The Wrong Geysirs or Geysurs!

On Sunday evening, our pre-arranged tour was to pick us up at our hotel about 8.30pm. When some coaches turned up about 8.45pm with cards on saying 'Northern Lights' we naturally got on with all the rest of the people that had been waiting in and around the lobby. No one asked for our tour voucher.

The four coaches were all full of Irish people. It did strike us as odd that we were the only Welsh, or indeed non Irish. They were all friendly and we had a good time. No one asked where we had come from or why we had strange accents.

Today was our 'Golden Circle' tour, and again we waited for the coach to pick us up at 9am, along with the Irish contingent. When coaches turned up we went to get on and on speaking to the guide it turned out it wasn't our tour company. Indeed, we shouldn't have been with them on Sunday night!! You couldn't make it up.

We returned to reception and she kindly arranged for our tour company to send a car to pick us up to join our coach which was waiting. The tour of the southern part of Iceland lasted eight hours visiting stops like the Geysirs and National Park.

Geysir is in southwestern Iceland. The English word geyser (a periodically spouting hot spring) derives from Geysir. The name Geysir itself is derived from the Icelandic verb geysa, "to gush", the verb from Old Norse. Geysir lies in the Haukadalur valley on the slopes of Laugarfjall hill.

The nearby geyser Strokkur erupts much more frequently than Geysir, erupting to heights of up to 30 metres every few minutes. Strokkur's activity has also been affected by earthquakes, although to a lesser extent than the Great Geysir. Due to its eruption frequency, online photos and videos of Strokkur are regularly mislabelled as depicting Geysir. There are around thirty much smaller geysers and hot pools in the area, including one called Litli Geysir ('Little Geysir').

Descriptions of the Great Geysir and Strokkur have been given in many travel guides to Iceland published from the 18th century onwards. Together with Þingvellir and the Gullfoss waterfall, they are part of the Golden Circle that make up the most famous tourist route in the country.

The blip photo is of Strokkur geysur. So not only are there two but the spellings differ. It's easy to be confused.....we were with the wrong geysurs or geysirs on Sunday night!

We therefore contacted the tour company and they have arranged to pick us up tonight at 8.30pm. This time I'm sure we will be with the right ones.