29th - The Golden Circle

Today the Golden Circle was on the itinerary. The Golden Circle is a round trip that brings you into central Iceland and looping back to Reykjavik. The trip passes by the Þingvellir National Park, Gullfoss waterfall and Haukadalur, a geothermally active valley know for it many geysers, Geysir and Strokkur as probably the two best known.

An hour’s drive from Reykjavik we reached Þingvellir NP, where the North American and Euroasian tectonic plates meet. These are very obvious as the ground is littered with large fissures and cracks, clearly indicating where the plates are. These often cause quite large earthquakes in the area even though we didn’t experience any while we were there. Also, our guide informed us that due to these plates and the fact that Iceland is basically located in the middle of such geological activity, the country increases on a yearly basis with 2 cm.

The wall you can see is the North American plate.

After another hour’s drive we reached Gullfoss, a waterfall of a total height of 36m. A popular tourist attraction, it is a very nice area in which it is located, but it is just… a waterfall with a bit of history attached. The water flows down into a crevice, so looking at it from the right (wrong?) angle it looks as if the water is just vanishing into the ground.

Having had lunch short drive took us to Haukadalurso we got to see some of the many legendary geysers of Iceland. They are all named after Geysir, the largest, but it is only rarely active. Strokkur, on the other hand, erupts approximately every 5 minutes, reaching a height up to almost 35 meters. The pools in the area are filled with boiling hot water (literally) which is heated by the subterranean deposits of magma. While there were quite a few pools around in the area, only Strokkur is regularly active.

Strokkur erupting.

The tour company added a small event to the classical Golden Circle trip; in the end we passed by Leiðarendi lava cave. This time I left my camera in my car – I had already gotten the shots I wanted and I would therefore not need to have to drag my bag after me in the tight places because there wasn’t room for me to have it on my back.

We arrived back at the hotel at around 1800-ish, 9 hours after departure. I decided to go for a quick dinner somewhere so that I could then have time while it was still light to find a place where I could have the city’s lights in my back, hoping to see some northern lights after the unsatisfactory night last night. Finding what I thought would be a good location I went back to the hotel to get my equipment. I arrived at around 2045 and realized that a tour was leaving in 45 minutes to go on a hunt for the lights, which convinced me to go with them instead. Off we were, and half an hour outside of Reykjavik we stopped and looked up. We got a flare now and then and not much more, but suddenly the sky almost exploded and the lights were everywhere. An absolutely stunning view. Coming back to the hotel at 0130 I felt much happier than before.