Getting up at 7:30am is a struggle in Toronto; doing it in Iceland is much worse. But we got up, excited about the day’s adventures ahead. We ate breakfast at the hotel again. It’s ok, nothing amazing but fills a spot and keeps us going.
We were picked up from our hotel at 8:30am, then taken to the bus terminal where we got on a bigger bus for the Golden Circle tour with Reykjavik Excursions. We picked the French/English bus because it had fewer people on it than the German/English bus. In fact our bus was only about half full and we were able to get the two seats just behind the back door exit. This gave us more leg room and quick access of this bus.
Our tour guide was called Ragna and she’s from the north-east of Iceland. Her French was really good, the bits we heard. After saying what she needed to say in English over the microphone, she then turned it off and repeated what she’d said in French to the family of four at the front of the bus.
The sun hadn’t yet come up when we left so we were driving in the dark. It was pretty easy to fall asleep again. I tried to stay awake and take in the scenery but after a while I succumbed for a few minutes shut-eye.
We drove for about an hour until we arrived at a farm in the middle of nowhere that grows tomatoes in greenhouses. The place was full of tomato vines, many 10m long, that grew under UV lights. Electricity and heating are dirt cheap in Iceland so they can burn globes with gay abandon. Lots of green tomatoes on the vines, and a few red ones too. The tomato plants are pollinated by bees flown in from Holland!
We ate a mug of tomato soup and crispy bread, went to the loo, then hopped back on the bus. Next stop: Gullfoss.
Gullfoss
This waterfall is amazing and I think it is even more picturesque than Niagara Falls. It was incredibly windy, painfully so, and really strong. It hurt to stand around in the open for too long and the paths were incredibly slippery. The railings were pretty low and I had visions of slipping and going over the edge.
We walked around for a bit and took our photos. The place would be amazing in summer too. Whereas now it’s covered in snow and ice, in summer it would be surrounded by green hills.
Strokkur the Geysir
Our next stop was the geysirs. Glen and I went for lunch first while the bus loads of tourists checked out the geysir. We had a delicious fish soup and I had some lava bread which is kind of sweet and sticky. Delicious!
We then slipped up the hill to the geysir, Strokkur, which erupts every five minutes or so. Lots of photos and I managed to get shots of it erupting. It’s so strange to see steam coming out of holes in the ground. Dragons live here, surely.
Þingvellir
Our next stop had originally been cancelled during to bad road conditions but by the after noon they were allowing buses to go down the road, much to my joy. We went to Þingvellir, where the Viking parliament was first held in the late 900s and continued up until the 1700s. It also happens to be the place where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet and are pulling apart at 2–3cm every year. Iceland is getting bigger!
The bus drove us past the ridge where the plates are pulling apart and then dropped us off and we walked up a cavern to look out over the view. The view is stunning. The sun had set about an hour before but there was still a lot of light to see by. (The sky gets lighter about an hour before the sun rises too.) Flowing river, plains, mountains – just beautiful.
Then we jumped back on the bus and drove back in the dark to Reykjavik. While on the bus, we were told that the Northern Lights tour was going ahead in the evening so everyone got quite excited.
Throughout the drive, I saw lots of little houses out in the middle of nowhere. It’s like the Australian outback, just without the bush. I kept suggesting to Glen that we buy one and live in it. He looked at me strangely.
Ragna talked about Iceland in general, like its low unemployment, high inflation, reasonable average income, high life expectancy, high education, low infant mortality and high birthrate. And Glen wonders why I think living here for a while would be wonderful.
I looked up jobs in Iceland but there are very few advertised and you need to be able to speak Icelandic. Maybe we (or just I) could stay here on a tourist visa for three months? How I’d afford it, I’m not yet sure. Leave it with me.
Back at the hotel, Glen and I went for dinner at the hotel restaurant, which had reopened for dinner that night. He had beef bourguignon and I had a bouillabaisse. Both were really quite delicious. We then went upstairs to get ready for the night’s Northern Lights tour.
Not the Northern Lights
The bus picked us up at 8:30 and we had a whole shuttle bus full of people from our hotel for the tour. When we got to the bus terminal, there were about eight big buses full of people going to see the northern lights. Eight!
We drove east into the darkness for about an hour until we got to a big carpark. Interesting side note: Ben Stiller’s new movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was partly filmed there. He needed the carpark to be bigger so he extended it and now you can fit more buses.
The spot is pretty dark, giving you a good view of the night sky. It was pretty clear which was great. There’s still a bit of light pollution on the horizon but we saw plenty of stars. Glen got very excited about seeing constellations, including the Big Dipper, so on the next leg of the journey he looked up sky maps.
I took a few photos of the sky, using a new camera shutter release I’d bought before we left Toronto. It worked pretty well and I got a few clear-ish snaps. Unfortunately the Northern Lights didn’t show so we climbed back on the bus to go to a beachy area.
By the time we got off the bus it was nearly midnight but there was a dark cafe (and toilet!) there so we had a watery hot chocolate then went outside to determine what stars we were looking at. Still no Northern Lights but the tour company offers you a rebook if you don’t see them so.
We got back into Reykjavik after 1 and climbed into bed for a much needed sleep after a great day in Iceland.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?