Golden Circle

8am, time to join the Dutchies: Tijmen, Johan and Jeroen, who is driving.

Our first stop is Þingvellir (Thingvellir) National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage. It was here that after the settlement of Iceland, plans were made for a formal government structure, commenced about 870 AD.

The wind and rain does not stop us from walking around the park.
Other excursions just arrived too, and we all have a good laugh by watching how a cute chinese couple fight against the wind with 1/4 of an umbrella 🙂 ->

Walking down the path, we cross the river and there is like sort of a little village with: a little church, 4 little houses and a cemetery. How cute!

From here we could see 2 waterfalls, so we decided to walk there. The first waterfall is just close enough to the path, for the other we had to walk a bit further, but totally worth it!

By the time we go back to the car we are starving – it has been nearly 3 hours since we arrived here, time for a sandwich!

Back on the road – another hour drive to the Geyser – the famous Geyser that gave the name to all other Geysers. We stop to read the information point: so this one we are going to see is 70 meters high, the second tallest in the world.

There is another smaller, around 20 meters, just next to the Geyser – that shoots every 10-15 minutes. We read somewhere that the Geyser would shoot every 30 to 100 minutes. so we decided to wait!

30 minutes later, nothing happen…

1 hour and still waiting… there is a couple dressed in red jackets who have been waiting for as long as we’ve been! We are all getting tired of staring at nothing-happen-geyser-site, but we should be patient I say – anytime could shoot!

Tijmen decides to walk back to the information point to read more about it, only to find out that the Geyser only shoots when there is an earthquake, and the one we thought was every 30-100 minutes is the one in the USA – the highest one… oowwhhhh!

Over one hour waiting for nothing. Even the red jacket’s couple has given up before we found out we were wrong all this time! I feel so silly! Hahahaha But we all had a good laugh, we could have waited for hundred years!

Ok, but at least we could see the small one ejecting a column of water several times over the past hour…

All tired of standing oustide, time to sit inside for a hotchocolate and a muffin!

Back on the road, we drive down south to this little village that aparently is a must stop, but there aren’t that many interesting things to see/do. The only bit i liked was this building next to the church, covered in grass 🙂

Verena found out that we totally missed a stop – the big waterfall Gulfoss! So we had to drive back, pass the Geyser and it’s just a few minutes drive from the Geyser.
Gulfoss is just a-m-a-z-i-n-g!

It’s two waterfalls in one! And we can go as close as ‘getting all wet’ with the splashed water from the strong stream! Such a great, wild and fury waterfall!

The heigh of the first one is 11 meters, and the second 20 meters.

Besides the fact that it is impossible to cross on horse-back, there is a love story from the 17th century said to be true, about the son of a Brattholt farmer who guarded sheep in summer pastures. On the other side of the river a girl kept watch over sheep and they kept a keen eye on each other, with Gulfoss between them. Finally, one day the girl asked the boy to wade across to her. He waded into the stream and it’s shallows and managed to cross the river! Little is known about the girls reaction, but they got married and had many descendants.

Love it!

Back on the road… a way drive to the south, already on the way to Reykjavik, our last stop is Kerid, a volcanic crater believed to have resulted from an explosive eruption about 6,500 years ago and lies at the northern end of a row of craters known as Tjarnarhólar. It is about 270 m long, 170 wide and 55 m deep.
And the water at the bottom varies between 7 and 14m.

The colors are absolutely lovely, red and green surrounding the crater and strong dark blue water at the bottom. We walk around the crater and then carefully go inside it.

Back in Reykjavik, we have to change hostel.
It was such a great day in good company – the Dutchies: Tjimen, Johan and Jeroen tomorrow will start their road trip around Iceland! Me and Verena will take a bus to somewhere south in Iceland to start a 4 days hiking trail! It’s going to be a challenge! We say goodbuy, knowing that we will meet in about a week when we are all back from our adventures!