We had a delayed start today due to an issue with the car (low tire pressure, and all the air hoses at the four gas stations in the nearby town were frozen solid!). However, our intrepid guide Ingólfr got us on the road in plenty of time to make it to all of our destinations.
We drove north along a river to Þingvellir (pronounced THING-vet-leer) National Park. This amazing place was the site of Iceland’s first national assembly in 930 CE. The park straddles the Mid-Atlantic Rift, where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates are pulling apart by about an inch every year. You can walk through the rift, and it’s quite a strange feeling to do so. One of our group refused to enter the rift, as she said it just didn’t feel safe for her to do so. The only thing that didn’t feel quite safe to us was the ice lining the path.
Next to the entrance to the rift is an overlook with a spectacular view of the park. It was cold! High temperature for the day was 21°F (-6° C), and the wind was blowing at 30-40 mph throughout the day.
From Þingvellir, we drove north to the Geysir area, kind of a small-scale Yellowstone. The largest geyser in the park is now dormant. However, the Strokkur (“butter churn”) geyser gives a good show on average every 20 minutes. We must have been lucky today, because it erupted about every 5 minutes during our visit.
About 10 kilometers northeast of the Geysir area was Gullfoss waterfalls. It was just a short walk from the parking lot to the falls overlook, but the howling wind was now sustained over 30 mph with gusts reaching 50 mph (a tour bus blew off the road nearby that day). Combined with temperatures of 20°F (-6°C), this was probably the coldest I’ve ever felt in my life. My glasses hurt! Even though they’re plastic, they felt like they were driving cold spikes directly into my face. And the winds and ice made footing very treacherous. Standing at the overlook, I was seriously concerned that a gust of wind would blow my phone out of my hands, no matter how tightly I held it. The sight of the partially frozen falls was well worth it, however.
A few miles west of the falls, our driver stopped to let us visit with some Icelandic ponies for a few minutes. They stay outside all day and night, all year long!
Our final stop of the day before heading to Reykjavik was at the second largest greenhouse complex in Iceland. Cherry, Roma, and Heirloom tomatoes are grown in a highly automated facility that is heated by geothermal water, has soil imported from Finland, bees from Holland for pollination, and which consumes enough electricity to power 3,000 homes.
What a great day! I wish we’d had a day — or at least several hours — at each of the stops. I regretted that it was our last full day in Iceland, but we had to get up at 3:45 the next morning to head for the airport. I would definitely come back here again. Maybe next time I would take a helicopter tour of the volcano area and drive to the other end of the island.