After another great breakfast at the hotel, and with blue skies showing, we embarked on our last full day in Iceland (and our vacation)! Today is the famous “Golden Circle” drive. There are two “circle” drives that are popular in Iceland – the “Ring Road” which takes you all the way around Iceland and the “Golden Circle” which is a smaller day trip from Reykjavik, return. It takes 7-10 days to do the Ring Road and would be a lovely trip to do in Spring or Summer however at this time of year it is no recommended, nor do we have the time (it is 1,332-kilometer drive)! So the “Golden Circle” is what we are doing today! It is also shorter than yesterday’s epic drive!
The Golden Circle drive takes you to three of the most iconic locations in Iceland: a breathtaking waterfall (Gullfoss), a geothermal area with hot springs (Geysir), and a historic national park with gorges and ridges (Thingvellir National Park). As we filled up with gas last night as we returned from our long drive, we are ready to go! This drive is going to be about 230 kilometers in length, where yesterday we drove about 450 kilometres.
Off we head towards Reykjavík to join the Golden Circle roads to take us to the 3 different stops! Like yesterday, there were some clouds hanging about in the sky, however there remained blue sky as we first drove through the Thingvellir National Park on our way to Geysir. We stopped at a couple of lookouts in the park as we drove along, however we mainly kept going as we were not camping so we had no reason to actually stop and stay. The scenery was beautiful – however there was a change from yesterday – it was a LOT more whiter on the peaks – obviously it has snowed last night on the mountains and volcanos!
We got to Geysir and there was a nice complex with a restaurant, cafe, gift store, washrooms (important) that were NOT outside, a gas station and a hotel. There even was accessible parking! I was kind of disappointed when we drove up and into the parking lot, as I saw the standard steam coming out of the ground across the road, I wondered if that is all that is going on here – perhaps guysir means a lot of steam vents? After patronizing the warm washrooms and getting bundled up as the wind was kind of COLD, we walked across the road and along the path that everyone else seemed to be doing. There were pools with signs on how hot they were and bubbling happening – obviously this is a hot area underneath the ground!
The path was pretty accessible and had been salted (but not enough) as it wound around to what was a big natural pool area that was bubbling – I would say about 20 feet across. There were so many people just standing there watching the bubbling and steam! I had a hard time getting a place to get a picture, however finally found one and took some pictures and then the bubbling started getting aggressive, so I decided to take a video of the boiling action and BOOM! up shot a guysir into the sky about 40 feet! Scared the dickens out of me! I have included that video below the pictures. Then about 2 minutes later the same thing happened again! It is such an interesting experience watching the earth getting prepared to and then vomiting into the air against gravity! As soon as the 2nd guysir happened most people cleared out and we stayed for about another 10 minutes and saw a single guysir shoot up again and then, as I was now freezing cold (that does not happen very often) it was time to head back to the car.
Here is the geysir in action – don’t blink or you will miss it!
We safely walked back to the cafe and patronizing the gift area, we got back to the car, had our lunch we packed and were on our way! At that time, it was -5 C with the wind chill – no wonder I was cold despite the sun shining! Now it was onto our last stop on the Golden Circle – the Gullfoss waterfall.
As we drove there we continued to see snow covered mountains which were very different from our drive yesterday – it was like we were exploring a different part of Iceland, however we were still in the same area – just visiting different sites instead! As we approached the Gullfoss waterfall area, there was a sign for with a wheelchair and tour bus on it pointing showing to take a different road. I thought it was strange and I probably mis-read it, so we went to the main parking lot. Not seeing any accessible parking spots like there were at the waterfall the day before, and not seeing anything that resembled a waterfall, I was wondering if again this was a scenario where we had to walk somewhere first. I really did not feel like doing that with the wind chill factor at this time! I mentioned to Andrew that I had seen a wheelchair and tour bus sign as we towards the large parking lot and building and perhaps we could take that turn instead when leaving. Down the hill we went and onto the road that was marked for wheelchair and tour bus access and WOW – no wonder there was no accessible parking above and there was separate access for people with mobility needs – one had to take a HUGE staircase down a cliff in order to see this beautiful waterfall!
Instead, I just had to walk on the boardwalk that extended from the stairs and parking lot to view these awesome falls! A bit about what we saw – the word Gullfoss actually means Golden Falls – the waterfall is fed by the Hvita River, which plunging into a canyon, creates two distinct waterfalls that total around 32 meters in height. I was amazed at this power and sight- the falls reminded me of a mini Niagara Falls!
After that invigorating experience, we now pointed the Kia towards Keflavik and the Courtyard Hotel. Instead of returning on the roads that we already took yesterday, once we got to Selfoss, we took Highway 42 this time (previously we took Highway 43 that goes by the Blue Lagoon) and through a different pass in the hills. Getting to Selfoss was fine, however as soon as we left and were on a prairie like plain, it started to snow! I perhaps forgot to mention that our rental car already had studded tires on it – so we were prepared from that standpoint! The clouds became heavier and we ended up in a white out for a while (no picture of that as you could not see much)! Eventually we drove up and over a hill and back down to Highway 41 which is the main road between Reykjavik and Keflavik. All clear once we got there and it was a short drive back to the hotel at that point.
As this was our last night in Iceland/on vacation, we decided to go out for dinner. There was a 2nd restaurant, not related to but attached to the hotel, so when we arrived we checked them out for gluten free food offerings – they had them – even pizza! We went up to the hotel room to rest after our adventure (it was a bit too early to eat) and then returned to the restaurant for our final dinner of this vacation! I had a chicken/shrimp pizza that was excellent! Andrew had fish and chips which he said were also very good!
Now it is back to the room to pack and plan for tomorrow – we fly home at 5:15pm so we / I was planning on going into Reykjavik in the morning to see if there was any unique wool from Iceland! See you tomorrow! Before I go – here is the route that we drove today…
Note: Yes I know it is Halloween today – there does not seem to be a lot done in Iceland for it (such as signs, pictures, pumpkins etc) so I asked the desk clerk if it was celebrated here and he said there would be some parties in people’s houses but it is a fairly understated holiday in Iceland. Compared to Ireland where Halloween was EVERYWHERE and is heavily celebrated, it was interesting to see the differences between the two countries.