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Published: October 25th 2015
We woke up early Wednesday morning to start our two day road trip along southern Iceland. There was a beautiful sunrise as we kept just ahead of the rush hour "traffic" in Reykjavik. It was getting light, but still just dark enough that it was hard to make out the features of the beautiful landscape initially.
Jamie informed us a lot along the car ride about Iceland - traditions, language, etc. Among the things I enjoyed is that just about anywhere you go in Iceland, you can just dip your cup or water bottle into the water and drink directly from it. Buying bottled water in Iceland is purely for tourists. Of further interest is the energy generation; most of the energy is hydroelectric and the rest is geothermal. All clean! The water in faucets is based on geothermal, especially in the western part of Iceland. For instance, when you take a shower, the hot water is set on a certain temperature that you can adjust as needed, but to control the flow of water you simply turn on the cold. That was true of many places - you rarely had to touch the hot water setting if they were
combined. Separate faucets, such as sinks, were a little different, but it was so nice to just drink the cold water directly from the tap. Also she told me how most Icelanders lived in grass huts up until about World War II; Addi's grandparents did. You could occasionally see some old grass huts along our route - pretty interesting.
Some of the other stories are things like how the sheep get rounded up around October and put back inside for the winter. There was a year where a big snowstorm hit early and everyone, everyone!, helped round up what sheep they could, many of which survived being buried in the snow. When the sheep are let out in the spring, you can see how happy they are and they jump around and play.
Another story Addi had told me a long time ago is that when they were constructing a road, they came upon a known elf home and halted construction until they could decide what to do; they ultimately decided move the road around the rocks where they lived.
Þingvellir Our first stop was Þingvellir (Þ is pronounced "th") along the Golden Circle. This area
Strokkur erupting
I was just taking a pic of Dad and Jamie looking out when the geyser erupted, well ahead of schedulehas two main purposes. The first is that it was the site of Icelandic parliament, started here in 930 and continuing there until 1798. There is a central pole to designate the location of the assemblies. There was an elected "Lawspeaker" who was the most important person of the assembly. As the Icelanders did not keep written records but were thorough in their oral histories, the Lawspeaker was expected to remember the laws and proceedings of the meetings.
The other importance of this place is that it is the location of where the North American and Eurasian plates meet at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. There are various rifts, faults and cracks in the area, many of which are filled with clear waters. When entering the park, you walk through one of these cracks to the valley floor. The geology here is incredible - lots of folding, volcanic rocks, cracks, etc. Dad and I were in heaven. It was a nice little hike through the area to appreciate the scenery. There is one location where a water fall comes to a pool and was an execution site; they would put women criminals (prostitutes, adulteresses, etc) into bags, weigh them down and
throw them in to drown them. Eek! Our favorite part was a ladder that Jamie took us to; it is a large fissure, Silfra, filled with clear blue water, gently bubbling from the springs feeding into it and is a location where scuba divers like to dive down dozens of meters. Amazing.
When we first pulled into the park, we were the very first people there and I got flashbacks to Salalah - beautiful park, nice day, no tourists. When we came back to the car, we took bets on how many cars and buses there would be based on the people we saw; I won with a dead accurate (lucky) guess of 10 cars and 2 buses.
Haukadalur Our next stop was about another hour drive east: Haukadalur. Another amazing place as this was a geothermal area with hot springs and geysers. The namesake of all geysers is here: Geysir, which used to shoot water into the air up to 40 meters, and even higher on rare occasions, but became all but dormant around 1916. It erupts very rarely now. However, its "little brother" Strokkur, which means "butter churn," erupts every few minutes. The written material
said every 5-10 minutes, but it erupted 8 times when we were there for less than half an hour. Twice there were big eruptions on top of each other. It was really cool to see the water basically removed from its pool and slowly refill, pulsing as it did so. And when it erupted, there was like a solid bubble forming before it spewed up into the air. There were also lots of other hot bubbling springs throughout the park, including one of my favorites which was just a tiny little hole about the diameter of a golf ball just constantly bubbling like boiling water. It
was boiling - there were rope barricades with signs warning that the water was between 80 and 100 degrees Celsius. I kept trying to take good photos of us during the eruptions, but every time they erupted, my hand would shake for a moment as I was always caught by surprise.
