Trip to Iceland 2010: Day 3 - Gulfoss

Gulfoss was the next stop after Geysir. I arrived there at around 16.00, and it was windy as hell. I parked the car at the upper parking, so I couldn't see the waterfall immediately and had to take a short walk. And the closer I got to it, the louder it got. And once I saw it... boy what a sight. It's really impressive.

Gulfoss in its full glory

Trip to Iceland 2010: Day 3 - Geysir and Strokkur

After seeing Kerið (Kerid) crater, I leave for my next stop, to see the mother of all geysers, the Geysir. I take a road no. 37 and stop at Laugarvatn for a quick lunch. And finally, I arrive at my destination. It immediately becomes clear that this is THE tourist attraction. There's everything here, the gas station, hotel, restaurant and a gift shop. Of course, all insanely expensive :) But who cares, it's not what I came here for, and the geysers are right across the road. You can clearly smell them (you really need to get used to the sulfuric smell) and see the steam all over the place.

Right as I enter the area, I see this weird thing:

If you know what's the purpose of this, let me know

And a few meters away, the Little Geysir, that kinda reminds me of a pot of boiling water.

Litli Geysir - a tiny cousin of the Geysir

Unfortunately, the real thing is inactive as of late. It only wakes up after some major seismic activity, which happened in 2000 last time. So I was not meant to see the grand eruption of Geysir, which as I heard could spew water for a whooping 60 meters in the air.

But not all is lost, as there is Strokkur, which is very active and erupts regularly every 5 minutes or so. It's smaller than Geysir, but still very impressive.

Trip to Iceland 2010: Day 3 - Kerið (Kerid)

Once again, I woke up to a freezing cold. I was staying at a campsite near Minniborg (by the road no. 35) and I was the only one there. The showers were out of order, but fortunately there was hot water available. And there was one of those swimming pool / bathing places that are so popular in Iceland, so I took a shower there (150 ISK) and took off.

So, the day before I was passing by a sign marking a tourist attraction called Kerið (Kerith or Kerid, also improperly simplified to Kerio). The water that fell from the sky in huge amounts stopped me from checking it out, so this was the first on my list.

So here's what I saw.

Kerith crater in all it's glory