Iceland- Day 6

Our weather luck ran out today.  The rain and wind started before we had breakfast and didn’t quit.  Unfortunately, our plan was to visit the the Golden Circle, the classic Iceland tourist route.  Not too much indoor activities.  On the way we passed the black sand beach at Vik.  Had to stop, even in the driving rain to check it out.  My fellow travelers stayed dry in the car and sent me out to take photos.

The sheep seemed to be getting less afraid of humans.  We almost had mutton for dinner.

Our first stop was the famous waterfall, Gulfoss. Gulfoss is Iceland’s iconic waterfall (which says a lot since there are more waterfalls here than people) on the Hvítá (White) river which is fed by Iceland's second biggest glacier, the Langjökull. The falls are in two tiers and drop about 100 ft into a canyon with high (200 ft) walls.  

Rainbows are common here, but not today. In the early part of the 1900’s, an investor tried to aquire the rights to  the waterfall in order to build a power plant here.  He entered into a contract with the farmer, Tómas Tómasson, who owned the land on which Gulfoss sat.  The farmer´s daughter, Sigriður Tómasdóttir who grew up on his father´s sheep farm sought to have the rental contract voided. Sigriður using her own saving hired a lawyer in Reykjavik to defend her case. This dragged on for years and at times, she threatened to throw herself over the falls if construction ever began on the powerplant. Although she lost the case, she was able to nullify the contract due to non-payment of rent.  In 1940 the adopted son of Sigriður acquired the waterfall from Sigriður´s father and later sold it to the Icelandic government. Gullfoss and its environs was designated as nature reserve in 1979 to permanently protect the waterfall.

Jeri finally found a sweater that she liked at the gift shop here (and it is hand knitted in Iceland with Icelandic wool) and fortunately, Molly didn't buy the hat!

 

From here, we drove to Geysir, the site of the active geothermal park not far from Gulfs. 

The English word “geyser” comes from the Icelandic word, “geyser” which means “gusher”.  The main attraction in the area is Stokkur, a geyser that erupts every 10 minutes to a height sometimes up to 90 ft. It doesn’t give much warning when it erupts which makes photographing it mighty difficult (especially standing in the pouring rain, cold and wet.

 

There were many other smaller geysers ns bubbling inkpots.  We did a very limited tour of the area due to the inclement weather.

We continued to make the journey around the Golden Circle planning to stop at Thingvellir National Park, but the rain picked up even more, and we were all pretty soaked so we decided to head to our hotel to get warm and dry. 

Near the turn off for the Ion Adventure Hotel, we spotted an open sign on the property of one of the many power stations in Iceland.  

We had wanted to visit a power plant  and this seemed to be a great opportunity.  When we got inside, we were greeted by a nice young chemist, Baldor, who was there as a docent for the science center here at the power plant.  There were many physics exhibits about force, electricity, and power generation.  We also spent quite a bit of time talking to Boldar about Iceland, in general.  It was great to get a local’s impressions.

Even got to see the power plant

Finally arrived at the Ion Adventure Hotel which had a great view of the geothermal power plant.  The geothermal activity is associated with a sulfur content, and the smell was just plain terrible.  This pleasant odor drifted into our hotel room, and the bathroom smelled like sulfur when we ran the hot water (as if to shower).

The hot tub was very relaxing after driving through driving rain.

Dinner at the hotel was excellent, but pretty pricey. Tomorrow we are praying again, for sun.  Don’t think we will get it.