After Gullfoss, the next (and final stop for us) would be Geysir and Strokkur. This tourist attraction was just a 10 minute drive from Gullfoss, in fact we passed it on the way to Gullfoss. It was easy to get to.
Welcome to Geysir. People threw objects into the Geysir, that's why it isn't erupting today. Sad.
The smoking grounds. Quite an open area for you to walk.
Be careful and walk along the designated paths.
You have been warned. Watch your kids.
It reminded us of New Zealand, especially the geo-thermal areas.
The weather cleared up a little bit, that was nice.
You may have read that Geysir was no longer spouting any water. So we headed straight to Strokkur, which is in the same place. They are almost side by side.
Look at the tourists holding up their cameras.
What were they waiting for?
Very interesting.
This is what everybody was waiting for.
Unforunately,
I cut my video too early, because Strokkur blew up again, almost immediately. A double explosion!
Boom.
Many tourists, mostly from the Adventure of the Seas (cruise ship tour)
Overall, Geysir and Strollur was interesting, however, as we had been to New Zealand before, it wasn't new to us. In fact, the Wai-O-Tapu geothermal wonderland near Rotorua, New Zealand, was more interesting than Strokkur.
Alright, since we had seen what we wanted to see, and the weather was chilly and it was getting late, we decided to head to the nearby visitor center for a toilet break, before heading back to the ship. There were complimentary toilets (which was nice, compared to the 200ISK earlier) and a rather large shop.
Check this out - cans of Icelandic Mountain Air? Duh.
No, we didn't buy any. The cans felt really empty. I guess they were empty cans of air! There was also a cafe at this Geysir visitor center. However, we did not stop to take any food or drinks.
So we set off back to the ship. The distance from Geysir to the port was about 100km and it would take an hour or so to drive back. Again, the challenge is with the GPS. For a while I couldn't locate the port. It was only after some tinkering that I found it. You need to input the exact address of the port. First select the city (Reykjavik) and then within the city search for the address that you are looking for.
Here is a short video of the scenery of the drive on the way back. The whole of Iceland looked like this, once you left the large cities. Even then, the largest city (Reykjavik) had only 130,000 inhabitants. Entire Iceland had about 300,000 inhabitants.
View of the port from the ship.
There was a free open air carpark where we left the rental car for the night. See the carpark on the right-side.
We arrived back at port at around 8:30pm and we were eager to board the ship to have dinner. Windjammer would be closing at 9pm. For some reason, many tour coaches came back at the same time (8:30pm).
There were long queues to get onboard! While most people were patient, several passengers were very angry and one particular lady was shouting at the top of her head - "This is a disgrace! This is a disgrace!". Well, I guess that it didn't help that it was getting cold.
Even before her shouting, I had noticed the Staff Captain trying to manage the overall situation. There were already two gantries being used to enter the ship. I don't think the ship had more than 2 gantries.
Anyway, we managed to board in good time and had a good dinner at the Windjammer.
Go on to the next day in Reykjavik - the rest of our self-drive adventure.
No comments :
Post a Comment