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Published: November 12th 2017
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Hello ponies!
(ok, Icelandic horses not ponies) Again up & out in the pre-dawn light to drive the Golden Circle… Or rather the Golden triangle as we missing out the Reykjavík half of the route. We decided to go around it anticlockwise in the hope that as most tour groups go clockwise we might miss at least some of the rush. We started by visiting Keriđ – a stunning red & sienna crater complete with green lagoon. Although we did accidentally drive past it but the gateway we turned in had Icelandic horses that came to say hello which was nice. There were a few other tourists around even this early but it was a beautiful, even though the sun was too low to shine down onto the lagoon. Oh we also stopped at view point to admire the sunrise over the river valley. We headed up the 35 to Geysir where we saw Strokkur erupt several times (I counted 8 eruptions whilst we were there) which was awesome! Sadly we started running into the early big tour groups at this point too. We then continued on to Gullfoss which was spectacular. We’d seen a lot of Icelandic wateralls by this point but this one (or rather two)
was pretty & powerful. It helped of course that the sun was out for us for this one so we got rainbows J
We then headed west to Þingvellir National Park where we spent most of our time in the south west of the park. The Þingvellir plain is situated on the tectonic plate boundary between North America and Europe. The plates are separating at 1mm-18mm per year so the area is full of rifts and fissures. We started off from the visitor centre and headed down the Almannagjá rift. We headed over to see the Silfra fissure – we opted out of snorkelling there (cool as it would have been) as it costs a small fortune. Not to mention it was bitterly cold! Then back around by Þingvallabær (the park warden’s office plus prime minister’s summer home!) & Þingvallakirkja (one of Iceland’s first churches). Having walked near Chequers a few times (British prime minister’s country house) I was amazed at the lack of security here! We then headed to the AlÞingi site where the Lögberg (Law Rock) is. This is the site of the world’s first democratic parliament in AD930 (although not 100% sure this is the exact
site & rock it is somewhere in this region). From the Lögberg we followed the path past the pool Drekkingarhylur (where they used to drown women found guilty of infanticide, adultery & other serious crimes) to Öxarárfoss. Besides Drekkingarhylur there are several other ominous sounding features including Brennugjá (Burning Chasm -where 9 men accused of witchcraft were burnt at the stake during the 17
th Century), Gálgaklettar (Scaffold Cliff), Höggstokkseyri (Execution Block Spit) and Kagahólmi (Whipping Islet). We stopped at the information point for a hot drink & cake before heading back through Þingvellir on the gravel 361 along the edge of lake Þingvallavatn then south down the 36 with yet another beautiful sunset which I tried photographing from the car. We just made it to the petrol station in Selfoss (where I managed to get a steady photo of sunset) with the last fuel bar flashing. We got to Hveragerđi with time to spare so we went for a scenic tour around the town stopping outside the closed geothermal park until it was time to check in. It was a lovely house with a friendly owner & a couple of nice cats (one we admired through a window & another
that said hello on the driveway). We had chilli & rice for supper (but without faux guacamole – we learnt our lesson after the wraps on day 1). As the night was clear we drove out to Reykjadalur, or at least the car park (sadly the hot river was a 3km hike & none of us fancied doing that in the cold & dark in our swimsuits!) but this did get us far enough from the lights of the town to see a faint green glow across the sky making it 4 nights of northern lights for us out of eight! The moon was very bright which didn’t help so I gave up photographing the lights & just got a few of the stars instead!
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