Day 81 Massive seas, driving in a cloud and a campsite in
the middle of nowhere
K walking behind the waterfall - cool |
We packed and left the comfort of the lodge just as the rain
started. We now have 3 nights back in the van before catching the ferry back for a 3 night stop-over in the Faroe Islands on Thursday morning. The forecast was grim with both wind and rain
as we rejoined our anti-clockwise circuit of Iceland making our way down past
some huge waterfalls towards its most southerly point.
I had lost £150 worth of Icelandic Kroner somewhere when we had been
at the lodge so we took a small detour and called in at the shop we had visited
a couple of days before on the off chance they had had it handed in. To my joy
they had, fumbling old man that I am I had dropped them by the counter and
someone had handed them over – a good start to the day J
The south of Iceland is quite different from the north – It
gets more rain/snow and it is home to most of its glaciers. They spill down
towards the coast and as it is an area of regular volcanic activity this causes
the road builders some challenges. The heat from a volcanic eruption causes
huge volumes of water to be generated under the ice – the water eventually
finds its way out and usually does suddenly with tens’s of thousands of cubic
metres or water per second pouring out and down the vast alluvial places – some
many Km wide. The island ring road ( route 1) is built across this and
regularly has sections washed away.
K and J up high on the basalt columns |
As the years have passed the civil engineering
has become more and more grand. Huge levees are built to attempt to channel the
water to minimise any damage. The bridges are the hardest structures to rebuild
quickly and so they try to ‘protect’ them from washing away by building
sacrificial channels to either side to take the pressure off the structure in
times of huge flood. We drove on a long brand new section of road and bridges built
following the 2010 Eyjafjallajokul eruption that grounded thousands of flights
in the northern hemisphere ...the pictures of the damage caused by the massive
flood of silt, rocks, mud and ice shows that their isn’t a cat in hells chance
of completely engineering their way out of this regular problem.
There was another section we crossed, a near straight 28
km section that in 1996 over 6 Km disappeared and 5 Km was severely damaged
following a nearby volcano under the ice. They have left some massive twisted
bridge steel girders stuck in the ground as a reminder to all of just what can
and does happen.
More messing about on the beach and then late in the afternoon it was time to find a place to stay.
A better 'pukka' camp ground would be hard to find |
Day 81 Geysir ( I) to Paglir ( I) 234 Km Total 11619 Km
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