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Published: October 22nd 2017
Geo: 64.1353, -21.8952
Today was Golden Circle bus trip day and it actually was very good. Typical tourist bus but with a good guide and driver.
The first stop was Fridheimar tomato greenhouses where they pick one tonne of tomatoes each day. They use local hot water to produce electricity and heat the greenhouses - the equivalent to a town of 3,000 people. Plants grow to 9m and the tomatoes make great soup. They also had Icelandic horses (but we didn't taste them).
Next was the Geysir thermal area. Geysir is the name of the original Geysir there that all others are named after. It doesn't do anything these days and, quite frankly, NZ beats this site hands down, Strokkur erupted regularly though and the views were pretty good.
In fact, the landscape is stunning - big, vast, barren plains with steep, flat topped mountains.But with ever changing colours. No trees to speak of and very few animals or houses. We saw glaciers in the distance that went for miles. They looked like a cloud bank,
Gullfoss waterfall is stunning. It drops in two stages of 11m then 20m and is probably 100m wide. Leaves anything we have for dead and was the highlight of
the day for me.
Last stop was Pingvellir National Park, home of the first parliament 'in the entire world' and also to the place where the North American and European tectonic plates come into conflict. The fault line is strikingly visible and the plates move at least an inch apart each.
A platter for dinner at the Laundromat,a restaurant that did actually have a laundromat in the basement but we came home to do ours, just waiting for the rinse cycle to finish now...
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Linda
non-member comment
Was a most excellent trip. Tired out now. Wait and see what tomorrow brings