Iceland Holiday Day 2

We woke to a wonderfully crisp morning. The Golden Circle tour we were booked on began at lunchtime so we had some time to have a look around the capital city and also book our planned glacial walk tour for the following day, something we were both very excited about doing.

The town lake. Frozen over after a cold night.
You can actually see some birds standing on the ice if you look carefully.

At midday we waited on the side of the main road, 5-10 metres from the front of the hotel, to be picked up for our tour of the Golden Circle.

Gideon waiting outside the Castle apartments where we were staying.

We waited for half an hour in the cold, and then received a phone call from the tour company. Apparently they had sent a shuttle bus to pick us up, but after 8 minutes of waiting/looking for us, they left. The best they could do was to offer to reschedule us for the next day. This was not an option as we had the glacier walk the next day, and so we were left with nothing to do for the afternoon. Dammit.

After much discussion, Gideon decided to give driving a go. We hired a car and attempted to do our own Golden Circle tour. I was most impressed with Gideon's driving. Driving on the wrong side of the car (with a right handed gear stick) on the wrong side of the road (I mean, the right side of the road) was a scary thought, but he didn't drive on the left side of the road even once!

Beautiful landscapes of snow covered mountains.
As we left the city the sky clouded up, the wind picked up and it began to rain.

Lake Thingvallavatn

Thingvellir is the original site of the oldest existing parliament in the world.

It is also where Silfra is located, a fissure in the crust of the earth where the European and American tectonic plates meet. If you ever go to Iceland it is possible to do a tour and snorkle or scuba dive in Silfra.

Some of the local landscape

Rugged up in my new hat at the Geysir area

The star attraction: Strokkur, it goes as high as 60-100 feet

Strokkur goes off!

The carpark at Gullfoss Waterfall

By the time we reached the Gulfoss waterfall it was almost dark. Still, I was determined to see it. With the setting of the sun the wind had picked up and we could feel it buffetting against the side of the car. Still, we could see the wooden path down to the falls and there wouldn't be another chance. So we braved the cold, wind and rain. However, the path was covered in patches of ice and the wind was so strong I could barely walk and was just a little worried about being blown off the side of the rail-less path. So we aborted. Dammit.

We finished off a long day with dinner at the Viking Village restaurant, where we tried whale steak and putrified steak amongst other traditional Icelandic foods. It was a very quiet night and we missed out on the Viking singing. Still it was good to try something of the local food.

It was about 10pm by the time we got back to the apartment. About a minute after we arrived, the phone rang. It was the tour company for our glacier tour - our walk on a glacier was cancelled due to anticipated bad weather for the next day. Double Dammit.