Sam & Georgia's Travels : December 2014

The drive to the Golden Circle was short but pretty scary, as we got out of the city and a little bit higher the road was completely iced over. We took it slowly and safely so we arrived in the dark but safe! Sam definitely got thrown in the deep end on the driving front!

We stayed in a small snow covered camping area in a small town called Laugarvatn. It was really nice and we were able to get up reasonably early to get around to each part of the Golden Circle. Although it is quite difficult to get up early when it’s pitch black until about 9:30!

The Golden Circle consists of Geysir, a huge two tier waterfall and a National Park that showcases the rift zone where the European and American continental plates meet and are drifting apart.

Our first stop was at Geysir, where the volcanic activity in the area creates huge geyser eruptions regularly. Geysir is the second largest geyser in the world and it’s 80m high eruptions happen very irregularly every (they can be days or years apart), unfortunately we didn’t see this one erupt but we did see a smaller one. The smaller one has eruptions that go about 20-30m high and they occur every 3-7 minutes. The water in the geysers is about 100 degrees and the ground surrounding them is frozen and snowy.

It’s amazing to watch them erupt, especially so frequently. They really are huge; I can’t imagine what it would be like to see Geysir go off!

Next we headed to Gullfoss, which is a huge waterfall about 20 minutes from Geysir. We had to make our way down some very treacherous stairs but the viewing area was incredible. There was so much water coming down over the falls, it much be so huge in summer.

It has two tiers and then the water disappears through a deep valley, it really was amazing to see and probably just about as spectacular as Niagara Falls!

From there we drove back to the National Park Thingvellir, which was an absolutely incredible place. Sam did a geology subject through the year so he was able to explain what I was looking at and it’s significance.

This is the actual spot where you can stand between two continental plates at the point they are separating. We wandered up and looked out over the valley that has formed and the huge lake that we camped by the night before.

It was absolutely spectacular; such an amazing showcase of the world that we forget is constantly changing.

From here we drove south, heading for the ocean!

We managed to get all the way down to the most southern tip of Iceland, a small town called Vik.

It was dark by the time we arrived so we decided to set up camp away from the town and any light pollution, hoping to see the northern lights.

We ended up camping in an amazing spot at the base of two volcanoes. Eyjafjallajökull, which is the volcano that erupted in 2010 and caused all those European flight delays, was on one side while Katla was on the other. It was until we woke up and read a bit about Katla that we realised it is actually one of the most active and overdue volcanoes in Iceland. It is constantly being watched for signs of eruption, if it had of erupted there would have been a large earthquake and then a 30-80 minute window to get as far away as possible!

Despite that slightly scary information, it was a lovely place to camp and it was incredible to wake up to the glacier that sits between the two volcanoes.

A view of the rift zone

Pre eruption

Geysir

During eruption

Gullfoss

Treacherous stairs!

Gullfoss

Spectacular drive

Rift Zone

We stepped off the plane in Iceland at 6:30am (about midnight New York time) with no sleep at all and picked up a rental car for our first day in Reykjavik. It was just a small Toyota Yaris, and we picked up an Australian guy who needed a lift into the city as well.

Sam did well getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road with little sleep, but we underestimated just how long it would be so dark for! There was a small incident with a big pile of black dirt near the bus terminal when we were searching for Wi-Fi, but both the car and us were fine.

Eventually we found our hotel and ditched our bags and drove back out to a large hot spring called the Blue Lagoon. It was so nice to just relax and swim in the steaming hot water. The water was bright blue surrounded by dark volcanic rock, we got a good swim in before the weather turned and we headed back to Reykjavik.

An early night was in order as we were exhausted and had to get ourselves ready to pick up the campervan tomorrow!

There was a misunderstanding between the camper company and the people who we booked it through so we had to wait for the guy to come back from the country to get our car. We decided to make the most of our extra day in Reykjavik and had a look around the tiny city. Considering the entire population of Iceland is just over 300,000 it’s not surprising that their capital city is more of an oversized small town. There are no high-rise buildings, and the downtown area is a couple of cool little streets lined with small businesses. The buildings are all different colours and there are cute little cafes everywhere.

We walked the main streets and up to the tallest church in Iceland, Hallgrímskirkja. From the top of this church you get a 360 degree view of Reykjavik, which is a bit bigger than it feel but still about the size of Geelong if not a bit smaller.
On one side of the city there are four large tanks topped by a huge dome, this holds the cities hot water which comes form naturally occurring springs (it smells pretty funky). On the other is the harbour and a heap of huge university buildings. It really is a cool city and the people are all very friendly and speak awesome English, which is good because Icelandic is a ridiculously unpronounceable language!Eventually we got the call and picked up our car. It was a Mitsubishi Pagero with snow tyres and a bed in the back. It even had a stove, fridge, bed and running water.Just like that we were off down the icy roads, headed for the Golden Circle.