Innocently minding our own business, as we took in the atmospheric scenery on the drive up towards the Krafla Geothermal Power Station and the Víti explosion crater, we saw this:
I had heard, prior to going to Iceland, that the average Icelander makes Björk look normal. Quirky does it, apparently 
It was quite the contrast from the landscape at Hverir.
View towards Krafla from Hverir
Víti translates as Hell – and oddly enough, there is more than one volcanic crater with this name, in Iceland… One cannot help but be sucked in to this Olde Norse culture. By the thundering gods!! and all that…
The crater lake of Viti (Hell)
You can see how grim it was, up in the clouds, but we made the trip around and down into this explosion crater; not quite into the bowels of the Earth, but it did feel strangely warmer…
Firstly, a walk around the edge of the largest of the lakes
A smaller crater lake looks like a Tropical Island in reverse… No sharks here to worry you!
Mud-pots and brimstone – are we in Hell yet?
Feeling rather tropical and steamy down here…
Climbing out of Hell
Hell is actually quite colourful, really
Inside the crater walls
Misty views into the crater lake
Curiously, at the end of the Road to Hell – there’s somewhere to leave your car.
Hell hath… a car park??
Of course, there’s more to this region than just the Viti explosion crater. This being a geothermal area and a highly active one at that, means that man wanted some of that power.
And thus, a power station was born.
Krafla Geothermal Power Station
There are pipes criss-crossing the landscape, linking all the boreholes with the main power station. In fact, in a couple of the photographs of Viti above, you will see long silver pipes lurking in the background. The boreholes are drilled to various depths, bearing in mind that there is a hot, molten magma chamber sitting somewhere between 3-8 km below ground. What the boreholes essentially do, is release the hot, steamy vapours generated by this lava pot. This steam then passes through turbines, which in turn powers magnetised rotors that are surrounded with a coil of copper (blah, blah, blah), and tah-da! electricity is generated.
One of the boreholes at Krafla
Once all the steam has done its business and condensed into super-hot water – it has to go somewhere. In a similar way that the Reykjanes Power Plant feeds the Blue Lagoon (a post coming your way soon!!), the Krafla plant feeds the Myvatn baths. But before it gets there we see more strange sightings on the road away from hell…
What the devil? Are we still on Earth?
In context…
Run-off – downstream of Krafla Geothermal Power Plant
Bear in mind, this is also down-stream of that toilet 
Even hell looks beautiful.
I agree – who’d have thought it!?
I used to live in Cayman Islands and there is one area called – Hell. There is even a little store where you can buy all sorts of trinkets on Hell, Cayman Islands. The man that owns the shop dresses up as the devil and he was born in 6/6/66. This is no joke! He’s proud to show his birth certificate and driving permit. Rather strange if you ask me!
Strange – and yet, I am oddly amused!!
Incredible!
Pretty funny, eh?
wow! stunning images.
Thank you Raunak
We actually saw someone sitting on that toilet…
What I hadn’t anticipated was the noise at Krafla – like a continual 747! Loved it although a little scary.
eeeuuuww! I hope they weren’t actually using it??!!
Yes, that noise was incredible. I’d actually forgotten about that – thanks for reminding me! It added to the spookiness of the cloudy surroundings, it might not have been quite so surreal hearing it if it had been a sunnier day!
I’m not sure if they were really using it or thought it was a funny photo op. They probably weren’t expecting another car though!
I got so freaked out by the noise after a while I had to return to the car while my husband walked around more.
I’m hoping for the funny photo op option!
Stunning photos and nice to see the Viti crater in fog. The colours are quite different then but always beautiful. And this toilet is really funny. Of course I took a photo of it, too.
I’m guessing that you had a nice sunny day when you were here??
You’re absolutely right.
And it was incredibly stormy, too. In the after next blog post about Iceland I’ll tell about it.
Have a nice day.
Unexpected certainly
Your images are stunning!
Thanks Madhu
It’s just stunning! Love your posts!
Ann
Thank you Ann
Thanks to you for this wonderful blog! And always welcome).
Ann