Miðfjarðará is not one river but four, braided across the basalt benches of Húnaþing in north-west Iceland — the main stem joined by the Vesturá, the Núpsá and the canyon-cut Austurá, together draining roughly 115 kilometres of upland water. The main river is short, barely fifteen kilometres from the tide, but the tributaries climb hard into the interior: the Austurá runs some twenty-three kilometres of fly water up to the Vals-falls, the Vesturá twenty-seven to the Hyrnu-falls, each carving plunge-and-pool sequences through the volcanic rock. Over two hundred named pools lie across the system, most of them small, clear and intimate — pocket water and ledge pools where holding fish are visible in low summer flow. Wading is generally kind on firm volcanic gravel, but the Austurá canyon asks for a careful foot on wet rock.

Wading: Wet basalt ledges in the Austurá canyon