The Land of Rock, Fire & Water...and Gnomes

After an interesting night of ups and downs...down at 9pm, up at 12:30 a few up at 5 and then dragging our sorry butts out of bed around 9:30, we had a good slow start to the morning.  The place we’re staying in is a house with 5 rooms (12 people) and one bathroom and kitchen.  It made for a pretty tight fit and a long line

for the bathroom but pretty great way to meet other travellers.  After breakfast we got in the car for the day around noon and headed out to see if we could navigate the streets of Reykjavik to get back on the highway.  After a few wrong turns but the fortunate finding of a Bonus (the local grocery chain) we headed north in search of geysers, waterfalls and anything else that we might stumble on.

 They call the circuit the Golden Circle so our first stop was Pingvellir where you can see the tectonic plates pulling away from each other.  It started pouring rain so we didn’t do the walk but managed the drive by.  From there we headed up to Geysir where apparently all geysirs are now named after.  Got a nice hike in, saw about ten ... geysirs? and back to the car for the next stop.  At Gulfoss there is a beautiful waterfall and the wind was crazy... could barely stay on our feet. 

From there it was south to Fuldir where we were in search for the Secret Lagoon.   No idea where it was but the towns are pretty small in that area.  The landscape is rolling hills with some larger snowcapped peaks and farms distributed between the rock piles.  A slow drive through Fuldir and we stumbled into hotpools to find the oldest hotsprings pool in Iceland.  Turn of the century, it was built of large squares of lava rock with a small geysir that fed the pool.  Every 30 minutes it would gush in hot water that made you pretty quick on your feet when it flooded in.  We even managed a few minutes where we were the only people there.  Don’t think we’ll find that at the Blue Lagoon.

It’s sure hard to tell time around here when it really never gets dark.  Turns out it was 8pm and the only way we knew was Jenna’s stomach clock.  Out of the pool for the sleepy drive home after the soak to get some sleep for the adventure tomorrow.  Off to Vik and east for glaciers, falls and a little trek.