulled wine music and dancing are the order of the day. This year we missed Gary and Justine who always dance up a storm. Lindsay and I found a wonderful spot against the railing looking out to sea - it was a beautiful serene evening.
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