Continential drift, a Foss and Geysers

Our first day saw us heading to one of Iceland's touristic honey pots - the Golden Circle national park Þingvellir, the Gullfoss waterfall (meaning "golden falls"), and the thermally active valley of Haukadalur, which contains the geysers (locally pronounced gaysers).

Almannagjá

As we headed out of town it became clear that the city was relatively modern, with many recent building separated by wide roads an green spaces - although we were told that they were running out of space for new developments and, as a result, land was becoming expensive.

Our first major stop was at Þingvellir (Thingvellir), ie the “Parliament Plains” which had been the site of Iceland’s first National Assembly in the year 930 and it had remained there until 1798.  It was chosen as a place that was easily accessible on horse back from all parts of the island.

It lies in a rift valley, about 5km wide with Lake Thingvallavatn (whose depths are below sea level) bordering on the south side and a mountain range to the north. The river Oxara, which flows past the site of the Parliament, supplied its participants with ample fresh water, and flows over the edge of a 9,000 year old lava field, originating in a nearby volcano, into the rift valley.

The continental drift between the North American and Eurasian Plates can be clearly seen in various cracks or faults - the biggest one, Almannagjá, being a veritable canyon.  You used to be able to stand on the American plate and see the edge of the other but now days what used to be Europe is though just to be a floating plate in the rift between the two. 

This also causes the often-measurable earthquakes in the area.Some of the rifts are full of surprisingly clear water. One, Nikulásargjá, is better known as Peningagjá (lit. "coin fissure"), as it is littered with coins at its bottom. After being bridged in 1907 for the arrival of King Frederick VIII of Denmark, visitors began to throw coins in the water as a substitute for a wishing well.  There was a unique sign asking people not to throw coins in the water but it seemed to be largely ignored.

Strokkur

Our next stop was a geo-termal area where the most famous - the Geysir - started spouting in the 13th century and suddenly stopped spouting naturally in 1916. Geysir was the first spouting spring which became known to Europeans and therefore all spouting springs were named ‘Geysir’, after the one in Iceland. There were a number of small bubbling springs in the area which only spout one foot high, but Strokkur, meaning ‘The Butter Churn’, spouts every 3-5 minutes up to 100 feet high.  It is the main attraction of the area and is it is one of very few natural geysers to erupt frequently and reliably..  It was indeed impressive but it was surprising that by the time the water reached the ground it was cold.

Our final visit was to Gullfoss (a foss is a waterfall) which is formed when the Hvítá  flows down into a wide curved three-step "staircase" and then abruptly plunges in two stages (11 m and 21 m) into a crevice 32 m deep. The crevice, about 20 m wide, and 2.5 km in length. It is estimated that the  average amount of water running over this waterfall is 140 m³/s in the summertime and 80 m³/s in the wintertime. It was certainly an impressive introduction to the various fosses we were to see over the next few days.

Backtracking through Reykjavik - at  64°08' N, the world's northernmost capital, we continued to Hella for our night's stop in a guesthouse close to the river.  A few of us took a stroll up the riverbank for a bit of exercise (others were a bit more energetic and went for a swim in the local thermal pool).  We had been promised some bird life but instead were treated to a breath-stopping aerobatic display over the nearby airfield.  The town was hosting a 'festival' at which all Island's best bands were reputed to be playing - none of us had the energy to go but it was reported that it was still going strong at 0300.

We speculated that "Iron Maiden", whose plane we had seen on arrival, might be playing but evidently Iceland Express were leasing the strikingly liveried plane for its commercial flights ! !