Geysir

Fortunately no one came to kill us nor to shout at us. Today was a driving day: we wanted to drive from South to North on Kjolur route, which is the most popular and the easiest to drive if you want to drive through the Interior.

But before that, we had to see the best known tourists attractions in Iceland: Geysir and Gulfoss, two of three places in Golden Circle (the other one is Thingvellir). The Great Geysir, after which all the geysers have their name, is just an empty place that looks sadly, like a grave. It's of course because of tourists who, in 1950s and before, threw rocks into it's hole and eventually caused the geyser to stop erupting. In 2000, after an earthquake, it started to shot small amounts of water irregularly 2 or 3 times a day but no one knows if it will ever come back to its glory (when the water was brought up to 80-90 meters!). Fortunately for tourists, there's Strokkur - a smaller cousin of Geysir. Every 5 minutes cooler water from the surface is pushed up by water underneath which is very hot but cannot boil because of the pressure. We saw a few eruptions, but the first one was the most impressive - I had an impression that the water will drop straight on me, the water wall was HUGE. I wish I lived earlier and I saw Geysir erupting - it was 2-3 times higher! There's a multimedia show about geysers and volcanoes, a shop and a cafe in nearby building (and a fuel station outside). You can also go 2 km further and see some historically important place (Viking education center, as far as I remember), but we decided to go on.

(to be continued soon)

Zdjęcia (3)

Komentarze (0)