You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve tried and failed to write this post. How hard can it be to tell you about Myvatn Nature Baths, my favourite (one of my favourite?) spa in Iceland?
Myvatn Nature Baths is a geothermal spa up in the north east of Iceland. It’s a major tourist hotspot for the region but as comparatively few tourists make it this far from Reykjavik/the Blue Lagoon/the Golden Circle, it’s relatively quiet. That’s one of the ways it differs from its big famous cousin, the Blue Lagoon. Others are the price (you could spend a week here for the price of a day there), the need for pre-booking, the size of it and the hi-tech bracelets. You can’t buy drinks in-water. But it seems you can pre-order them and have them delivered to the poolside.
Similarities are: it’s a lagoon full of salty water pumped up from deep within the Earth by the nearby power station which uses it for generating electricity before sending it across the road to swim in. That’s about all.
Myvatn is a very active geothermal area. The Krafla Fires, an eruption in the volcano system across the road from the Baths, happened between 1975 and 1984. There’s a huge black lava field over there that’s still steaming now. Under every rock and every hedge is another hidden pool of natural hot water, some too hot to bathe in, some cool enough to be biologically unsafe. Behind the mountain is a “low temperature” geothermal area – in context, low temperature means not hot enough to harness for electricity generation. The ground steams, mud boils and bubbles and piles of rocks scream like kettles. A step off the boardwalk could plunge you knee-deep into the boiling earth and lose you a leg or two. It’s very hot.
So yes, this is a great place to put a lagoon. The Baths sit low on the slopes of the mountain, raised just high enough to see over the village and across Myvatn lake. Uphill and across towards Krafla, the mountains are orange, streaked with white and yellow sulphur. It’s a far better setting than the Blue Lagoon, although I’m quite partial to the lava and snow monochrome in winter.
You arrive, you pay, you go to a changing room little different from the ones in your local municipal pool back home, only with more unabashed naked people, you shower communally and then you run outside. It seems like miles to that wonderful hot water so you pause at the hot pot – only this one is more like a huge concrete trough – and warm up there before making the last run ten feet into the lagoon.
The lagoon is mostly two conjoined pools. The second, needless to say, is always quieter than the first and there are fewer couples who look like they’re probably contaminating the water. Here you can bask in the shallows, looking over the edge, down at the third pool below. I don’t know if it’s a holding pool or a cooling pool or expansion space. You can’t go in there. You can only really see it from this certain angle. Here’s where you can see over Reykjahlid too. It’s the Baths’ viewpoint. It’s also where fresh water pours in, so if you’re looking for extreme heat, paddle over to the huge basket.
Back in the first pool is underwater seating, so covered in white algae that sliding on it is a great game, plus a couple of oversized taps for a waterfall massage. The edges slope up towards the hot pot and another favourite game of mine is to scrabble up it and slide down. The fact that I often don’t reach the top before losing my grip adds to the fun.
My final favourite game is going to the quiet corner of the first pool, nestling my camera (safe in its waterproof case) among the rocks and taking a photo of myself floating on my back with the gravelly volcano slope behind me.
Downsides of Myvatn Nature Baths. It’s not easy to get to unless you’ve got your own car. Only one tour company has it in its itinerary that I can find. The long-distance bus to Landmannalaugar terminates here three or four times a week before departing again the next morning. The bus between Akureyri and Egilstadir stops here once a day in each direction. And by “here”, I mean at the supermarket in Reykjahlid, which is a two and a half mile walk each way. Akureyri is at least an hour and a half away by car so a taxi is going to be extortionate. But once you’ve got here, it’s so worth it – and so is the rest of the Myvatn area and the Diamond Circle.
And because I made it, you may as well watch it: A Day at Myvatn Nature Baths, a video made by me in 2016.