Dimmuborgir which means black castles. This is a massive 2,000-year-old field of weirdly shaped volcanic pillars (not hexagonal) that extend as high as 20 metres (65 ft.).  I took an individual walk around the pillars because I got separated from the group. Again I enjoyed wild flowers while strolling around the area. That was how I lost the group. Distracted by beauty again!

I recognized these flowers because I saw them in Churchill Manitoba. They are called Arctic Avens. Appropriate name because we were on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

The weird pillars were not created by a god on psychedelic drugs but are formed when lava spill out over a lake and solidified right over the depression. The top layer solidifies first and the lower layer later. Magma heats the water underneath the sub-surface layer creating steam below the lava. Eventually the steam bursts through the vents while the surrounding magma solidifies. The lake breaches its dam causing molten lava to flow between the steam vents and the lava channel. The surface crust subsides leaving behind columns and ridges and left over steam vents that are caught between the dykes and gaps where lava once flowed. The remnants of this are these odd shapes. Nature is always odd. If you think its not odd, you are probably not looking  very closely.

Wherever I go I look for wildflowers. Sorry I don’t know what these are called.