Today is our last day touring Iceland. Today we will be going to sites in what is known as The Golden Circle. It is the easiest route to see iconic Iceland sites that are close enough to Reykjavic to see in one day, so it is very popular with people visiting here for a short time or even for one day on a cruise. That also means crowds of people, but more on that later.
Since we are not starting out from and returning to Reykjavik today, we will not actually be doing the “circle” route that makes that return journey in a large loop, but we will see the same sights people visit on the circle route. At the end of our day, we will be completing our own circle around the entire island of Iceland. We will return to the same campground tonight that we stayed in our first night here before we headed north to start our clockwise drive around Iceland.
Some people refer to the circular drive around Iceland as the “Ring Road” route, but we actually made several deviations from the normal Ring Road route to see more of the island. The Ring Road is considered to be the drive on the main road circling Iceland, Route 1. Route 1 is generally considered to be about 830 miles long. We have driven more miles than that on this trip, but the exact distance will need to be calculated later, once we are home.
We slept well last night, we were tired from all of the things we did yesterday. The campground never got crowded, but there were still people arriving long after we had settled in for the evening. There were quite a few more campers around us when we got up this morning than there were when we closed up the camper last night. It was breezy again last night, but our heater kept us warm all night, sometimes getting too warm.
I was up at the late hour of 6:30 AM and headed over to the nice restrooms here. They are about the best we have seen, and maybe we would not think as highly about them if it were more crowded here, but for the few people staying here, they were nice. Each restroom is separate and includes a shower, a sink, a toilet, as well as a heater to keep the space warm. There were two rows of three bathrooms on each side. Plus, they were clean. It was like your own personal space, not sharing it with other people. However, that can mean that people tie up the restroom for longer when everything is combined into one unit, there is no shared space.
I had started a pot of coffee before I left for the restroom, and it was still brewing when I got back. I have finally learned to do it this way so I don’t have to wait as long for it to finish, it is brewing while I am away at the bathhouse The coffee pot works well, but, as mentioned a time or two before, it is slow to brew.
I needed to work on the blog from yesterday. We had done and seen a lot, but I had not gotten very far with documenting our activities. Unfortunately, I got going a little later this morning and we needed to leave earlier than normal to try and beat the crowds to the Golden Circle sites, so I did not get far before I needed to get Stephanie up.
We made our breakfast, we had the last two packets of instant grits to get us warmed up, some yogurt, and granola bars, and we split a banana. I went to wash the dishes while Stephanie finished getting ready. We did not make it out as early as we wanted, but we were at least 15 minutes ahead of our normal leaving time.
I had hoped today would be sunny, we had seen a promising forecast yesterday and it had called for mostly sunny skies for both today and for Saturday. When I looked outside this morning, there was some blue sky around, but by the time we got going it was getting cloudy again, and it was getting windy. The temperatures were in the high 40’s, but it was the wind that made everything worse, it felt colder and the gusty wind just beats you up.
Our first site to visit this morning was a waterfall called Faxafoss. It was not far from our campground, and we arrived there just a few minutes after we left the campground. There was a gate and booth at the turnoff, but no one was there. Apparently, there is a fee to visit here, but since no one was at the booth and the swing arm gates were open, it was going to be free for us. There was a short drive on a dirt road, and then we could see the waterfall. There was one other early visiting camper van there when we arrived.
This was also a campground, and it looked fairly nice from what we could see, but the bathhouse was quite a hike to get to from all of the campsites, it was near where we were parking to see the waterfall, and up an elevated walkway from the campsite elevation.
We took some photos from the walkway and then headed down a dirt path to get closer to the foot of the waterfall. This is not a tall waterfall, maybe dropping 15 feet, but it was really wide. We took photos and videos and then headed back to our camper. There was another car coming to visit, but it was to be there without any crowds. I don’t think this is technically on the Golden Circle list of sites, but we enjoyed it.
Next on the list was a visit to the Gullfoss Waterfall, which is the largest waterfall in Iceland. It was only about 20 minutes drive from here. We were almost there when we passed the parking lot for another site, the Geysir. We opted to go ahead and drive to the Gullfoss Waterfall first, and stop at the Geysir on the way back.
