Pixiq

Currently the whole of Britain is stuck in the grip of a big freeze. With several airports closed and roads blocked, I cannot move far afield. Instead, my thoughts turned to past winter trips where I chanced upon some waterfalls.

Iceland has long been a favorite summer destination for me (just a two-hour flight from the UK) as the puffin capital of the world with extended daylight hours. One year a guide persuaded me to take a winter trip, but knowing Reykjavik has only some five hours of daylight in mid winter, I opted to go in early March when I hardly saw another tourist.

With the Mid Atlantic Ridge running through the centre of Iceland it is not surprising the land has a rich assortment of volcanic and geothermal features and after the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted through the ice cap in March 2010, the vast ash cloud forced many European airports to close.

Waterfalls abound in Iceland, with several positioned close to the southern ring road. Skogafoss (Forest Falls) is a large 80 foot (25m) wide curtain that plunges 200 feet (60 metres) over cliffs of a past coastline. The current coastline is now some three miles further south. Copious spray from this south-facing waterfall means that a rainbow is often visible on a sunny day and sometimes a double rainbow appears.

Nearby, picturesque Seljalandsfoss also falls from the same sea cliffs of the former coastline. Much narrower than Skogafoss, it falls well clear of the cliff into a plunge pool so it is easy to walk round behind it when the path is not like a skating rink. The water that feeds this fall comes from a river, but many of Iceland's large falls originate from glacial melt water. 

Gullfoss (Golden Falls) lies closer to Reyjavik in a canyon of the Hvita River and as the double stepped falls freeze in winter, the flow becomes much reduced. 

Photographers are attracted to temperate waterfalls in warmer months when green vegetation or autumn foliage complement the scene, but wherever temperatures plummet below freezing, falls are worth checking out. The pattern of small icicles that build up along the water's edge can turn out to be more attractive than the falls themselves.