Breakfast was unexpectedly competitive – Italians again – but delicious and varied. Half the hotel was queued outside the restaurant by 7.30am when it opened. The yoghurt and rye bread were my highlights, but the others seemed to appreciate the bacon and pancakes.
Sadly, the sky was not the blue Keith was hoping for to get the ultimate geysir photo, but it still wasn’t raining and that is good enough for me!
Our first stop today was Gullfoss – meaning gold waterfall. Mila spotted a marmite caterpillar and I found more lupins, geraniums for days and loads of the plants Granny gave me gone to seed.
Gullfoss is spectacular and very peaceful at 8.30am on a Saturday morning! Amelia is right that the water does look very angry as it boils (figuratively – this is glacial meltwater not geothermally heated!) and rages over multiple steps down into the ravine. The children are now completely onboard with shouting geological features out when they see them and Danny spotted the “bowls” where previous incarnations of the waterfall must have been. I was not encouraged to visit the shop where I could see some lovely Icelandic jumpers. I am now biding my time and waiting for a moment of weakness…
As ever, unexpected things are often found in car parks (more on that to follow) and in the Gullfoss car park were two types of vehicle of note: dirt buggies and their grinning, returning passengers and off-road coaches. We all fancied the dirt buggies and accompanying overalls more than the off-road coach (or any other type of coach to be honest) but the photos of them going through water were pretty impressive!
Our next stop was back the way we had come in Pingvellir National Park. Oxarafoss is much smaller than Gullfoss but interesting because it falls off the edge of the North American tectonic plate into a corridor-like crater. Unsubstantiated Internet rumours state that this waterfall was man-made to supply the Alping assembly with drinking water. The fun surprise in the car park was the flies. It takes Keith about 3 minutes to put his walking boots on when we stop – not fun to drive in obviously – and by the time he had done this, I was stood in a cloud of flies trying to drink from my eyes. Nice. The flies left us behind where the coachload of tourists joined us. I am not sure which were worse. Early and quiet is our preferred mode of touristing.
It was a relief to get away from the crowds and the flies and get back on the road. We didn’t get stuck behind the cycling sportive taking place on the main road of the region, got the windscreen safely through the gravel section (for the third time) and made it to Faxi waterfall. This one is wide rather than deep (80m) and, when the sun shines through the spray, spectacular. I was fascinated by the concrete fish ladder and the Icelandic gentlemen standing up to waist deep in fast flowing, freezing water. I did see one catch a fish but he didn’t seem impressed with it and he let it go.
Faxi had a café that we were planning to use, but they only served main courses so we continued our food search into Fluoir where we were due to visit the Secret Lagoon, which ironically appears on both physical signposts and TripAdvisor. Food was found and consumed and then we had a lovely time relaxing in the warm water. Obviously that is not the whole story. There were woggles. Danny had 9. Horseplay and canoodling were both banned on the sign but both were evident. I liked the safety video that threatened to sell unaccompanied children to the trolls. It also reminded visitors that there is only one swimming pool… and quite a few geysirs that are 100 degrees Celcius. We are starting to get that message. The changing rooms were very European and meant the poor gentleman who accidentally wandered into the ladies changing room paid for his eyeful with much naked lady laughter.
The children and I were hot and lethargic after our float but the itinerary had no mercy and drove us onwards to Bruarhloo. I had a lot of respect for the older couple who carried their picnic lunch down from the car park to the only table and munched quietly while a whole coachful of Scottish and Irish pensioners wandered past! Amelia and I were the only ones who fancied rafting down the canyon on the most beautiful milky blue river. It winds it’s way through black rock walls buffeting the boats like corks. The guides seemed to know what they were doing but Keith and Danny didn’t fancy it. I did my good turn of the day for a group of Asian men who wanted their photo taking and managed not to get annoyed with the man who didn’t know how to queue and walked into everyone’s shot.
We were running out of enthusiasm (and time) by now, but I had spotted a single sentence in our “optional activities for the day” about a 3,000 year old volcanic cauldera in Kerio. It was well worth the detour and pleasingly cheap for the entrance. A walk along a red basalt gravel path took us up to the rim with an immediate view down to the blue water in the crater. We didn’t really understand the significance of the two children blowing bubbles half way around the rim and I will be amazed if one hasn’t snuck into Keith’s photos. I made myself a liar telling the children that there couldn’t be fish in a water source that wasn’t connected to anything else, then we walked down the steps to the lake and immediately saw a small fish. Sigh. It was pretty brave too and didn’t swim away when I wiggled my fingers at it. The walk back up took the rest of the children’s energy and the journey to the hotel in Hella was very quiet. Poor Amelia has slept on every journey over 10 minutes we have had today. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will restore her for tomorrow’s adventure.
Hella was fortunately easy to navigate as Keith was as exhausted as everyone else and we were allocated a parking space right by our apartment, so emptying the car wasn’t too painful. We had a lovely chat with the lady at reception about what time it would be best to have dinner… and ended up deciding to get pizza from a van in the car park over the road. I cannot tell you how much it pains us to have spent £16 each on pizza. Iceland is pricey. It was good though! Our last adventure of the day was at Mila’s insistence – she wanted to walk down the glass corridor the hotel has installed to allow guests to view the Northern lights from inside. Half way along, we met Freja. Freja has a tag in her collar explaining (in English!) that she does NOT belong to the hotel, so please do not feed her or keep her in your room!! Apparently she belongs to a neighbour and comes in through any open window or door to receive her adulation from ignorant travellers. She was very petable.
