The power of nature

Early start today for our Golden Circle tour as picked up from the hotel at 8am.

Started in Piingvellir National Park. This is where you can walk along and down the edge of the North American Tectonic plate. Next was onto Gullfoss waterfall which comes from one if Iceland's glaciers. The water is a strange colour as it is all the out wash from the glacier. The picture shows the size of the waterfall and this falls down into a canyon below.

Next place visited was the Geyser area. Here we got to see the Strokkur geyser erupting every 5 minutes. None of the others were hot enough to erupt at the moment. Also there are some small geysers that have only just formed within the last few years and these are getting bigger.

This was the last of the outside activities and the next places visited were the Skálholt church which had great stained glass windows and a fantastic mosaic picture at the alter nearly the full heigh of the building. Lastly we visited Hellisheidi geothermal power plant. This heats all the hot water and generates all the electricity for the Reykjavik area using geothermal fluid trapped in the earths lower layers (about 2 kilometers down).

Finished the day off with a lovely meal in the centre of Reykjavik.