We got up reasonably early, packed our stuff and went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast....!
We headed off on a circuit of The Golden Circle. First stop was Pingvellir, where the first ever democratic parliament was held. It's also a national park and place of beauty. We did a quick hike through a gorge/crevasse and up to a cliff top to take in the views. You got a real sense that the much of the scenery is still in formation, from the fact that the paths needed to be rebuilt frequently (we saw the same thing yesterday). In addition to the dramatic and majestic scenery, I was also struck by the amount of super-size 4x4 and camper vans. And also the number of American tourists. There were also a lot of Danish/Dutch/Norwegian/Germans. I was also struck by the portaloos...
The boys were up fo ra doing a decent proportion of what was on offer, but not exhausting all possibilities (i.e. checking out all the churches, all the cliff tops, all the lakes etc). We did add a nice waterfall to the hike though - Ellis was keen to do some slow shutter speed photography.
Next stop was Geyser. We grabbed some lunch (I was strictly rationing portions as the cost of everything was so high), and set off to find it. I insisted that we stare at a small bubbling pool for a while, mistakenly thinking that it would spurt large volumes of water into the air any minute - I was wrong. Luca pointed out that large volumes of water was spurting out from one behind us, so we went there instead... It was impressive stuff. I kept wondering if anyone had ever thrown themselves in it, or even worse, pushed someone else in! I encouraged the boys (and myself) not to fall into the trap of concentrating so much on the act of photographing it , that you never actually looked at it, so on the final spurt that we watched, we banned photography. Perhaps the most memorable bit for me, was the vivid blue of the water as it gave it's final bubble after it's spurt - I guess it was because the water was creating a convex shape at that point and therefore reflecting more light, but maybe not....
In other "geysers" you could see deep into the caves below the water. The water itself was very clear and seemed to refract the light well, so the inside of the cave was quite bright.
We continued on our voyage to Godafoss - a large waterfall which was something like Niagra Falls. First things first - we looked for where Matt Bellamy had sat when he vistied the falls (wht the rest of Muse), last week. Shock - it was in an area where we weren't supposed to go. The falls were impressive, but not as beautiful (in my opinion), as others that we'd see.
In the parking area I looked over the low mountains in the distance and was struck by the low cloud which hung beteween them. I then realised that it wasn't cloud, but was actually a glacier. Even from that distance it struck a note of terror in me.I found it strangely transfixing.
It was only about 4pm, but we drove to the next hotel and checked in. The accommodation was on a farm, it felt a bit being on a campsite, but the room itself was more like a small lodge, or at least in a terrace of lodges. Mainly because it was all wooden walls, ceiling and flooring - kind of Scandinavian. More cosy than the room we stayed in the night before. The reception area was built on the side of the cow shed and in fact the restaurant had windows which directly overlooked the space where the cows ate their hay. Nevertheless, for dinner we all had (another), burger - in fact we all felt that it was probably the best burger we'd ever had! And the cows didn't seem to mind at all...
As we started to walk back to the room I said that I didn't know what we were going to do now, but said there was another geothermal pool nearby which we could go to if they wanted. They were both up for it, so we drove into the nearby town. As we parked up we could see steam rising from outlets of water that went into the nearby lake. We tested them and the water was pretty hot. My intention was to go to the cheap pool, but it was closed, so I ended up forking out for the cool, spa pool instead. Luckily it was well worth it.
The boys got the giggles (visibly), as they walked past me and a bunch of other men showering naked, much to the confusion of the other men. There were a series of pools of varying temperatures, right up to "hot bath" hot. The nicest one had rocks in it and a "natural" feel to it. In addition to the waterfalls, steam rooms etc there was also access to the lake outside. We figured that this would be warm because of the geothermal activity. WRONG! It was bloody freezing! Luca and then Ellis did a pretty good job of dunking themselves in, but I was decidedly more wimpy. A rather large local gentleman put us all to shame though by walking straight on the pier, jumping in and swimming into the centre of the lake.
Ellis got rather excited at one point as he pointed into the lake "Dad, Dad, seals!", but it was actually 2 ducks... Nice try though.
We were pretty tired on the way back to the hotel. It was pretty dark, but in the distance there were 3 patches of light, almost like 3 suns setting. I couldn't explain it and decided I needed to ask the reception staff what it was in the morning. and had another pretty solid night's sleep.
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