Day 4 : Essential stops along the Golden Circle
Breakfast this morning was at the restaurant in the farmhouse. We trotted there in our warm clothing. It was a beautiful morning and was no longer as cold as the night before.
Besides the usual bread and cold cut, they serves waffles. The hot waffles was so inviting in the cold morning.
We started this morning with a visit to Faxi Waterfall. Located on the Golden Circle, Faxi Waterfall is a beautiful and dynamic waterfall. It is similar to the famous Gullfoss but is only one level instead of Gullfoss’ two level falls.
After Faxi Waterfall, we headed off to Strokkur. Strokkur lies in the same Haukadalur valley as The Great Geysir which rank among the top geysers in the world alongside the Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park. Strokkur and Geysir are in fact only about 50m apart.
Eruptions at Geysir during its time can hurl boiling water up to 70 metres in the air. However, it has been inactive since 1935. Although Geysir is now inactive, its surrounding area is still geothermically active. Strokkur sprouts every 10mins or so. Strokkur’s white column of boiling water can reach 30m high.
We hung around to see several eruptions. No two eruptions are the same. Some are smaller. Sometimes it’s a big one immediately followed by a small one.
We headed next to Gullfoss. We did not visit the waterfall yet but instead went to the restaurant next to it for an early lunch as we had a 12.30pm jeep ride to catch followed by a 2.30pm snowmobile ride. Gullfoss café serves local Icelandic common food choices. The restaurant has full length windows that provide a great view of Gullfoss.
At the recommendations of Heimir, I decided to go for the clear lamb soup (ISK1950) which is served with bread rolls. The soup had generous chunks of lamb, potatoes and carrots. They make a very substantial meal with bread. You can take as much bread and butter as you like. I love the bread rolls. Crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. DH did not fancy clear lamb soup and decided to have a creamy mushroom soup (ISK1550) also served with bread. I had a taste of the mushroom soup and it was very good. And yes, it is very expensive for just soup and bread ??.
After lunch, our jeep ride was waiting for us at the car park outside the restaurant. Heimir had arranged his friend, Gunthur, to give us a fun ride on Langjokull glacier on his cool jeep. Imagine monster truck with smaller wheels! Gunthur drove us through undulating slopes on the glacier. A regular vehicle would never have been able to climb those snowy hills. He even stopped at 2 stops to give us an opportunity to get down, fool around and take great photos. It was great fun! Gunthur was a great guy. See him standing on the roof of his truck to post for me in my photo below!
After of keep ride tour of the glacier, Gunthur dropped us at our snowmobile ride station to wait for our ride. We were lucky that it was only 4 of us on this tour. We saw the previous group before us had more 15-20 people or so!
We dressed up in full body snow suits, put on a balaclava and a helmet and goggles over it. They also provide ski gloves.
We had 2 guides. One to lead the way and the second to bring up the rear. DSis and I decided to ride pillion. So as we were only taking 2 snowmobiles, we practically had one guide to each of us! But believe me, really, riding pillion was no fun.???? I literally hung on to my dear life as DH speed after the guide. ????? DSis commented on the same. The next day, both our arms were aching so badly due to the strain from having to hang on tight to the side rail! So my advice, drive your own snowmobile!
Our snowmobile tour was suppose to be for 1 hour. But the guys were doing so well that the guides gave us an extended tour and extended our ride by 20mins! Yay!
After our snowmobile ride, Gunthur drove us back to the Gullfoss car park where we met up with Heimir again. We then went on to explore Gullfoss.
Gullfoss (translated as “Golden Falls”) is one of the 3 main sites on the Golden Route. Gullfoss is in the river Hvítá which has its origin in the glacier lake Hvítávatn at Lángjökull glacier about 40km north of Gullfoss. The water of Gullfoss is brownish from the sediments that the glacial ice has carved off the earth so when the sun shines on it, it has a golden colour.
Gullfoss is a unique waterfall. It has two distinct drops in succession at right angles to each other while spanning the entire width of the Hvítá River.
We left Gullfoss and headed our hotel, Hotel Hvolsvöllur. The room at Hotel Hvolsvöllur is larger than at the other hotels. This is probably the biggest room we had for the whole trip. Room was simple and clean. The hotel actually has an outdoor hot tub too. It was just outside our room on the ground floor but the snow outside was so thick we couldn’t bring ourselves to try it.
We settled our stuff in our room and Heimir brought us out for dinner. We went to a restaurant just round the corner from the hotel.
Eldstó Art Café is an artistic café where all tableware are handmade on the premises by the owners. Their pottery are glazed with volcanic glaze, made from pumice and other volcanic substances from Mount Hekla and clay from Búðardalur.
Their creations which are for sale are displayed in shelves all over the cafe. There is also a small gallery next to the cafe. This is a pretty and cosy little place.
For dinner, I decided to have the fish and chips. DH and DSis had the pan-fried Arctic Char with cream based white wine sauce. Arctic Char is a seawater trout. Arctic char is a cold-water fish native to alpine lakes and arctic and subarctic coastal waters. DBIL had the baked cod in creamy white wine sauce. I like my fish and chips. I love the chips in Iceland. So crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. I persuaded DSis to share a sundae with me for dessert ??. It was overall a good dinner. Nice environment and good food.
After dinner, we decided to go Northern Lights chasing. The weather forecast has predicted cloudy and wet weather for the next few days so we figured that this may be the last day we have a chance to see those lights again.
We went to 2 to 3 spots but did not have any luck so Heimir decided to drive further. He wanted so much for us to see something that night as it could be our last chance. Finally, we were not disappointed. At close to 12 midnight, we saw dancing lights over head. They were amazing, moving fast and had different colours. We could capture them in green and pink. It was such a show!
We called it a night at around 12.30am.
Next up: Iceland Winter Adventure 2017 – Day 5 (South Coast & Vatnajokull)