Driving in Iceland 2 - The Golden circle. Naughty Geysir and stunning waterfalls.

This second day was an unforgettable day as suddenly it seemed that nature had decided to unleash its spectacular creations onto us all together. At each stop the words like wow , spectacular, unbelievable and beautiful were used freely. 

By the time we got our SUV’s and completed the paperwork with Go car rentals it was around 12.30 PM. The adjustment to driving on right side of the road was smooth though not without some hiccups. That was a relief even though the body stayed tense for a few hours.  It was sensible to start with what is known as the Golden Circle.  Tourists who stop over at Iceland for a day or so normally do this Golden circle tour and combine it with Blue Lagoon. We left Blue Lagoon for the end of the trip.
One important things to keep in mind while driving in Iceland (other than insurance) : Do study the en.vedur.is website each morning for expected wind factor. Winds at times can be so ferocious that it can blow away the car door if you do park and open the door at a wrong angle. As far as insurance is concerned, we took all possible precaution restricting the liability. They even have insurance against volcano ash !

The Golden Circle

The desire was to stop at several places before we reached at our first destination-  Þingvellir National park.It must have been an hours drive or maybe a a bit more. We were lucky with the weather as sun was kind enough to help us acclimatize as it shone brightly at 16 deg C.  The rift valley , the towering mountains and a huge lake make up for this national park. People take long walks and many indulge in diving and fishing here. The place has special significance for Icelanders as it's parliament was established here in year 930 and stayed there till 1798. But we were here for the beauty and not the history. Time here was spent absorbing the beautiful landscapes.  Actually more than the national park itself we spent a lot of time just before the park on the edge of water. 

This was the only place in the entire trip where we had to pay for parking and for use of toilets. 

Fun at Geysir

My camera caught it perfectly - The Geysir Strokkur in full bloom.

There is no Volcanic activity in this area but still it has this hot spring area with the Geysir spouting water 30 m in air every few minutes. This Geo thermal activity is said to be 10000 years old and with frequent earthquakes it changes it's character. As we reached Geysir Strokkur, it erupted suddenly just as I was trying to film a video. All of us got drenched by hot water which caught us unawares. I call this geysir naughty as it plays around with people. It makes them wait, raises expectations and it suddenly erupts .The wind can suddenly change directions and one doesn't know which side the spray will go. The second time it took almost 15 minutes for it to erupt and people waited with bated breath. And suddenly when the eruption came, the spray was strong enough to excite everyone and you could see people being in splits after being drenched and enjoying every minute of it just as I tried saving my camera from this hot water onslaught. 

Even though there is enough Geo thermal activity in the area, flowers and vegetation are in full bloom. 

Geysir has a proper information centre having a food court, toilets and memento shop. It was a good time to have lunch and to prepare yourself for a few waterfalls which were next on the agenda.

Gulfoss- The golden waterfalls

When you reach so close to a waterfall then it is understood that you are prepared to get drenched. Gulfoss was our first waterfall of Iceland and it was pretty impressive, It has around 3 big steps and then a steep fall. At first we climbed up for a view from the top. It looked very good. Then we went all the way down and then right next to it. Most of us had carried some waterproof clothes for the trip but on a day when we went to 3 huge waterfalls , none of us was adequately clothed for this drenching. Consequences were there to see. 

This rainbow stays most of the time. A view from the top. 

Onto the Ring road

It had been a sensible decision to do the Golden Circle before embarking upon the ring road drive around the country. Much of the enthusiasm would have waned after seeing spectacular sights over the next 6 days. Golden circle was a great initiation to what was in store. The GPS guided us towards our hotel ( Hotel Skogar) which was around 50 km before the town of Vik. 

The landscape had changed and the barren land had given to green pastures with sheep and horses. While sheep and horses were abundant and grazing with gay abandon, the human beings were tough to locate on these farm lands. 

The route to ring road is via Selfoss and as we approached our hotel we came to our 2nd waterfall of the day Seljalandsfoss falls .  These falls were interesting as one could actually go behind them. So this technically meant that it was time to get drenched again !

 

Hotel in Skogar

The intent was to stay in Vik. Vik is a smallish town south of Reykjavik. As decent accommodation was not available in Vik we had booked hotel Skogar much before the town. This turned out to be a wonderful decision. Not only did Hotel Skogar turned out to be vicinity of the wonderful Skogarfoss falls ( we could see the falls from the garden of our hotel) but Skogar also turned out to be perfectly positioned for the glacier walk we had booked for the next day. The black sand beach made famous by Shahrukh Khan was also not too far. It was really lovely being in a place in the middle of lush green farms away from all the pollution, dust and heat.

The Volcano 

This area of South Iceland is famous for it's volcanoes. We had passed the famous Eyjafjallajökull volcanoe on the way to the hotel and this volcano had spurted thin ash going up miles during it's eruption in 2010 putting all the flights in Europe to a stop for almost 3 weeks.
( All this happened while the air traffic in Iceland continued to function normally as the ash had gone very high up for it to disturb local flights !). This is a smallish volcano and was not expected to give the world the hard time it gave. Not many people in the world could pronounce the name of this volcano so Icelanders came to their help and got this printed on mementos, t shirts and all sort of accessories.

It had been a long day. We needed time to relax and absorb what all we had done in a single day. We wanted to re-live the day by talking about it.

At this moment we did not realise that tomorrow would be even better and more exhilarating.