Early morning for us, and a long day! We booked a "Golden Circle" tour of some of Iceland's best known natural attractions. Why is called the Golden Circle? One theory is that you follow Iceland Route 1, the ring-road, around the island. Combine that with Gullfoss ("golden waterfall" - one of the impressive stops on the tour) and you have your Golden Circle.
Our guide and driver was Dooley of Iceland Horizon Tours. We had a minibus and about 15 people in our group. The Old Man was likely the senior member.
The drive took us out of Reykjavik and through rolling lava fields. These were flows from a few thousand years ago (all of Iceland is a volcanically created island). Nothing grows on these lava fields except for moss. According to Dooley, in another thousand years or so berry bushes will begin to grow in in this flow area, as berry bushes have on other parts of the island. Even other parts are fully tillable and sustain farms and the singular breed of Icelandic horse.
No native trees on Iceland, if you don't count the waist-high bushes. The trees you see were imported and planted. It's a long term project.
After a brief stop at a shopping center, where Padre got a little lost in the "woods," we embarked on a 45 minute journey to the first of two waterfalls - the Flaxi.
It's a pretty cool waterfall, with a fish ladder, even. Everyone in the tour group oohed and ahhed. But the Flaxi was a tease. Cool as it was, it didn't hold a candle to Gullfoss, our next stop.
We walked the path you can see in the lower left of the picture. You can beg either one of us for additional pics. It was absolutely spectacular. It was also very wet. No mammals were harmed in the production of this blog.
By the way - I'm still having loads of issues posting the blog. Back in 2011, when I posted my first entries, the apps worked. In 2012 and 2013 they worked fine and got better. Now I'm using a combination of three different apps, cutting and pasting in between, and I still can't properly edit, size or arrange the photos. Infuriating.
Onward! The tour continued to Iceland's national park. The cool one (people - a geothermal joke - some chuckling please!) Volcanic and seismic activity evidenced by geysers. Or, more precisely, Geysir, the one after which all others are named!
Unfortunately, Geysir doesn't spout off too much anymore. It didn't blow while we were there, and it's becoming inactive.
Fortunately Geysir's cousin has become increasingly active, erupting every 5-10 minutes ( and about every 3-4 minutes while we were there!) The ground around the whole area is hot. There are signs warning people not to stray from the brick path, that in some places the ground is 80-100 degrees Celcius. That's wicked hot to you and me.
Geysir wasn't the only game in town, nor its erupting cousin. There were also bubbling calderas of volcanically heated water, random hot springs, and periodic geysers.
The tour broke for lunch at the national park. Most people ate in the visitor center, but Dad and I economized by buying some bread, sausage and cheese at the Bønus Supermarket.
The last stop of the tour was the intersection between North America and Europe. The meeting of the tectonic plates. Iceland actually grows by 1-2 inches per year as Europe and North America slowly distance themselves from one another.
It was also at this particular spot that the Vikings of Iceland formed the oldest parliament of them all -- in the tenth century and it still meets today (but somewhere else.) the Vikings did not know that the area was also a major stress point in the Earth's crust.
The area is beautiful and centrally-located. That's why it was picked as the meeting place.
Dad and I dined at an Italian restaurant, but we hit the sack relatively early. Our shuttle bus picks us up at 3:30 AM tomorrow for the airport and onward to Denmark!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Communicate with Ken now!