Iceland's Golden Circle

We have found that touring by bicycle is our favorite way to see a country.  Not only do you get to see the country up close – we go by slow enough that we can literally “smell the roses,” but it is the best way to meet people that we’ve experienced.  Locals always want to know about our ride, where we’ve been, where we’re going, how is it to ride a tandem (and “she’s not peddling!”).  And we almost always stop to chat with other cycle tourists, regardless of which direction they’re going (they are easy to spot – the bikes with panniers on the front and back and the content and smiling rider on the saddle).  It is almost etiquette among cycling tourists – take the time to talk.

But touring by bike can be alternately frustrating, cold, and exhausting, or all of them at once.  Yesterday was cold because of the rain and wind and was a bit frustrating because of traffic.  And our GPS routes are all but useless here -- the routes that we made before hand simply don't follow the roads that are actually being ridden.  So we rely on a paper map.  But we always try to keep in mind that a day can make a big difference.

Last night the rain kept up until about 2000.  That wasn’t a problem for us since we weren’t in our tent, but a nice hostel.  But at about 2200 the skies started to clear and things started to dry out.  Here’s a photo at about 2200.

The wind and rain have stopped for now

And here’s a photo at about midnight.  Not very dark, but it made us hopeful that tomorrow’s weather would be better.

Midnight in Laugarvatn.  It doesn't get any darker than this until a few weeks from now

And in the morning, it was nothing but beautiful.  There were broken clouds and no wind, and we were excited to get started down the road.  Actually, up the road.  

Morning isn't much different from evening

Today we go to Geysir, an area with lots of geysers and fumaroles.  We have a B&B booked in the little town of Geysir.  But we’re going to keep riding up to Gullfoss, which is a huge waterfall and a National Park.

We got a reasonable start on the day at about 0830 and it was chilly, but calm and dry.  And the traffic was very, very light.  At least at that hour.  We did anticipate a high volume of cars since Gullfoss is the No. 1 tourist site in Iceland.  But we had a fun ride and saw some interesting clouds (this one looks like a catcher’s mitt). 

I love this little catcher mitt cloud

The Geysir area is pretty agricultural and there are big hay fields and lots of sheep and horses.

The geyser fields at Geysir are pretty cool, though honestly they are nothing like Yellowstone.  We enjoyed walking around and watching a few geysers along with the throngs of other visitors.  Even though the day looked pretty nice in the morning, a steady rain was falling.  But it didn’t dampen our spirits much.  We went across the street and sat in a restaurant to wait things out.

A geyser at Geysir

We rode onward to Gullfoss through the rain, which tapered off soon enough.  Gullfoss is an amazing waterfall.  The photos tell the story best.

But the pictures don't give much perspective on the size or
volume of flow over the falls

A selfie at Gullfoss.  I think we look cold.  We were.

We learned that many years ago there was a proposal to dam the river to generate electricity, which would have eliminated the falls (ala Celilo in Oregon).  Wisely, Icelanders said no to the proposal.

In the distance we could see the Langjokull glacier and decided to ride further up the road to see if we could get some better photos.  There were absolutely no cars past Gullfoss – the road went another 12 km before it turns into a 4 wheel drive road, and it was desolate and beautiful place  

The lower slopes of the glacier

On the road to go as far as we could

No cars up here, but horses...

The glacier is massive

We could ride roads like this all day

Our picnic spot

On the way back to our B&B for the night.

 A strong, cold wind was blowing off the glacier but we decided to have lunch and enjoy the views.  It is a desolate and stunningly beautiful place and the glacier is amazing.  And this is a small one – the largest glacier in Iceland (Vantajokull) covers about 10% of the land mass alone (at least it does for now).  We both think that a good and really the only way to see parts is with a 4 wheel drive vehicle.  The road system is not very well developed, and there is so much to see.  Maybe another trip.

We made it back to our B&B in no time and found out that they have a hot spa on the hill behind the house.  How cool is that?  We quickly made our way up to it.  The water was hot (geothermally heated) and was just the thing for us.

Iceland seems to be working hard on ramping up their tourist economy, and it seems to be getting good results.  At least if you’re of the opinion that a tourist-based economy is always a good thing and/or sustainable.  (I’m not convinced that it is, at least absent more permanent work opportunities.)  But being a bit sarcastic, whaling can only go so far (yes, Iceland still has a whaling fleet and some restaurants have whale on the menu – we’ve walked out of two because of it), and the although Iceland has withdrawn its application to enter the EU (kind of a Brexit before Brexit?), the EU would never have allowed Iceland’s entry while they’re still whaling. 

Enough of that.  Today we head toward the Selfoss area.  We're not sure exactly what we'll see there, but it should be fun.

Tala við þig fljótlega.