Iceland August 2013

Day Six: towards the geysers.

This was another long day of driving, we had to get from the canyon to the geysers. We stopped at a museum in Skogar, visited a deserted pool kept warm by the water from the hot springs (and we took a dip), walked around a volcano and visited a waterfall.

The green tent shows the place where we stayed overnight.

The canyon where we stayed overnight was particularly picturesque in the morning. There were no people around.

Apart from the mountains and glaciers, a significant proportion of Iceland is covered by flat lava fields reaching the ocean. In some places they are covered by moss.

A museum. We were not impressed

It made a good playground though.

These musical instruments are called pump organs. We were not sure if the visitors were allowed to use them, but there was nobody around... so we played a bit.

This is the swimming pool kept warm by the water from hot springs nearby. This was an obvious place for a lunch break. This swimming pool used to be maintained, but then it got deserted, and is now only visited by tourists like us. It takes about half an hour to get here from the parking place.

Volcanic crater Kerid. It is right next to the road, you have to pay a little and walk all around it, either at the top or near the lake.

Faxi waterfall. We got there in the evening, so there were no other people around.

Geysers.. This is a very touristy place. During the first days of our trip we were spoiled by the accessibilty of hot springs, we were free to explore them as much as we wanted. Here it is all different, all hot springs are fenced off, and people venturing through the fence get told off. But - there is a working Strokkur geyser here! It spits up boiling water every 5-10 min.

One can watch the geyser for hours. It is like a living organism. It lays quiet at first, then suddenly comes to life and starts breathing, the water goes up and down. You are thinking, now it is going to erupt... but no! It gets quiet again after breathing for a while. But when you least expect it, a huge blue bubble suddenly appears. It probably grows very quickly, but you think it is being inflated very slowly, just like an air balloon. And finally it bursts spitting up a boiling stream. Some eruptions are small, some reach 20 m. As we stayed overnight in the campsite right next to the geyser, we went to look at it both in the evening and in the morning. And also stopped by on the way back to the airport.