We arrived at the parking lot for the Gullfoss Waterfall and found a spot to park. It was not crowded in the parking lot when we first arrived, but before we could put our jackets on and gather up our camera gear, two tour buses arrived and dropped off their passengers. We got caught up in that crowd at first but were able to separate ourselves from them after walking out toward the waterfall.
There was a nice walkway out to the first viewpoint, and we took some photos there. Then we headed down 103 steps to a lower area right along the side of the falls, it was pretty spectacular to be that close. Then we headed upriver to another viewpoint, and there was a lot of spray from the waterfall itself. The last viewpoint was nice, but you could not see as much there as some of the other areas because we were too close to the falls. Overall, it was pretty spectacular to see hear and feel the power of the waterfall, but without sunshine, not as photogenic.
We walked to the other end of the lower section and set up the tripod for some photos of us with the waterfall in the background. It took a little bit of patience because other people were coming out there to take photos and would be on our shots with us if we did not wait for them to leave. We wanted to set up for another shot with a different angle but too many people were coming out here and getting in the way, so we packed up and headed back up all the steps to the parking area. We headed inside the giftshop and Stephanie found a couple of things to bring home. There were nice restrooms there, so I took advantage of that while it was not too crowded with tour bus passengers.
We headed back to the camper and put in the GPS coordinates of our next stop, the Geysir. We did not really need the GPS, we had passed it on the way out to the Gullfoss Waterfall but it was habit.
The Geysir was only about 10 kilometers back down the road, and it did not take long to get there. It took longer to park, the parking lot was pretty full, and we had to find a large enough spot for our camper van to fit into. Another smaller van left, so we backed into their space. Stephanie had to help with some guidance because the back-up camera is at a strange angle, and does not always show things exactly as they are when trying to determine how close something is behind us. It works great for general guidance, and to see side to side, but not so much for distance up close. Plus the camper van does not turn good at all.
We got into our space, but I was too close to the car on the driver’s side, I could hardly get out my door, so we moved it over slightly because there was more room on the other side. After the parking chore was finished, we put on our layers of insulation and headed across the street to the Geysir. I had no idea if or when it would erupt, it is one of the oldest Geysers in the world, but it is spelled Geysir in Icelandic.
There were a lot of people standing around the smaller Stokkur Geysir when we walked out there. It was not far from the parking area. We found a spot and waited with everyone else, not knowing what to expect. There was a large hole filled with water, and it bubbled up some from steam escaping from below the water. Occasionally, the water rose in the middle a few inches and then subsided. This movement continued and the time between rising and falling episodes got quicker. Then, all of a sudden, the Geysir erupted, sending steam into the air. It then erupted again, but spraying much lower that second time, and then it was calm. Apparently this happens about every 10 minutes, so now that we knew what to expect, we wanted to see it again and get some better photos and videos.
It went through the same cycle of water movement and then erupted again about ten minutes after the first time we saw it. This time, there was only one event, but it was much higher in the air. We have posted some videos of the Geysir, they can be found at the top of the blog in the menu. There were other areas to walk to nearby, but we did not want to spend the time and the energy to see what was there. We could see some smaller steam vents but we had already seen many of those at another site we visited earlier in the trip. There is another much larger Geysir here called the Great Geysir, but it does not erupt very often, sometimes going years in between eruptions. We did not walk out to see it, saving our legs for other sites.
We headed back to the camper, but Stephanie took a slight detour to the gift shop next to where we were parked searching for a bathroom. When she returned, we loaded up and headed out, now driving to the Brúarfoss Waterfall. The Brúarfoss is not part of the “normal” Golden Circle stops, but it looked really interesting on Google.
There was a newer road to access the waterfall, but Google Maps tried to take us to the old access, and it was blocked off by a closed gate. We could not see the gate until we had already turned onto the gravel road, so we had to turn around and head back out onto the main road. Then Google Maps found the alternate turnoff just slightly farther down the road, so we turned there, following another car. The road was a little bumpy in spots, but the driver in front of us was going really slow for some reason, and we had a total of 3 Km to go to the parking area. It was painful, and the slow driver would not even get over far enough for people to easily pass that were heading out.
