Thursday 10th July

Iceland Trip - Thursday

Today we an early start, and then some of our party decided to go back to bed so we had a leisurely start and headed off to the Gullfoss waterfall. On the way there we passed very near the site of Geysir and saw the Great Geysir shooting up in the distance. This is only happens a couple of times a day. At Gullfoss we saw the falls which are pretty spectacular but the crowds of coach parties were a bore. The cafe was unbearable and we zoomed off the Geysir to check out the steam chutes. The little one (Strokkur) did its thing every five minutes and it was quite fun. Afterwards we went off to Reykholt for a very pleasant lunch.

Gullfoss waterfall in rather overcast weather

Pool at Geysir: Jack wonders if it really is that hot (it is)

 After lunch we went back to the hotel to deposit teenagers who needed sleep and I went back to the same area to find the hidden natural hot tub in the hills. Some rather hazy directions let to the obligatory clump of camper vans that you find at anything worth seeing here (which is lots of things). A short walk let to an incredible natural spring in the middle of the hills. Someone has build a hut over one of the pools which makes for a  very civilised experience. The higher pool was a bit warmer than the one shown and very very nice.

Idyllic natural hot tub at Flúðir

For supper we drove to the spa town of Laugavartn for a highly rated local restaurant. We had reindeer bugers and ordered them in islandic (hreindýrborgari). They were excellent. We recovered the time lapse camera but rain spoiled play, unfortunately.