And again its rainy and snowy this morning. Luckily this morning we're just driving back up the south east coast where we've already been before. Just after the little town of Hella we turns off the ring road and headed up the Pjorsa Valley. It was quite a pretty drive, though would have been better if we could have seen a bit further, the further we got the more the day closed in around us.
Our first stop of the day was at Gullfoss.
For once the cold is working in our favour, the spray has crystallised into beautiful ice formations around the edges of the falls.
We're doing the basic Iceland tour - the golden circle tour - in reverse today which means that the next stop is Geysir. The big Geyser, Geysir, after which all other geysers are named is no longer erupting regularly but there is another one right next to it called Strokkur which goes off every 5-10 mins.
We wandered into the hot springs area and checked out all the little bubbling hot pots.
Then headed for Strokkur, which had already erupted twice whilst we were getting there.
Front row positions taken and less then 5 mins later.
I'll add the video as soon as I get it edited - you don't need 5 mins worth of waiting....
and then, just as it was residing and as soon as I pushed stop on my recording, it went again straight away.
Then we had to wait another 5 mins to see it do it again, by then everyone had had enough so we went to check out Geysir himself.
and the other hot springs.
before heading back to the car - we were frozen. But there's always time for one more eruption.
Onto the last stop - Thingvellir home of the first parliament. Unfortunately when we got there, Josh was asleep and it was snowing for real now so Andy went for an explore whilst Lexie, Josh and I stayed in the car (and ate a picnic lunch).
We headed back towards Reykjavik through the snow and fog. On the way into town we took a slight detour to find yet another pool Arbaejarlaug which was recommended in the Lonely Planet. This was the best pool yet. An indoor/outdoor pool, a twisty slide, jets and bubble, plus numerous hot pots. So much fun - Can I just say I Love Icelandic pools. We stayed in the pool till after 5pm then headed for our next hotel. Hotel Orkin - we booked it because it had a loft room, and washing facilities. Unfortunately neither of them really lived up to expectations. The room was cute.
but tiny and the WiFi was almost non existent and the washing machine was tiny and took forever, I was still doing our two loads of laundry at 11pm. Walked into town for dinner were going to go Thai but it was closed so just wandered till we found another place - this had horse on the menu so we gave it a try. Tasted just like Beef to me, Nice but nothing really special.
Yay for Geysir (and it's littler more active brother) and loved that waterfall.
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