Thus far I’ve covered waterfalls that were part of our photo tour with Loren Fisher, whose workshops and tours I recommend wholeheartedly! As I had convinced my good friend, George, to spend some extra time in Iceland beyond the scheduled tour, we went up north to the Akureyri area for some additional exploration.
The Goðafoss waterfall was one of the places that I wanted us to visit, as I had been there before and these falls left a lasting impression on me…
Even though it happened to be a cloudy, rainy day, the walk toward the falls begins to tell the story of how impressive Goðafoss is.
The name Goðafoss is interesting, as it could mean one of two things: either waterfall of the goð (pagan idols) or waterfall of the goði (chieftain). Linguistic place name experts, such as Svavar Sigmundsson, suggest that it is the former, as the two crags of the falls resemble pagan idols.
As we get closer to the falls, we can get ore of an impression of their sheer magnitude. While these falls are neither the tallest nor the most voluminous in Iceland, it is hard to not feel their impact. The drop in the river Skjálfandafljót over Goðafoss is a mere 12m over a 30m width, which are small numbers compared to Gullfoss.
Looking from atop the Eastern bank of the falls, it was amazing to see this much water flow by in fairly close proximity.
On this day, the weather was rainy and breezy, which was a little different from my previous visit in 2015…
On that beautiful day, I did make it down to the water level to get the above shot. With a very wet clamber to get down there, I didn’t want to risk it on our recent visit.
Dutch goes the Photo! 