We finally made it to the parking area. It was paid parking and we used the Parka App on my phone to pay. This parking area is new, and apparently, the people who own all of the land around the waterfall built the new access road so it was easier to see the waterfall without doing a long hike like in the past. The 1,000 ISK parking fee was to offset some of the costs for the new road, so we did not mind paying.
It was a short walk to the waterfall, and it was beautiful The water had a blue color to it that was contrasting against the black lava that it was cascading down. There was a small footbridge crossing the river at the falls. It was a really nice sight. Unfortunately, there were a few people who wanted to try and walk or cross the river on some rocks near the falls, and while they were trying, it ruined the photos for a lot of other people. Then one group decided they would eat their lunch sitting on the bank near the falls, also in the view of other people’s photos. Luckily, we had timed it right and gotten photos before all of this was happening.
We were there at the falls for about thirty minutes and then walked back to the camera and left. Once again we got behind a really slow moving car, but it was driving a little faster than the car we followed in. We were not trying to go fast at all, the road was bumpy, but everyone else was going faster than these two cars.
Back out on the main road, we headed to the next area on our list, the Hrafnagjá Observation Deck. It was supposed to have great views of the Þingvellir National Park. The first letter of the name looks a little like the letter “P”, but it is an Icelandic special character. If it were spelled in English, it would look like Thingvellir. When we entered the Thingvellir National Park, the speed limit was 50 kph, and we set the cruise control to help maintain the slow speed. Most major roads in Iceland have a maximum speed limit of 90 kph, so it was much lower in the park. We stopped at the observation area for lunch, eating the last of our ham on sandwiches. This will be our last lunch in the camper for the trip.
I walked out to the viewpoint, and it was an area of volcanic rifts covered with moss. This National park is home to the split in tectonic plates that designated two different continents. This split is right through Iceland but is not always visible. We were not sure if these rifts were part of the split or not, we will have to do some more research when we get home.
We had one stop picked out in the park, the Öxarárfoss Waterfall. For some reason the GPS told us to turn right and so we did. It was a small road, and then the GPS said it was 43 kilometers to the falls, which we knew was not correct. We turned around and headed back to the main road. Luckily, we had only gone a few kilometers before realizing something was not right. We had actually needed to turn left, so now we just needed to cross the main road to head for the falls. It was not long before we saw the parking lot. It was a paid parking lot, but not part of the Parka App destinations, so we had to pay at a machine in the parking lot.
The wind was really strong here, and even though we were bundled up, it was not a pleasant walk to the waterfall. It was so windy at times that we could not even move forward until the wind gust subsided. In a bit, we were inside of a valley between two distinct rock walls, and the wind was a little less. Once again, we wondered if these vertical walls represented the tectonic plates that divide Iceland and are constantly moving apart about a centimeter per year.
The waterfall itself was nice, but nothing spectacular. Maybe it was designated as a special place to stop and see s because of its location in the tectonic plate split. We walked back to the car, this time with the wind pushing us down the pathway, making it harder on the downward-sloped parts of the walkway.
We walked back to the camper and shed some of our clothing for the drive to the next stop, which was the National Park Visitor’s Center. We had directions but we seemed to leave the park through some gates along the side of the road before we arrived at the designated location of the visitor’s center on Google Maps. It seemed odd that the Visitors Center would not be within the confines of the park itself, so we were not certain it was the right place. There were some buildings off on a side road, so we turned in and then saw that we had to pay again to park there. We were not sure if the other parking fee we paid at the Öxarárfoss Waterfall was for more than that one location, but the signs we could see up ahead here were inside of the cameras used to take photos of your license plate to verify payment. We did not want to go past them and have to pay again. We turned around and skipped this stop, we were tired of fighting the wind and already running a little behind schedule.
There were a couple of other waterfalls on our route that I had marked to visit when I was planning the trip. Stephanie did some research on the reviews for each of them and found that they were quite a distance to hike to get to, so we decided to skip them altogether, we did not have the energy to do a lot more trail hiking and wind-piercing. It was already 3:00 PM, and we still had about 30 minutes to drive to our campground, the same one that we had stayed in for our first night in Iceland before heading northward. We were concerned that we might have trouble getting a spot to camp if we arrived too late. When we stayed there the first time, they asked us if we had reservations because they only had a few non-reserved spots left. We had tried to call there earlier this afternoon to make a reservation, but we could not get the call to go through for some reason, we kept getting a Verizon Call Error Message no matter whose phone we used.
