Hallou, Greetings from all over Iceland! Today we woke up really early and started our sightseeing tour – The Golden Circle. The Day trip was sponsored by Metsä Group, a Finnish forestry industry group.
We had to be early worms at the Reykjadalur hot springs to get there before all the other tourists. The hike up the hill was quite rough but it did not bother us as we saw fluffy sheep and incredible sceneries. When we arrived at the hot springs it was extremely windy and it felt unnatural to go swimming. The water got warmer as we got closer to the source of hot springs. The current was rather strong and one us even floated along the stream. Very relaxing and beautiful, we highly recommend!
Then the trip continued to the Kerid Crater. It is like an explosion crater, which form when explosive volcanic eruptions happen. But the Kerid crater was most likely formed 6500 years ago by a small magma chamber collaption when the volcano erupted. The depth of the water at the bottom varies between 7-14 m. It it said that the crater is like a window to the groundwater as the depth reflects to the surface of the groundwater.
Next we drove to the Strokkur (Geysir) that erupts water every 4-8 minutes and we saw it erupt about every four minutes. The height of the erupting water statue is usually 25-30 m. The Great Geysir that is the largest geysir in Iceland – it could erupt as high as 80 meters – but it is dormant and eruptions are very rare.
Our following stop, Gullfoss waterfall was absolutely breathtaking. It is located in the canyon of the Hvita river in the southwest Iceland. Some of us had never seen even a small waterfall before and only thing they could say from their excitement was ”Ai että!”. The height of the waterfall is 32 m and the average flow rate is 140 m3/s.
Thingvellir was the last sight of our trip. The remarkable thing there are the separating tectonic plates. The scenery was like straight from The Game of Thrones! Lastly we saw the nice and peaceful waterfall of Öxararfoss. Some of us even went behind the falling water but unfortunately did not find any treasure there…
The end of the day was spent with friends and burgers (not the restaurant)!
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