Iceland - Day 2

Early start on the Golden Circle tour today. Saw amazing things, the Icelandic scenery is stunning. Set off in the dark and visited a mill whilst we were waiting for daylight to arrive. At about 10am the sun finally started to rise and really show off the snowy mountains.

First stop was pingvellir national park to see the edge of the North American Techno Plate, the view was amazing, watching the sun rise over the lake, somehow put a lilac haze over everything.

Second stop was Gullfoss waterfalls. Absolutely amazing, frozen and thick snow. It was freezing cold, lashing down with rain and a wind that was bitter and extremely strong!

Third stop was the Haukadalur geothermal area to see Strokkur (the pic) and the other geysers, it's weird you can smell sulphur, it's freezing cold and yet there's steam rising from hot springs.

Fourth stop was Laugarvatn Fontana Spa to have ago in the geothermal pools after been shown how the use the streams to cook bread, pretty amazing really, a pot of rye bread dough is placed into a whole in the sand and left for 24hrs where it is dug up and eaten with butter, surprisingly it tasted quite nice! Running outside in -8 in a swimsuit to go in natural steam rooms and thermal pools is a bizarre experience but very relaxing staring up at snow covered mountains. A few of the people on our tour took a quick dip in the lake too (I have no idea how, they had to run through ice!)

Finished the day off with an Icelandic Fish Buffet, tried loads of different fish including dry cured smoked whale. The northern lights tour was cancelled due to poor visibility again