We decided it was better to get to the campground early in case we had to find an alternate spot to stay if they were full or fully reserved, especially since it was a Friday. There were several cars turning onto the road to the campground when we, so we thought people were already arriving, but those cars kept going to somewhere else on that side road. We turned into the reception area and there was one person leaving and another camper parked there. Stephanie went inside to see if we could get a spot, but the office was empty. There was some type of bell that she rang, but no one came for several minutes. Finally, someone came out of another door on the building and went into the reception area. Stephanie came back and said we had a good spot nearer to the main bathhouse and kitchen. The man had said he was in the shower, and that was the cause of the delay in coming to the reception office.
We were in spot number 2, and we headed there. It was a much nicer camping spot than the last time we stayed here, our location this time was in between some hedges, separated from our neighbors, not right next to them like our first time here, and the spot was much wider, giving us even more separation. We backed into the spot and plugged in the electricity. It was now time to relax, we were settled in for our last night camping.
We decided to do a little packing before relaxing tonight so we have less to do tomorrow morning before we turn in the camper at CampEasy in Keflavik. It is about an hour’s drive from here according to Google Maps, and we need to be there by about 11:00 AM.
We packed all of the dirty clothes and any clothes we didn’t need for the next couple of days into one suitcase and then put it back into the storage area in the back of the camper. We also emptied out the porta-potty. We had never used it, but we had put a little water and a capful of chemicals to help with any smell into the bottom sections where the waste goes. We had also filled up the fresh water tank for flushing with about two gallons of clean water. Since there was hardly anything in the toilet, just about a quart of mixed chemical water, we just dumped that in the grass behind the camper, and then used the fresh water in the flush tank to rinse it down. We were not sure where the waste disposal station was here at the campground, and we would certainly have found it and used that if we had used the toilet, but it was basically clean water we were emptying out onto the ground.
With that done, we headed to the showers to clean up so we could just relax for the rest of the evening, only needing to make our dinner later on.
It was early so we did not have to wait for a shower, actually all four were open. The showers here are nice, but they don’t have enough hooks, and there is no separate change area or curtain, so the floor in the entire shower room gets wet, just enough to be an annoyance.
After our showers were done, we headed back to the camper to finally relax and have some of our wine to celebrate a successful circular drive around Iceland. We wished the weather had been better, but that added some to our overall adventure, at the expense of great photos.
After a bit, we started our dinner. Tonight were were having cheese quesadillas and chili beans, along with some chips and salsa. We already had everything we needed from an earlier grocery stop, except for the flour tortillas we had stopped for at a grocery store earlier today. We had planned to have this dinner last night but realized we had forgotten to get more flour tortillas and it is hard to make quesadillas without them, so we had the pasta carbonara last night instead.
This used up all of our food except for tomorrow’s breakfast and some condiments. We had taken inventory a couple of days ago just to make sure we did not waste anything, but somehow we did not account for the flour tortillas that we needed.
The dinner was really good, and we had our two remaining pilsner beers with it. Not quite Dos Eques Amber, but close enough.
After dinner, we headed to the bathhouse to use the sink washing area. We were disappointed there was only cold water at the sinks, but soon realized the two sinks next to the ones we were using were for dishes, and they had hot water. There were two people already using them, so we had to wait a bit for them to finish. We did rewash some of the dishes with hot water.
We were done with all of our chores for the night, so we headed back to the camper and Stephanie made up the bed. We were tired from the last two days with all of the walking and the windy weather.
I tried to work on the blog for a time, but it was hard since I was tired, so I will have to finish it in the morning if I have enough time. We plan on heading out around 9:15 AM, and stopping at the Costco In Reykjavik for fuel on the way to the CampEasy location in Keflavik.
We headed to bed about 10:30 PM, our last night sleeping in the camper.
More to Come……
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