After an excellent night's sleep, we woke, and Chrissy had her first egg-scented shower. During our trip, we learned that the ground is so porous that rainwater and snow melt doesn't run off in streams and rivers like we're used to. Instead, it seeps into the ground and pops back up as springs. All the time that it's underground, it hangs out with the magma, being heated and staying hot. As with most thermal waters, there is a faint sulfur smell to it. I just barely noticed it, but Chrissy apparently smelled it very strongly. It was nice, hot water, though!
After getting ready and packing up our bags, we walked across the street to the gas station and grabbed a couple of sandwiches before walking across the other street to catch our tour bus with Troll Expeditions. Our guide, Hilmat, and most of the rest of the tour group (a total of 11 of us) gathered us around 8:15, and off we headed to Thingvellir National Park.
Thingvellir National Park was the site of one of the earliest parliaments, originating in 930 AD, after settlement of the island began in 874. The leaders of the various tribes of the island would meet on the plains to conduct governmental business. They continued to do so until 1798, even while technically under the rule of various Scandanavian countries. Parliament was reinstated in 1844, but it was moved to Reykjavik. The declaration was that this parliament was a continuation of the same parliament that was founded in 930. Iceland finally gained sovereignty in 1918 and became a fully independent republic in 1944. Thingvellir translates to "assembly plains", and the parliament has always been officially called the Althingi in Icelandic.
Along with being one of the oldest originating sites of a continuous parliament, Thingvellir National Park is the site of the divergent plate boundary of the American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Hilmat explained to us that the island grows in a couple of different ways. One way is by these plates. These plates do not collide with each other, like we often consider plates to interact. Instead, when they shift, they tend to shift farther apart, widening the island, and creating multiple gorges, canyons, fissures, and other landscape marvels, which ultimately result in Lake Thingvallavatn, where people will dive and/or snorkle the Silfra fissure. The water is supposedly crystal clear here, but I'll have to take their word for it for now. We did not snorkle the fissure on this trip.
We arrived at the park around 9:30 a.m., which was still too dark for me to take pictures with my camera without the tripod and too dark for me to see to change the settings to the handheld dark automatic setting. We hiked down a trail of one of the canyons created by a diverging movement of the plates followed by a release of lava to "fill in" the gap and the emergence of a spring ultimately leading to the lake. Chrissy took these pictures for me while I picked my way through the icy path with the help of my crampons. It is a beautiful park. One could easily spend a day or two exploring all of the trails and snorkeling or diving the fissure (which occurs year round).
We finished our hike here at around 10:00 a.m. It's still pretty dark out.
Once the hike was completed, we got back on the bus to our first waterfall, and what an amazing waterfall it was! We went to the partially frozen Gullfoss (translated to Golden Waterfall). There were multiple paths to see the different sections of this fall, and all of those sections were lovely! There were spots on the path that were solid sheets of ice, so the crampons definitely came in handy. It was fun watching people without them slip-sliding along! We didn't see anybody fall badly. The girls in their moon boots had some difficulty, but not nearly as much as the guy in dress shoes! You can see all parts of the waterfall, including where pieces of it are frozen by Chrissy's right arm!
Our next stop was the Geysir geothermal area. Geysir was the first geysir ever described in print, dating back to at least 1294. This particular geysir is where all the other shooting hot waters got their names. Until Old Faithful was discovered, Geysir was the largest and most famous geysir in the world. While Geysir itself is mostly dormant, having last had an active period for a few years in the early 2000s, a sister geysir in the same thermal field is routinely active, spouting about every 6-10 minutes. We watched Strokkur (the Churn) erupt a couple of times. The video shows the water in the spout hole bubbling just before it erupts. The next time, I took photos instead of trying to get it on video. Since we had limited daylight, time to both get to and watch Strokkur and have lunch was limited, so we only stayed for two eruptions. I did love the colors in the fields near where the original Great Geysir's location is.
After lunch and having completed the "Golden Circle" (Thingvellir National Park, Gullfoss, and Geysir), we continued along the South Coast to one of the largest waterfalls in Iceland, Skogafoss (waterfall from the Skoga River). Another solid sheet of ice led up to it, but the fall itself wasn't frozen in any places and had a significant spray. Some of you may recognize this waterfall, as it is used frequently in media. In the US, you may have seen it in the following sources: Justin Beiber's music video to "I'll Show You" and multiple movies and shows that have been released in the US. Specifically: "Thor: The Dark World", "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "Vikings" season 5 episode 2 (where Floki discovers Iceland), and the final season of "Game of Thrones".
Our last stop of the day was at what is considered one of the most beautiful non-tropical beaches in the world and was named in 2021 as the 6th best beach in the world overall, Reynisjara black sand beach. This beach not only has lovely black sand and black volcanic rocks and pebbles, but is also home to these beautiful basalt cliffs and some rocky sea stacks just offshore. Folklore has it that the stacks and basalt formations used to be trolls that would pull ships from the ocean, crashing them onto the shore. One night, they were out searching for ships and stayed out too late, still being visible at daybreak, where the sunlight froze them forever.
This beach is also known for its sneaker waves. This video doesn't give justice to the huge waves that were routine. At one point, I was too close to the water, so for the first time in years, I had to run! Thankfully, I didn't fall this time!
As we left the beach, it was getting dark, so we headed to our accommodations for the evening. At dinner, Hilmat shared some more of his knowledge of the island and its culture, but wouldn't answer all of our questions, saying he had to leave some information for during the tour! Far too many clouds to even consider looking for the aurora, so we just turned into bed for a good sleep.
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