Again, we were just in front of bus loads of tourists so we moved on quickly.
Gullfoss The next stop was the amazing waterfalls of Gullfoss. The signs and GPS differed on a fork in the road; we should have
Seljalandsfoss
Dad was so proud he was able to capture this shot on his first try trusted our GPS as we drove up to the visitors' center but had to walk down a steep flight of stairs to the falls themselves. Dad did not want to walk down and observed the falls and us from the top. He was worried it would be too steep and too misty. He was right on both counts, but it was glorious! The water just plunges straight into a narrow canyon, creating beautiful scenery. Jamie and I took photos along the path with the rule "Try not to look cold!" She did not want to go up on the rocks and waited for me as I did and snapped a few photos. So beautiful.
Seljalandsfoss Our next stop was a good drive away and off the Golden Circle, so Jamie and I caught up a lot during the drive and we all enjoyed the scenery. Along the way, we stopped for lunch and saw signs for "pizza". We went to this cute little place called Galleria Pizza; unfortunately, worst pizza ever. It was basically frozen crust, mushy pepperoni and ketchup (KETCHUP!) acting as the tomato sauce. I was not happy with the pizza initially but was eating it
Seljalandsfoss
behind the falls until Jamie pointed out it tasted like ketchup, then I felt sick. We could not believe they had the nerve to sell this!
This place I think is one of her favorites, a waterfall just off Route 1 in southern Iceland. The entire trip for me was hard to pick favorites - every time we stopped somewhere I thought "it just can't get better than this" and then it did. The beauty of this waterfall is its plunge off the cliff along with other smaller falls, and the fact that you can walk directly behind it. We took lots of photos from the front and then Jamie and I convinced Dad to go around the back of the falls. He was reluctant as it was very wet, rocky, and slippery but I think he is pleased with himself that he did it, even if he did just about lose his shoe going up the rocks. Jamie had leaned up against a rock wall to get some photos and got reddish mud on the back of her beautiful coat; coming down, we saw her rolling around on the grass like Lucy (our dog) but it worked!
Skógafoss We
then stopped at Skógafoss, near the infamous Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Previously, Jamie and Addi had camped just near the base of the falls. There was a steep staircase going to the top of the waterfall, which Dad refused to go on. Instead he walked toward the base of the waterfall, pouring himself a beer and was very pleased with himself that he rinsed out his cup directly in the river. Jamie and I trekked up the stairs, huffing and puffing, until we got to the platform just over the falls. She was nervous to go on the platform to get photos, but she did. Then we walked further up a trail where there was a staircase over a fence to continue. Addi says the trail can take days if you do the whole thing and it takes you up through the glaciers. We only walked up a little way where we got good photos of the upper smaller falls. It is seriously just amazing how beautiful this country is.
Kirkjubæjarklaustur After the last waterfall, we made our way to our stop for the night. We stayed in cute little cottages near the small town of Kirkjubæjarklaustur. The cottage had
two bedrooms which locked and a shared bathroom. The people who run it are very trusting. We got there at the same time as a couple of English people and they just delayed payment until morning. We drove to town to go to one of two restaurants, Systrakaffi. It looked nice and was a pleasant atmosphere with a nice waitress, who was unfortunately working alone. The food was ok, not great, but after that pizza, I was not gonna complain. Though the desserts were an extreme disappointment, both in service and in taste. Oh well. I was so hoping the skies would clear so we could see the Northern Lights, and even though at one point in the night I was able to see the stars briefly, there were no lights. Oh well - next time!
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Amber
non-member comment
Awesome!
Definitely added to my list of places to go! Although it looks mighty cold, it's absolutely beautiful!! Miss you!! :)