Our
Beautiful World
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ICELAND
2004
The Hot Springs at Hveragerði
One of our main-goals on this trip, was to take a dip in one of the hot springs. We knew it was to be at Klambragil, which we have heard of earlier. However, the touristoffice at Hveragerði for some reasons had its doors closed on Saturday, when we arrived, and we had to find out everything by ourselves. Not knowing better, we set off by foot from Hveragerði to Rjúpnábrekkur, the spot within the green circle above. 3 kilometers to walk, with our new boots on. When we arrived there, we had walked on a fairly good road, and arrived at a parking lot, meant for tourists as we were (coming there by car, of course). On the way we passed these two duclings, which we could not identify. May be they were not wild ducks? We were happy for our new boots, as the path was kind of rough upward the hill. Nice view from up here, and full of surprises. Just around the next 'corner'.... we could see this river coming down from another valley, and... .... we sighted the first hot-springs. Beautiful flowers showed up along the path, and also this unusual sign, telling us that something dangerous was ahead of us.... ...and when you walk on a narrow path on the upper side of these boiling pots, you have to be careful... Do I have to say that the temperature was beyond the boiling point? We had no problems respecting the sign we just passed. In the bottom of the valley, this little river ran, and was feeded by smaller creeks (brooks) coming down from both sides. What was special, was that half the creeks came from up the mountains, and they were ice-cold. The other ones came from the hot-springs, and they were not so cold.... Now all you had to do was to find a bit of the river where the right mixture of cold and warm creeks appeared, and jump out into the water. Wonderful! May be it did not show too well on the other pictures, but it did rain part of the time, and the temperature in the air was somewhere around 6-8 ° Celcius. Must be an exciting experience at winter-time! |
ANIMALS over 250 |
BIRDS over 500 |
FLOWERS over 225 |