We found our way to the Skogafoss,
quite a mighty waterfall that drops 180 feet and is wider than the main falls at Seljalandsfoss; it created quite a swirl of mist about it, and rainbow colors. The river rumbled away through a black lava gravel. Says our Guide: "Legend has it that the settler Thrasi hid his chest of gold under Skogafoss." All that has been recovered is the handle of the chest the gold was in, and that's up at the Museum.
We ate our picnic lunch with a view of the waterfall - limpa bread and cheese, little plump tomatoes, half a sweet roll each, a shared cup of skeer.
Water falls. That's what it does in Iceland: it falls and falls. Before the afternoon was done, Mary and I would be saying to each other "Look, dear, another pretty waterfall," just as in the wilds of Manitoba, Canada, Mary had taken to saying, with more than a little resignation, "Look, dear, another pretty little lake."
There were waterfalls where the water never reached the ground; these interested us the most. The wind would catch the water as it came off those cliffs, would blow it upwards and backwards in a great rush. The water disappeared into the air; the stream never hit the ground; nothing of it escaped the insistence of the wind.
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Dyrholaey is a bird sanctuary right on the ocean. That's one description.
Another description: Dyrholaey is a sea-side cliff with 55 m.p.h. winds shearing flat the top of it.
The Guide says Dyrholaey is
"a cape or headland 110-120 m high, with perpendicular cliffs on the southern and western sides and a narrow rock rim with an arch-shaped opening through it protruding into the sea. Boats and even small planes can pass through the arch.... Dyrholaey is a nature sanctuary."
We drove the switchback road to the top of the cliff, and up there we walked well back from the edge because the wind could blow you three steps one way or the other in the blink of a good-bye-hope-you-can-fly. We'd hoped to see puffins here, but if there were puffins about they were too smart to expose themselves in these winds. We did see seagulls, a large, cliff-dwelling variety that seems common in the area, and they were mostly hugging their nests.
There is a light-house atop Dyrholaey and as we passed it, we stopped to stand in its lee, all the while knowing that when we stepped out into the wind we'd go flying sideways. Which, of course, is exactly what happened.
The narrow rock rim with an arch-shaped opening through it? Sure, a small plane could pass through it, but you'd be a damn fool try it on a good day and it'd be suicide to do it in weather like that we were experiencing. As with mushroom hunters, there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.
Farther off than the arch, the rock pillars that you can see from Dyrholaey, "came into existence when two night trolls went to tow a three-masted vessel ashore," our Guide says. "They took longer than they expected and were caught in the rays of the rising sun, and so they and their ship were turned to stone."
Night trolls, of course, have to get back into the mountain before dawn, or they turn to stone. Everyone in Iceland knows that.
To be continued....
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