Advertisement
Published: August 19th 2011
What a sad day; it's our last day in Iceland but the good thing is the Golden Circle Tour was on our agenda. This tour is another jam packed, 8 hour day, loaded with fun! Just like the last few days we were picked up at 8:30 and driven to the bus terminal where we transferred to another bus with about 15 people total on the tour. Our first stop today was our only stop yesterday, Þingvellir National Park. But today we stopped at the top of the park on a cliff overlooking the entire park, well as far as you can see at least. The Park is enormous and obviously can't be seen by the naked eye. We were able to see the sites we visited yesterday from a bird's eye view. It was quite breathtaking.
Stop number two was Gullfoss, which is basically the coolest waterfall you will ever see. From the parking lot you can see the misting of the waterfall which is down below and you can also hear the rushing water but you can't believe how massive it really is until you walk down the stairs and turn the corner. Now the total height isn't
as big as the other falls we have seen (32 meters) but it's extremely wide and it's a two part waterfall. Walking up to the waterfall you can get pretty wet. Mist is, well misting throughout the whole path while walking to the waterfall. My camera got semi-wet, as did Rachel and I. I was wearing only a t-shirt at this point and being misted was extremely refreshing because our bus driver didn't believe in air conditioning (I had to ask multiple times to turn it on, he kept forgetting)! It's pretty cool how close they let you get to the waterfall. Clumsy and careless people could legitimately fall into the falls. Just the thought of that is a rush in itself!
After about 30-40 minutes it was time to head back to the bus. The next part of the tour is what I have been anticipating for quite some time, snowmobiling on Langjökull glacier. Langjökull glacier is the second largest glacier in Europe (the other is also found in Iceland and is 2-3 times the size of the one we were on). The drive there was about an hour but felt like four hours because half of it
was all off road riding on narrow rocky paths. Once we finally arrived at the mountain we were fitted for cold weather overalls, a helmet and for some a pair of boots (Rachel needed some). I went from wearing a t-shirt and no coat to wearing thick overalls and a winter hat. It dropped about 15-20 degrees F would be my guess.
Once we got our gear we still had to drive to the ice cap which took 30 minutes because this path was more than just rocks, it was basically boulders we had to drive over. Luckily the Mountaineers of Iceland (snowmobiling company) drove us in their "super jeeps" but the vehicle couldn't go more than 10 MPH or it would have flipped or blow a tire.
Finally! We made it to the glacier where they had over 50 snowmobiles, but just enough for our group lined up. It wasn't long after we arrived we were briefed on how the throttle and breaks work and then we were off. I'd say I have a "heavy throttle finger" which isn't a good thing necessarily. The snowmobile didn't really move until the RPMs hit in the 4 category so
a couple times I jerked the snowmobile back and this made Rachel a little nervous; that was my intention all along. It was pretty sick driving this thing reaching speeds of 22 Km/hr (just under 15 MPH). We had a bunch of slow people in front of us or we probably would have been able to go faster but we had to stay single file. Every little bump I felt what I image what the jaws of life would feel like, around my stomach but it was just Rachel haha.
We reached our destination in about 20 minutes and then we stopped and they gave us about 15 minutes to explore the area and take photos before we headed back. On the way back Rachel drove and I tried to take photos, just as she did while I was driving but I failed compared to her. Rachel did pretty well on the snowmobile. I have to admit though she drives a snowmobile how she drives her car: aggressive, with slight snowmobile rage, and a little to close to the other snowmobile riders, ZINNNG!
Naturally we took all the gear off once we got back to the main area
after another bumpy ride back. Our last stop on the Golden Circle Tour was Geysir. Geysir is the original "geyser" in which other geysers got their name from. They say Geysir seldomly goes off these days; maybe twice a day compared to Strokkur which is roughly every five minutes! We even saw Strokkur go off twice in a row within a 30 second window which has to be rare, no? It was cool to see all these hot springs smoking in the ground and with the wind the smoke was blowing past us which made for cool photo opportunities. We had one hour at Geysir and we hadn't eaten lunch yet so we took some quick shots and a couple videos and then ate. After eating Rachel and I wanted a photo standing in front of Strokkur erupting. I took a bunch of photos of it erupting behind Rachel with just minutes to spare before the bus was going to leave.
Now it was my turn with five minutes to spare and this eruption was a dud! It didn't shoot off, just a cloud of smoke. We didn't want to be late but I said to Rachel, 'when else will I be in Iceland, we can be three minutes late for this photo.' Sure enough two minutes later it erupted and Rachel nailed the shots, as usual.
The ride back was two hours long and the driver made one more unexpected stop at another waterfall for some photos. I fell asleep again on the way home and woke up after a while to find a strand of drool hanging from my mouth to my shirt, go me! Once we got home we dropped our stuff off and basically went right to dinner. Tonight we ate at Islenski Barinn where I got some ribs and Rachel got a salad with brown cheese, eww. She didn't really like it either, poor Rachel. It's ok though because we got ice cream afterwards! I showered and packed after ice cream and now I have to get up in five short hours but hey at least I know I'll fall asleep on the plane!
Thank you to everyone who read the blog and made comments! Keep checking the blog everyone once in awhile because I plan to update the blog for any type of travel these days including day trips and things like that.
-Jason
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.04s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Vanessa
non-member comment
Have a safe trip back! I enjoyed reading your's and Rachel's travel blogs! Thanks for sharing your vacation stories and pictures! Vinny and I hope to see you both again soon!