Iceland - the Golden Circle

The Golden Circle, consisting of the hot springs at Geysir, the tumultous multi-tiered Gullfoss and the relatively staid Þingvellir National Park with its rift valley, was the most visited area in Iceland. We headed straight for Geysir after we joined the tour group as it is quite close to Reykjavik.  

Geysir has the one big geyser and other smaller ones but everyone who visited just hung around the big one as it is the most spectacular. What is so great about this geyser is you don't have to wait long for it to perform - every 5 minutes or so, it would shoot up a stream into the air and if you have your camera ready, you are almost guaranteed success. You would even have time for selfies!

We were lucky to see a rainbow when we arrived at Gullfoss.  Apparently that is not unusual on a sunny day. The falls are quite spectacular, thundering down the gorge in several steps. We entered at the lower falls and hiked up a slippery wet path to the upper platform which jutted out into the falls. It is difficult to capture the falls in its entirety in one shot and still do it justice, even with a wide angle; so I have tried to recreate the feel of the powerful cascades in several images.

Þingvellir was anticlimatical after the thundering Gullfoss. You need to hike a bit to get the full impact of the rift valley which was apparently where the North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates meet. It boggles the mind to imagine yourself standing on the edge of the continents (with the rest of it behind you) when you are standing on the edge of the rift valley. As we didn't hike in, my photos could only show you a distant view of the valley - not as impactful as an actual hike between the walls.  I leave that up to younger legs...

We moved on from Þingvellir to Bifrost, spending the night there in the shadow of a crater, and getting ready for a day in the Western Fjords on the Snaefellsness Peninsula.

This was one tall geyser!  It was interesting to note that after this one big one, the rest that followed were all much smaller, reaching maybe only half the height of this one.

A tiny one...

My first bird capture in Iceland - a Redwing

Gullfoss decorated with rainbow - note the people on the left, the next shot was from that platform

Looking downstream from the mid-level - a close-up shot and the one below, showing the gorge that the water flows through

Beautiful lake on the way to Thingvellir National Park

The path down to the rift valley

In between the two tectonic plates

Rift valley seen from the top with a close-up below

The landscape on the way to the Snaefellsness Peninsula