Things to do in Iceland, The Golden Circle

Iceland

As I said in the previous post, I went to Iceland for 10 days volunteer work camp during new year's eve in 2018. 

Iceland is volcanoes, glaciers, geysers, waterfalls, wild nature; and this is what you are looking for when you go there. During that 10 days, we did 3 excursions from Reykjavik, and here I talk about the first one.

Golden circle

The Golden Circle is the most touristic route in southern Iceland. It covers about 300 km looping from the southern highlands and back. The name is a marketing term, derived from the Gullfoss waterfall, which means "golden waterfall".

Compared to the other two, this was the excursion I enjoyed less, mainly because of the tourists, who made the places crowded. But this didn't impact how amazing are these places.

Kerið

The lake

The first stop of the circle was at the Kerið lake, which is located in the Grímsnes area in south Iceland. It is one of the several crater lakes in the area, known as Iceland's western volcanic zone. This one has the most visually recognisable caldera still intact. 

Half-moon

I think I took this picture just a few moments after the one before because there is again my friend in it. If I remember well I just turn around on the right, compared to the other picture, saw the moon and thought: "WOW, the moon at 1 pm". Usually, our excursions were starting around 10 am because at that time was still dark, and like in an hour the sun was coming up.

 

Into the wild

While we were walking around the lake, there were several photo spots, the one where the guy is, are the highest point and one of the best. I took this picture from a lower spot, I like the perspective, and also the protagonist liked it a lot. It gives me a sense of "into the wild", probably because he is alone immersed in nature with an amazing landscape behind.

Vulcan

Kerið's caldera is approximately 55 m deep, 170 m wide and 270 m across, it is one of the most recognisable because at 3000 years old it is only half age of the most of the surrounding volcanic features. The lake itself is 7-14 m deep, depending on rainfall, and because of the minerals from the soil, it is opaque and vivid aquamarine.

Because of this, it is possible to play with the refection of the lake, and that's what I tried to do, using also the snow and the winter colours. I saw some pictures from other periods of the year and it is really another thing, a different atmosphere.  

Waiting for the ducks

With the guy from the above picture we went down to the lake and we saw there was a bench, and we thought it was a nice idea to try to take a lonely picture at the lake. It was a difficult shot because there was a lot of people taking selfies and photos, but I got this one, and I think somehow is what we wanted: an old man giving bread at the ducks!. 

Gullfoss waterfall

Golden

The waterfall is located in the Hvitá river canyon, and it is one of the most popular tourists attractions in Iceland. 

There was a lot of tourists also in this period, anyway the situation was still good to enjoy the wonderful waterfall. The name probably comes from the golden hue that often shines in its glacial waters, another assumption is that the name come from the rainbow you can see when the sun hits the water spray that is thrown up by the waterfall. As you can see I couldn't verify it.

Before and After

Five minutes after we arrived it started to snow a lot, in the way that it was difficult to take pictures, but as Icelanders say: "If you don't like Icelandic weather wait five minutes", after a few minutes it stops, as you can see from the picture below. I can say that between the two pictures there are 15 minutes.

I think it was a pleasure to be there in these special conditions, I saw the waterfall and had to try to take pictures in a unique situation. It will never happen again.

 

Route

In the previous picture you can see on the top left people on a viewpoint, and a bit downer a route, that is the same as this picture. Going to that viewpoint I took this picture because I loved this lonely route and I really would like to travel it till the end, but it was close. I want to imagine myself sitting on the edge of that cliff enjoying that spatial view.

Canyon

And here you can also see the sun behind the clouds, after the snow, and I like the effect that it has on the snow: it is blueish, but with that light it became reddish.

The last waterfall drops 21 meters into the canyon that is 32 meters deep and 2.5 km long. The view of this canyon with this light was better than the waterfall itself, my best memory from this place.

Haukadalur

Strokkur

It is a geyser located in a geothermal area near the Hvitá river and the Gullfoss falls, Strokkur erupts every 6-10 minutes, height is usual 5-20 meters, sometimes 40 meters. 

I catch this eruption randomly, I just arrived in the park, and I was looking in the right way at the right moment, I didn't know there was a geyser there.

Hot springs

Haukadalur is the name of a valley that lies to the north of Laugarvatn lake. It is a place of geysers and more than 40 hot springs, mud pots and fumaroles.

Haukadalur geothermal area was first mentioned in 1294 when local hot springs were activated by an earthquake. 

Geyser

Haukadalur is mostly famous for the geysers: Strokkur and Geysir, the first one is in this picture and in the first one of this series, the second nowadays erupts very rarely.

In this case, I wait for the geyser, and the second attempt was the good one, but I think that the other picture, the lucky one, is better. I like this one because of the crowd waiting for the eruption.

Sunset

I'm not sure I can call it a sunset, in this period of the year in Iceland the sun don't have time to reach the zenith that it is already disappearing at the horizon, sunrise and sunset are really close to each other, in the way that they look the same thing.

The group in the picture looks like they are there for the sunset, but they are waiting for Strokkur, the perspective is the same as the first picture.

Ϸingvellir national park

Öxarárfoss

This waterfall is one of the attractions of the national park, it flows from the Öxará river and it creates a pool at the base of the waterfall, filled with rocks, that can be iced during the winter. Here, as you can see, it was snowing, so it was not extremely cold.

A funny thing is that I discovered that an edited picture of this waterfall was used from Nine Inch Nails for their cover of the album The Fragile.

 

Öxará river

It is a lake to lake river, a tributary of lake Ϸingvallavatn, the larger natural lake in Iceland. On the right, there is the waterfall and on the horizon is the lake.

This picture was taken after the snow we found when we arrived at the park, as you can see the black cloud is running away, and a bit of sun is appearing behind.

Winterfell

Ϸingvellir national park was the site of the annual parliament of Iceland from 930 to 1798 when the parliament moved indoors in Reykjavik. 

The national park was used as a shooting location for Game of Thrones, for example, the gorge was the Gates of the moon, the surrounding area for the fight between the Hound and Brienne of Tarth, and the lake was the bay from which Arya leaves from Westeros to Braavos.

As you can see the weather was getting worse again, huge snow was coming, and this gives a strange atmosphere to the picture reminding GOT.

Black clouds

The mount in the picture is Hrafnabjörg, 763 meters high. I like the colour temperature of this picture and the black clouds that are coming, after a while a snowstorm arrived. 

Ϸingvellir is a historical, cultural and geological significance site and a popular tourist destination. It was founded in 1930, and in 2004 was designated as UNESCO World Heritage Site based on cultural criteria, There is a possibility of qualification on geological criteria in the future.

Continental Drift

The park lies in a rift valley that marks the Mid-Atlantic ridge crest, and the boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. As you can see in the picture the drift is clearly visible, it is a canyon and we walked through it to arrive at this point of view, if I remember well from this point the Eurasian plate is on the left and the American on the right.

Fun fact we get lost in this place during the snowstorm, fortunately, we were able to come back to the starting point and call someone that was in contact with the driver that came to pick up us.