End of day three, Dettifoss and the end of a rainbow.

Ok, now for the last bit of day three! Starting with a wider look at Mývatn.

The last stop of the day was at Dettifoss. It's the largest waterfall in Europe if judged by the amount of water that goes through it. The drive there is a bit boring, through open fields of openness, sand erosion and lava, but at least now that there's a new road to it the drive doesn't take as long as it used to do. The new road is not completely finished yet but it's ok to drive on even without a 4x.

From the parking lot there's a 10-15 min. walk to the waterfall through old flood river bottom. All kinds of interesting rock formations on the way, and if you feel like walking more you can go to another waterfall nearby as well. We were so tired at this point we just went for the main attraction though.

Dettifoss itself. The name means roughly translated something like "falling waterfall" if I'm not badly mistaken. All Icelanders are free to correct me though!

Falling waterfall would be an apt name for it though. It's quite frightening to listen to, the roar of the falling water is so loud it's almost impossible to talk to anyone. There are a couple of pathways down the hill and to the edge of the waterfall. One is marked as "the better one" and the other one as "the slippery one". You're free to choose which one to use!

Here again the extent of Icelandic safety measures. :D

I have to say I understand though. If someone really desperately wants to jump in there they'll find a way. You'd pretty much have to build a fence all over the country if you wanted to force people into safeness.

Eep.

Somewhere down there in the fog the river goes on.

The path goes along the waterfall's edge and further up, and gives good views to both up- and downstream. It also has helpful little notes along the way of how the edge of the cliff is slippery and the rocks are loose.

Somewhere up there is the smaller waterfall, Selfoss.

It's moon country.

Here the ground has been polished smooth by rocks carried by the catastrophic flood that originally shaped the whole place. 

The dusty nothingness on the west side of the river. There's only sand and some occasional lava.

For the night we decided to go back to Hamrar in Akureyri. These mountains were being very pretty on the way.

We finally got there, the weather was nice and Hamrar has awesome showers I was already looking forward to, and then to underline it all, there was...

...a rainbow. I would agree that we do treasure that camping site, its facilities and view.