Iceland – Nauthúsagil

Part of a series of posts about my travel in Iceland, including visits to eleven waterfalls.

I was very nervous about visiting this waterfall.  From the guidebook description it sounds fascinating, with a challenging approach through a deep ravine. In one section, you can only progress further by holding a chain and doing a sort-of layback along the left edge of the ravine, bypassing a deep pool and a small cascade.   Despite passing all those tests, last year my son managed to dislocate both shoulders(!) merely by leaning down to drink from the stream here.  Today, as I drove alone up the rough gravel road to this remote location, and seeing only one other person on site, I was wary about a slip or mistake that might leave me injured.  Spoiler: I survived unscathed 🙂

After a short stroll on a gravel path leading from the carpark to cleft in the hillside, I followed the increasingly narrow and dark ravine and quickly reached the crucial point.  One other fellow was there, a twenty-something man who was looking skeptically at the chain ahead.  “Are you gonna do it?” he asked.  I shrugged and said I was thinking about it, still wary from my prior sense of foreboding.  After a few minutes, he proceeded ahead.

I followed. He and I soon stood at the base of the main waterfall, watching the water pouring down from high above. Everything was subject to its spray, so once again I was glad to be wearing my waterfall outfit.   As we exchanged the courtesy of photographs – me photographing him with his phone, then him returning the favor – I pointed out a seagull swimming in the small pool at the base of the falls.  I watched this bird a long while, even after the other fellow left and the bird and I were the only creatures in this dark hollow of the Iceland countryside.  Although it bobbed peacefully most of the time, the gull would occasionally duck its head and flutter its wings as if taking a bath.  Even more occasionally, it would flap its wings, gain a few inches of altitude, and dive headlong into the full power of the falling water.  Sometimes it would be rebuffed, falling back to its position in the pool, only to rest for another attempt.  Twice, though, it succeeded! It passed through the onslaught of water and disappeared behind the waterfall.  I estimated there was only a foot or two of room back there, and after a few moments, the gull would appear to the right of the falls, floating in the current along the back wall to reappear in the pool in front of the falls.  Rest and repeat.  My only hypothesis is that this playful gull was here to have fun! Watch the video and tell me what you think.

Don’t miss the gallery for a few photos of the waterfall itself.

Reference: I learned about this place from a guidebook, Photographing Iceland, by Einar Guðmann and Gyða Henningsdóttir; translated by Abigail Charlotte Cooper. JTV útgáfa 2019.