Plains of Mordor

We woke to a forecast of rain, at least early, and so it was. By the time we had breakfasted and were on or way the drizzle had set in.

We drove through a very large lava field. This is part of the huge flow of lava from the Craters of Laki which " ... erupted over an eight-month period between 1783 and 1784 ......., pouring out an estimated 14 cubic kilometers of basalt lava and clouds of poisonous hydrofluoric acid and sulfur dioxide compounds that killed over 50% of Iceland's livestock population, leading to a famine which then killed approximately 25% of the island's human population".It is estimated that the eruption killed around 6 million people globally, mostly through side effects such as famine. If we accept the French famine as a cause of the French Revolution then by extension Laki caused the French revolution. The moss/lichen is slowly covering the broken ground.

Quelle horreur! our road was closed.......until we looked closely and saw the alternative

It was getting harder to see as we began climbing, with clouds closing in on us. The road also got a little bumpier and to top it off the river crossings began......we were expecting about 20. Consequently we were travelling very slowly.

The weather did not improve much along the first part of the ascent and hence we skipped the the Eldgja fissures and Langisjor lake. No point taking side roads that promised to be worse and stopping to look at fog.....and when I say worse, I mean worse than a road where the potholes had potholes, where we looked away for a second and found ourselves driving on the wrong side of a riverbank with what we thought was the road quickly running out, where Marjan tried to avoid driving over a rock/boulder only to drop the other side of the car into a ditch......worse than that!

We seemed to hit a plateau at about 700 metres with very little vegetation, except the odd tough little flower and moss/lichen. Yes I was again stopping at every second rock! And there are a lot of them.

After a bit we dropped lower and started to get glimpses of our surroundings, and a few vivid close ups.

And as we approached Landmannalaugar, things opened up more and we found ourselves in a beautiful mountain meadow.

We made it into Landmanalaugar over the deepest of the river crossings. Marjan was a little stressed seeing the bow wave in front of the car. I was OK....brown pants are excellent in tense situations.

We paid our day fees, used the facilities, got a hiking map and fed ourselves. We had decided on the two hour hike as the hand written weather report did not look promising and we had more mountain roads to traverse.

So we headed off on our walk through what I though might have been the plains of Mordor......even though I seem to recall Tolkien described it as plains of volcanic ash........broken ground, moss covered, holes going down to goodness knows what....

The rocks, interestingly are almost all obsidian....occasionally you would get a beautifully polished one, or some other piece of random beauty.

And around the field of destruction were other lovely vistas

 .........I got there first and was admiring the view...Marjan who was a little behind saw the hills and said "I'm not b....y climbing up there!". Some people had, as you can see by the path along the ridge line.

instead we headed back down the valley.....

We headed out in drizzle, managed to get back over the river and got back onto the rocky road to nowhere. We stopped off at this lovely caldera (Blahylur) and imagined it going up. We probably would have been OK in one of the panzers that seem to roam these mountains. They look awesome, but are quite scary when they come towards you.

After some more atrocious roads we saw a bridge over a river, and soon after, paved road.....ahh the modern conveniences.......our brain soon got used to not being shaken permanently.

And so we said farewell to our last F road. We have a couple more days, but they are tamer ones...probably on made roads......probably near waterfalls.......