First top tip of the day, if you get a good taxi driver, it might be more expensive than the bus, but you get your own personal tour guide. And that is what we got to kick things off. After a quick hotel breakfast we booked a pricey taxi to the airport to collect our car rental. Yes there would have been a bus at about a fraction of the price, but hauling ourselves across town, getting up even earlier, all factored in. But a driver who gives you an insight into corrupt politicians, the psychology of 24 hr darkness, the pride in their football team and discovering the USA worth its weight in gold. Throw in the perspective of living in the shadow of volcanoes, the potential implications of a glacial eruption for the destruction of his country, and was the most educating 40 minutes of this trip.
On getting back to Keflavik we picked up the smallest of cars but all we could get. Car hire astronomical here but it was that or the tour buses to get out into the countryside, and we are not ready for that kind of holiday yet. We will pay the surcharge for freedom although of course not without its risk, but we live off the adrenalin. Speeding tickets, bumps, getting lost all part of our holiday experience and whilst not pleasant at the time, all feeds in to the post holiday reflection.
Chrissi did the first part of the drive back past Reykjavik and up into the national park, Thingvellur. I was still mentally scarred from our last collection of a manual car to take the reigns immediately and needed a nice remote car park to get my practice in. Before that though we had a right crack, looking at a crack in the earth that represented the collision of 2 tectonic plates. My Dad had warned me before we left a lot of imagination might be needed at this juncture and he was right. I spent an hour or so enjoying a schoolboy play on the word crack, as the actual fissure was OK but I didn’t feel we were in journey to the centre of the earth territory. We did watch some divers in Silfra nearby who were heading down into the crack for more watery exploration.. yes, the childish jokes kept coming, I could have gone on all day.
We also saw a waterfall which I think was signposted more to give us something to focus on when the wise cracks dried up, as it wasn’t far from drying up itself. A really small church also of vague interest right next to a house where the Icelandic president entertains guests in the Summer. He wasn’t there, but the taxi driver I mentioned earlier had pretty much told me Summer was over.
We had a lunchtime muffin and really nice coffee in the visitor centre, remember to pay the national park fee there if you end up in that part of the world. I then did my car park driving test and took the wheel for the remainder of the day.
An hour up the road, we were now on what is called the Golden Circle, was a place called Geysir. Well, a right diamond of a place that was. The eggy sulphur filled the air, the steam whisped around us, and the 100 degree centigrade water bubbled out of the earth in little boiling alcoves. It was an amazing place. We had been to Rotorua many years ago, but the active geyser here, Strokkur shoots higher than anything in that part of the world and also the reknowned Old Faithful in Yellowstone. There was a bubbling, but inactive geyser that hasn’t done anything since 2000 but apparently that is double height again. We went up high on the off chance, but just got a few decent photo shots.
10 minutes further up the road is the Gulfoss waterfall, one of the top 10 in the world on some random list they referenced in the car park but darn impressive I must say. The whole Golden Circle incredibly sanitised with toilets, service points at all the key features. I’d normally be a bit sniffy about this but time wasn’t our friend and it was great to be able to tick so much stuff off. Quite a powerful fall I must say, Chrissi and I did our Lois/Clark Kent shots but no one jumped in. I was quite awestruck I must say it like was a triple layered fall, appreciate that is not a geographic term but is one that feels about right!
This had to be our Golden Circle turning point, time had beaten us and we were now 90 mins from Reykjavik. Got ourselves pointing in the right direction but made one more stop as we hit the city suburbs. Many years ago they had a short lived out of town parkrun here in a place called Ellidaardalur. Took a bit of finding and we probably didn’t do the exact run, but a lovely jog along a river with wildlife galore (I was told) chrissi had her traditional holiday fall (not the first one as it turned out) but we had managed a bit of extra exercise and nostalgia at the end of the day.
navigated the
traffic back into the centre of Reykjavik, just one dodgy hill start! parked up at the hotel and had to quickly look for an evening food option. As it turned out a restaurant across the road turned up trumps, they took us in late, Forrettabarinn provided us burgers (me) and mussels (chrissi) which hit the spot with fries, and had a pleasant if simple range of flavours, washed down with a couple of Kaldi beers, I think we have perhaps explored more of the local beer than food on this trip.
last day tomorrow, a volcano to hope the trip ends with a bang, and also a poignant tribute to a recently departed mate.
