Three Thousand Years of Moss

Half an hour north of Borgarnes on the way back down the west side, and a very good use of forty minutes.

Grábrók is a scoria cone — the kind that builds itself out of the frothy cinder it throws up — and it went up on a fissure about three and a half thousand years ago, along with the two smaller ones beside it. There is a boardwalk and a flight of steps to the rim, put there because people walking on the sides were taking the cone apart; it has been protected since 1962.

The view is not down into the one you’re standing on. It’s across. From the rim you look over the whole lava field the eruption produced, still recognisably a field of broken rock, and the moss has covered every bit of it in a green so bright it looks artificial. The neighbouring crater sits in the middle of that, bare and red-brown, still refusing to grow anything.

Wind, big fast cloud, low afternoon sun coming and going. Ten minutes up, ten minutes down, and back in the camper heading for Snæfellsnes.