Iceland Megatrip 2005 – Day 10

July 4, 2005, revisiting the sights of Borgarfjörður.

We spent today showing Aunty Margaret some of the sights of Borgarfjörður which we had seen on Day 6 and also some new ones.

First up was to Glanni, which is on the Norðurá River near Bifröst, a waterfall that Pabbi had often visited whilst he was at school there.

One of the cool things about Glanni was the Salmon Ladder which has been built to help the Salmon travel up-stream. I would have liked to be there at the right time to see Salmon “climbing” the ladder.

Just a short drive up the road from Glanni and Bifröst is the farm where Pabbi’s mother and step-father used to live called Hraunsnef. It is now a hotel/hostel/camping ground affair and the owners were more than happy to talk to Pabbi about what they had done, what it was like when he was a kid and to let Pabbi take us on a walk round the place showing us places and telling us stories.

On the way back from Hraunsef, we stopped just before Bifröst at Grábrók and Grábrókarfell two cinder cones, where Margaret and Mum had a walk round whilst Pabbi, Matthew and I bummed round the car-park. On the way home from the ættarmót the day before Matthew and Karl had done a little run up the cinder cone so Matthew didn’t want to do it again and it was not something that really interested Pabbi or I.

In the afternoon we headed back to Hraunfossa and Reykholt. Whilst we were at Hraunfossa we were greeted with much nicer weather than what we had 4 days earlier. Hraunfossa is a an amazing place, it is made up of a vast number of cascades coming out of the lava over a 900m stretch before falling into the river below. The water collects in the lava and flows through it into the glacial river Hvítá below, which means that you see the white water from the glacier mixing with the blue of the rainwater. Very pretty.

After stopping in at Reykholt on the way back we made our way back to Borgarnes to spend our last night with Hjördís and making preparations for the next leg of our trip which would lead us through the West Fjörds which is where Mum met Pabbi and where Karl was born.

These are some currants that were growing in Hjördís’s garden, they were a little while off been ripe though 🙁 They looked so good!