Golden Circle

It’s been so busy but what a fantastic day. We left the hotel at 9 am after a wonderful breakfast. A poor woman arrived exhausted from Canada 20 minutes before, after one Canadian internal flight had been cancelled. She must be exhausted.

Our young guide Johannes is good. Apparently he spoke to the elves and arranged good weather for us. It was a bright and clear day. We are a group of various ages and nationalities. 3 Scots, 2 Australians, 2 Korean Americans, a German, a Brazilian and a South African. All are female, apart from the 2 Scotsmen, age range 30s to 70s.

First we visited the place where the Eurasian tectonic plate is pulling apart from the American one, which is the bottom photo - I thought it would be just a fissure in the ground but it’s actually partly filled with fresh water you could snorkel in. Near here we saw where the first Parliaments were held, and a pretty waterfall. The views all day have been stunning - distant snowy mountains, masses of lupins, trees and green fields.

Next was the geyser area where we had 1.5 hours to walk around, waiting for Strokkur erupting and throwing boiling water 30 feet up, which it did every 10 minutes or so. The colours around the thermal area were pretty though there was nothing as amazing as the watercolour palette of NZ. When I last came the now dormant geyser was even higher.

Next we went to Gulfoss, a striking double waterfall. It was spectacular - when I came before I saw it totally frozen so this was a stunning contrast.

We next went to the (not-so) Secret Lagoon where some of us had a dip in the thermal pool running in from a nearby hot spring. It was fun but not as invigorating as this activity was in the freezing temperatures of February. It cost about £20.

Unfortunately we were too late leaving to have time to go to the Lava Centre which is a museum which explains a lot about the geology of Iceland, with simulated earthquakes etc.

We did stop to photograph some of the horses. Some of the group were horrified to learn that horse is eaten here.

Our hotel is charming, in the country in the Hvolsvollur region. We have a little cabin where we sat on the veranda for half an hour before tree planting. The owners of the farm want tourists here but are also trying to do a bit to counteract their impact by having us all plant a tree on the slope around the farm. We were tired and hungry so we’re very glad to have our dinner of lasagne made from meat reared on the farm. I was given a quinoa salad with some added carrot and peppers.

Tomorrow we leave at 8am for another full-on day on the south coast. Today I clocked up 6 miles!