Tuesday 30th May

Day 4

Gullfoss

After breakfast in the diner style restaurant, we headed off towards Gullfoss. It was raining but nowhere near as bad as yesterday – but it was colder! I realised this even more when we arrived st Gullfoss, where I decided to put my thermals on. We stopped to take a photo of the mountains which we had seen on our approach, it was actually so clear at this point, we could see the glacier behind the mountains, known as Langjökul.

Gullfoss is an enormous waterfall which was fun to walk around, although to be honest, there is not a great deal to walk around. Still, plenty of photo opportunities here. We explored the gift shop which was almost as enormous, selling everything from locally made sweaters (£240) and real fur (£300-£400 for a hat) to chocolate bars and Arctic herbs, the latter of which Mathew and I bought. We also had lunch here – Mathew went with meat soup (lamb) while I had a salmon bagel.  Onward, we set off for Geysir which was just a few minutes drive away from Gullfoss.

Geysir - taken on the following day in nicer weather!

Geysir has numerous fumeroles and ponds of burbling hot water, we could see the steam puffing away from all of them. The path took us past a few small ones before reaching the main attraction which blows every 8 minutes or so. The first time we gathered to watch it, we took photos, and second, a video.  The main one which the area is name after, does not blow any more, but looking at the size of it, the tower of water blowing from it must have been immense! Of course, the whole area smelled of sulphur. 

The gift shop was quite big, although by now we had become accustomed to converting the prices of certain items, and this obviously had an impact on souvenirs. There is a mixture of “that’s far too expensive” a “not a bad price”.  I noticed that items I would usually spend £2-£3 were the price equivalent of £8, so decisions would have to be made on this holiday! Perhaps this might impact on future holiday purchases?

Geysir

Leaving Geysir, we arrived at Brekkurgerdi Guesthouse which was tucked away behind a complex of geothermally powered greenhouses, and there were quite a few trees here. No restaurant here, so we went to a place called Restaurant Mika which had the appearance of an American diner on the outside, but it was like a normal restaurant inside. Turns out this place specialised in langustines and chocolate. And yes, some langustines were served with a chocolate chilli sauce!  Mathew had seafood risotto and I had a small pizza. Stomachs full, we returned to our Guesthouse for the evening and made a few decisions on what to do on Thursday and Friday.

On Thursday we had planned on doing a waterfall walk, however we knew that the weather would probably not be in our favour. So, Mathew found details in an Icelandic magazine which I had picked up from the airport, about a guided tour into a lavatube. So, we booked it as it was reopening on June 1st.