Wednesday 9-11
We started this day a little slowly, still tired from the late night drive by from
Mývatn. The plan was to have a bit of a slower day with MUCH shorter drives - we were going to head out to do the Golden Circle, the main tourist route in Iceland.
The Golden Circle (Gullni hringurinn
) is a 300km loop from Reykjavik that hits three main locations - Þingvellir National Park, Gulfoss Waterfall and Haukadalur geothermal area which includes the two geysers (Geysir and Strokkur)
We decided not to spend any time at Þingvellir as we would be going there on Friday, so we had two targets. We also decided to stop through Reykjavik and visit the famous Hallgrimskirkja.
The church was built in 1945-1986 on a design by state architect Guðjón Samúelsson and based on the Svartifoss waterfall basalt columns.
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| Hallgrimskirkja from the rear |
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| The church |
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| The doors |
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| Inside the church |
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| Hallgrimskirkja |
Outside the front of the church is a statue of Lief Erikson:
Leif Erikson (970-1020) was the first known European to discover North America before Christoper Columbus. The Icelandic sagas say that he established a Norse settlement at Vinland (likely the northern tip of Newfoundland in Canada or around the Gulf of St Lawrence).
After leaving the church, we drove out to the Haukadalur geothermal area to see the Geysers.
Time lapse:
The first sight we saw when we pulled up was the
Glíma wrestler statue outside the hotel, the boys argues over which one of the wrestlers they were:
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| Glíma wrestler statue |
I had to look up the statue online to work out what it was about - it ranked somewhere with the Man Attacked By Babies statue we saw in Oslo. It turns out that the family that owns the hotel have a strong wrestling history and one of their ancestors Sigurdur Greipsson, was a famous Icelandic wrestler known as a "glímukappi"
In the Haukadalur area there are two main geysers and lots of smaller ones. Geysir is the largest and the most famous. It was the first geyser known to modern Europeans and the first in written history. It's name is derived from the Icelandic word Geysa, meaning to gush. It is the geyser that gave all the others the name.
Geysir is predicted to be 10,000 years old and has erupted sporadically over the years, firing boiling water up to 70m high. Eruptions of Geysir are often related to volcanic activity in the area. In 1910 it erupted every 30 minutes and by 1915 it was every 6 hours. The eruptions stopped in 1916 and in 1935 a channel was dug to lower to water table and Geysir became active again until the channel clogged. In 1981 the channel was cleared again and eruptions were often forced. An earthquake in 2000 woke it up again and it erupted to a height of 122m. It then settled in to around 8 eruptions a day, slowing to 3 per day by 2003.
The most recent eruption was in February 2016 and approximately one every year or two before that. Unfortunately we weren't lucky enough to see Geysir erupt, however the smaller Strokkur geyser (Icelandic for churn) erupts every 6-10 minutes and reaches 15-20m, with a recorded maximum of 40m
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| Litli Geysir |
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| Bubbling pools |
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| Fumaroles |
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| Haukadalur |
Bubbling pools:
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| Mineral deposits in the water |
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| Strokkur |
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| Waiting for Strokkur |
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| Strokkur erupts |
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| Hot pools |
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| Blesi - Southern Pool - If you look closely, you can see the hole in the middle back that fills and heats the pool |
The next pool we stopped at was Konungshver (The King's Hot Spring) named after King Christian IX of Denmark who visited in 1874:
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| Konungshver |
Next we headed up to Geysir. I think we half expected to have magical luck and see it explode, but I think we'd used up all our wishes driving the foggy dirt road into Myvatn. There were plenty of people hanging around with video cameras ready, but since the last eruption was in February I think they'll be waiting a while..
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| Geysir |
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| Mountains behind Haukadalur |
We watched Strokkur erupt a couple more times before we left:
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| Looking back over Haukadalur |
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| Mountains on the horizon |
Our next stop was Gullfoss waterfall. Gullfoss (Golden Falls) forms part of the Hvítá river and is one of the most popular tourist sites in Iceland. The water runs down three "stairs" then falls down two stages - 11m and 21m into a crevice.
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| Information about the name and the falls |
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| How was it formed? |
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| The gorge - can't see the falls yet |
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| Gulfoss |
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| Top of Gulfoss |
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| Top of Gulfoss |
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| Lower part of Gulfoss |
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| Us in front of Gulfoss |
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| Kids and Gulfoss |
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| Top of the falls |
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| Mountain views from Gulfoss |
After Gulfoss the plan had been to head back to our apartment, but that morning we had changed the plans.
Tomorrows trip was to be the northwest of Iceland, and the drive was quite long - even if we left at 6am, we'd be unlikely to arrive and see everything we wanted in time, and it would be a long drive. So we decided to book into a guest house in Patreksfjörður, a town for 651 inhabitants in the Westfjords area and base ourselves from there.
The roads were pretty good up until we reached the Westfjords then we found ourselves weaving around the coast at the base of mountains, with sheer drops into the ocean. Many of the roads were gravel and very pot-holed. It wasn't the best drive in the world but we arrived at the guesthouse at 10:15pm, made a coffee and fell asleep. We'd been hoping that we would see the Northern Lights as we were very far north and my Aurora app showed we had a 50% chance, but our good friend thick black cloud cover was back with a vengeance. No Northern Lights for us.
Total Travel:
Gullsmári - Hallgrimskirkja - Geysir - Gullfoss - Patreksfjörður. (604km, 8hrs)
Total distance traveled so far: 2552km
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