Eldhraun Hiking Trail

The lava here is not bare rock. A thick layer of woolly fringe moss covers it completely, softening every ridge and hollow into pale green mounds that carry on to the horizon. The view from the path is a full 360 degrees, with snow-covered mountains and cliffs behind the moss.

Colours and textures change with the light, so the field looks one way under flat cloud and quite another in low sun. The walking is easy and flat, and the stop is a short one — ten minutes covers it for most people. What stays with visitors is the quiet and the scale, not the effort.

• No toilets. There are no facilities of any kind at the trail.
• The car park is small. It fills up, and between mid-morning and late afternoon you may have to wait for a space.
• Fine with children. The path is flat and the walk is short, so young children manage it easily.

You arrive by car. There is a free car park at the site, plus free parking along the road, and the walk begins straight from it. From there the path runs flat across the lava field, so nothing separates the car park from the view but a few minutes on foot.

Better: early in the morning, before the car park fills.

Avoid: mid-morning to late afternoon, when spaces run out and you may end up waiting.

The moss changes colour and texture with the light, so low sun early or late in the day gives the field far more relief than the flat light of midday.

Stay on the marked path. The moss is a fragile ecosystem and takes decades to recover from a single footprint, and walking off the trail across it is the one thing people here get wrong. This applies to photographs as well: the shot from the middle of the moss is not worth the damage, and the view from the path already covers the full circle.