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Well the day started with the chorus of banging doors that greets us every morning around 0700, still it gets us out of bed I suppose!

So after breakfast we headed out straight away up the 1 going north with our first stop being the Tingvellir National Park. Now I have to talk here a little bit about Iceland's weather. Now bear in mind that we have come here in Iceland's summer where the highest average temperature is meant to be around 13 degrees. We were actually doing OK today with a temperature around 10 but the rain was relentless. It was raining so hard the as soon as we stepped out of the car we were soaked and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction for the way that we needed to walk so it just drove straight into our faces. Not something that a

person who is used to the weather of Gran Canaria wants to experience!!

Anyway back to the Tingvellir National Park. It turn's out that this is actually quite a historically important place is Iceland's culture and history. This was the place that the first inhabitants wrote the laws and the ways of the land, where Iceland's democracy was created in the time of the Vikings and the Nors so its pretty significant stuff. On top of all of that history you had the normal (well normal for Iceland anyway) stunning array of waterfall and granite backdrops, rich green pasture lands and fresh running glacier water running from every nook on the rock face. Unfortunately the rain was that relentless that after a good twenty minutes of trying to find the joy in the situation we gave up and headed back to the car for shelter and warmth and headed out on the road to Geysir.

Fortunately for us after driving for approximately twenty minutes the rain subsided but the wind still prevailed but this was definitely the better of the two evils by far. We made our way to Geysir through more twisting tarmac roads, the veins of Iceland. Once again we found ourselves faced with an ever changing landscape. Pasture lands with wild horses, goats and sheep, lava meadows with the greenest grass you have ever seen set of by the contrasting black soil beneath. You can start to take all this natural beauty for granted after a while as it just keeps on coming on every twist and turn of the road.

So back to Geysir, we parked up at the visitor centre, a very flash place. It was like a posh apres ski cafe up in a fabulously expensive swiss ski resort. All wooden logs and vintage leather sofas with egg chairs rapped in aluminum, we approved so had a latte.

Back to the Geysirs then. So the thermal park as I suppose it is called is very much the same as what we saw an abundance of in New Zealand. These are cracks and holes in the earth that allow the heat from the earths centre to escape heating the water in the water table and causing it to rise to the surface. This water can reach full boiling point so the immediate sky is littered with jets of steam creating a picture that looks like you could be boiling 100 kettles on the ground and leaving them to boil. The star attractions of this thermal park where to Geysers in particular, one was called Geysir (after the towns name) that to be honest seemed very dormant apart from its own steam let off but the other called Strokkur actually gave the second largest water explosion (when it erupted fully) anywhere in the world, pretty impressive for Iceland.

We did get to see Strokkur erupt but to be honest it was not one if its biggest eruptions, probably only about 20 meteres but never the less very impressive.

The area that we were travelling around today is known as The Golden Circle as it encompasses some of Iceland's most famous attractions and if you were only here for a weekend this would definitely be where you would head out to for at least one of those days. Our Last stop of the so called Golden Circle tour was Gullfoss and that was another 15km away so it was back into the car again and back onto the road.

Now we have already told you about Iceland being a land of waterfalls, but if waterfalls had a chart run down like the Top 40 on a Sunday afternoon then Gulfoss would be at the number 1 slot forever! It would be like Wet Wet Wet "love is all around" or Bryan Adams "Everything I do (I do It for you)". This really is the King of kings of waterfalls in Iceland although it is not the highest or furthest drop. It is situated in a really narrow gorge at the waterfall itself drops three time as it makes its way down to the narrow gorge below (see the photograph above). This morning we had rain and this afternoon it was definitely all about the wind as it was actually hard to make your way along the walkway to view the falls themselves. At first we viewed the falls from up above, looking down on their majesty and natural force and beauty then it was down the 100+ stairs to the side of the falls themselves where you could actually tangibly feel their power and get really scared about being swept underneath them.

The noise of all that crashing water was awe inspiring, like no other noise I can describe (other than maybe Niagara). It s like white noise that you get from a television set after they have finished broadcasting or the day with the volume turned up to maximum.

The problem with all of this natural beauty is that you just cant help yourself from taking photographs, your finger keeps pressing that button again and again and again. At the moment we re clocking up in excess of 100 a day so we need to start editing.

It was time to get out of that wind and head indoors for some nice warming Icelandic Lamb soup. The english would call this more of a stew with its chunky vegetables and large pieces of lamb, we will just call it yummy !

It was now about three in the afternoon and we were still feeling tired form the early morning door alarm call and the long hours spent behind the wheel yesterday so we started a scenic drive back to the city of Reykjavik. Along the way it was more of the same natural beauty with one exception. We chanced upon a volcano crater that was now filled with water called Kerio. What was extra special about this crater was the fact that you could see all the mineral soil colours inside the crater as you looked in, from coppers to zincs to volcanic blacks, all could be made out. On top of that the water that sat in the craters mout was the most vivid of blues so the whole lot together made for a truly special place, we were lucky to have stumbled across it.

The drive back to Reykjavik was unfortunately more eventful that you would ever want it to be be. The rain had returned and was showing no signs of giving in but to top this off the cloud and fog had come in and visibility was reduced to approximately. 5 metres in front. In places this was actually quite scary, especially when you were driving up a twisty mountain with no side barrier to hold you in. We made it home where another strange set of events unfurled much to our advantage.

We have already told you about changing hotels when we first got here and having been woken up every morning so we are not entirely happy with the hotel we were in. When we got back tonight we found that the maid had not cleaned our room (apparently a complete oversight) so we went down to try and sort it out but also filled them in on some of our other concerns. Ten minutes later we were being moved back to our original hotel that we had actually booked with a full refund for the first two nights that we had stayed and another upgrade of room. We now are staying in a loft suite with a separate front room, bedroom, dressing area and bathroom and the decor and the hotel and the location are stunning, such a great result and we are very lucky and happy to be here.

So to cap off a fantastic if not weather challenging day, tonight was the night for a bit of posh dining out so we searched trip advisor for the number one restaurant and headed out and boy we not disappointed. We both chose the Icelandic taster four course meal complete with a bottle of merlot for good measure. Its impossible to describe all the flavours that we experienced but for those interested heres what we ate:

- TASTE OF ICELAND  -

Golden ocean perch &grilled langoustine Sun choke, pearl onion, Celery, tomato 
  

Smoked European Shag, Puffin
& marinated Minke Whale
Blueberry, fennel, red onion, hazelnut
  

Leg of lamb & fried lamb shoulder
Yellow turnip, onion, savoy cabbage, mustard
  

Chocolate cake & Icelandic Skyr
Rhubarb, salted nut, chervil, lemon

Yes we ate whale (not sure how we feel about that??) the Puffin was not in season so they substituted it with Goose. It was a fabulous meal in fantastic surroundings, a little pricey but hey life is for living.

Hopefully we will get a bit of a lay in tomorrow as we are planning a relaxing last full day here before we move on but more of that tomorrow. Another great day here and there is still more to come !

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