Iceland 1999 - Midges...
From Worldtraveller
Mývatn means 'Midge Lake', and it’s not wrong. We arrived on a calm day, not too long after sunset, and as soon as we got off the bus, we were engulfed. During the half-mile walk between the bus stop and our campsite, we were nearly driven insane by the things. We dived into a petrol station half way there, and were horrified to see dead midges inch-thick on the window ledges. Flapping wildly, we rushed for the campsite.
We soon made the joyous discovery that they don’t stay out at night. With some relief, we set up camp, and looked for Aurorae. The sky never got completely dark at Mývatn, with a sort of late twilight glow hanging over the northern horizon throughout the night. Despite this, though, at around midnight the fabled northern lights put in an appearance. We were thoroughly pleased to have seen the aurorae on our first clear night. We hoped that despite the fickle weather, we might see the lights again.
We woke up on day 3 to the sound of waves lapping on the shores of Mývatn, and what sounded like rain. We looked out of the tents, and found that it was a sunny day. The noise was in fact the noise of a thousand midge/canvas collisions. Despite this threat to our skin and sanity, we set off for our first real destination - Dettifoss.
Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in Europe. The bus drops you off about a mile from the falls, and almost as soon as you set out, you can see the spray. About half a mile from it, you hear the roar. The first sight of it is simply awesome. A raging torrent of meltwater from the Vatnajökull icecap, far off to the south, plunges over a 44m precipice into a canyon below. All around are huge columns of rock, formed when lava cools very slowly, and almost everything - water, rock, and due to dust and wind, us as well - is grey. It feels like another planet, a feeling enhanced by the fact that there were only about 8 other people there.
We were fortunate that the sun was shining again, because when it does, a permanent double rainbow hangs in the spray above the canyon. Unfortunately, the bit of the rainbow in front of the falls themselves is a lot dimmer than the bit downriver, if you see what I mean. Nonetheless, we burned film at a considerable rate while we were there. All too soon, though, it was time to return to the bus, and once again endure the ridiculously bumpy journey through intermittent dust storms to what laughingly passes for civilization in the north of Iceland, a region where individual houses show up on a map of the entire country.
