There were a few things I wanted to do around Myvatn – a proper look at Dimmuborgir after a long time away, a trip down to Skutustadir to see the pseudocraters and maybe climb Hverfell. So up I got and eventually, out I went.

Dimmuborgir, The Dark Fortress, is a lava formation formed when “chimneys” of lava rose up through molten lava over bog. The molten lava drained away and the chimneys stayed, resulting in a lava field of many random towers and hills, threaded these days with footpaths and small birch trees. I had a slight alterecation with a French tour group – how did I ever think tour groups didn’t come to the north?? There’s a feature, a hole in a cliff and carved out steps to climb up to it. Naturally, everyone wants to take photos there. There was a lady coming down, one who absolutely shouldn’t need a man holding onto each arm to get down but did. I’d already paused at the bottom for the photo-takers to do their pictures (I loved the kid with a broad American accent who yelled “Mom, chill!” in response to a mother panicking in Chinese over her coming down the steps alone) and then started to come up as this lady started to come down. Three abreast, I stopped to let them pass and naturally, because tour groups have neither brains nor manners, a tourist pushed past us all, followed by an entire coachload of tourists. Irritated, I sat on a rock at the top and waited until they told me in no uncertain French to move. So I moved. Was I here first? Never mind. Yeah, I’ll wait. Then a tour guide in a branded jacket came up to help move on the last few – and take some photos in a ballet position in the hole, who again looked at me like I was the one inconveniencing her, and not like she was the one who’d pushed past and monopolised the photo op for five solid minutes at the expense of her abandoned group. You want maybe twenty seconds for a selfie around here and find yourself being shoved around by a tour group for twenty minutes and they think they’re not the problem.

Beyond the hole was more lava field, beyond the bounds of Dimmuborgir but interesting nonetheless – and naturally, the tourists didn’t follow. Off the bus, take their photos, back on the bus, off to the next place, rinse, repeat, no interest or curiosity required whatsoever. Meanwhile, I meandered around the lava taking all the selfies I wanted.

The other feature of interest at Dimmuborgir is the Church, a bubble once blown in the lava which remains as a spherical hole. There was no one here so I set up my camera and took some pictures using my phone as a remote control, until a tourist couple turned up. I retrieved my camera and vanished into the bubble and they waited patiently and politely. Emerging on the other side of the bubble, I tried the rock tripod technique again and failing, another passing tourist offered to take pictures for me. I still haven’t looked at them but they’ll be better than wonky too-close rock tripod pictures or arms-length selfies.

I spent two hours and four kilometres walking around (and beyond) Dimmuborgir before returning to the van for a little lunch. Then I drove off to Skutustadir, the other place on my to-do list. I’ve always meant to stop here and never managed. Skutustadir is famous for its pseudocraters. They look like craters, little round hills with a hole in the middle, but they’re actually not craters at all. They’re bubbles again, bubbles formed by lava hitting marshland. The steam thrown up by this meeting inflates the ground and here we still are. These pseudocraters have collapsed in the middle but I saw some earlier in the week and I know there are some on the south coast that are perfect perky little round hills, topped with tufts of grass grown with the fertiliser deposited there by the birds that like to sit on the highest point to look around.

More lunch, better lunch, in the van. It was incredibly windy and I didn’t fancy moving. I certainly didn’t fancy climbing Hverfell. I stopped at a nice viewpoint on my way back round the lake and then returned to Bjarg for a relatively lazy afternoon catching up on this blog and on my scrapbook and just doing some reading before setting off across the Desert of Misdeeds tomorrow.