This is our last day on the road, as we are due back in Reykjavik this evening. The goal today is to visit two of the major tourist sights on Iceland which are part of what they call the “Golden Circle” drive, a day trip that most visitors do then visiting the island.

We bid farewell to our funky farm lodging, forgoing a chance for one more ice cream before we left. Our first stop was at the “Geysir ( pronounced gay-zeer)” hot springs area, home to two of the famous geysers in Iceland. Unfortunately the “Great Geysir” is not so great anymore. It had been active for over 10,000 years, gushing water 80 meters in the air,  but it has been mostly inactive since earthquakes in 2000. It simply languishes as a hot spring now but will probably achieve its former glory some day.

Luckily its nearby little sister, “Strokker” , is very active, spouting about every 7-8 minutes. It only reaches heights of 15-30 meters but  its frequency is enough to entertain those of us who came to see it.  We stood and watched it for quite a while, wondering if there was a “trigger” that announced its impending eruption. Scott had a rapid fire camera and proceeded to catch the action on one of the eruptions. Sure enough there is a signal – a bubble of water appears prior to the eruption, and he caught it on film.

Not too far away is the most famous waterfall in Iceland- Gulfoss (Golden Falls). A double waterfall that drops 32 m before passing through a fairly narrow canyon. It is known for its rainbows, but there were none to be seen while we were there. The waters were almost lost in the 1920s when developers wanted to dam the river. The landowners refused to sell and even though the developers managed to get the government to OK the project, his daughter walked barefooted to Reykjavik and threatened to throw herself into the falls if they allowed the project to proceed. Luckily, the developers backed off and the world can still enjoy this spectacular waterfall.

I had read in a guidebook that nearby was a reconstruction of what they thought a 10th century Viking home looked like. This I wanted to see. Unfortunately the normally manned site closed for the season the prior week. Bummer!  We did get to walk around and take some pictures of what the homestead probably looked like back then.

Also nearby was another waterfall called “Haifoss”, the 2nd highest (122m) waterfall in Iceland. The bad news was it is located 6+ km up a very bad rocky road. Fearlessly we said, let’s do it. We found the turnoff and started in the direction of the falls. The road became rougher, the travel speeds dropped to a crawl, and the rocks we had to ride over became larger.

Luckily a car from the opposite direction told us that the road gets much worse and unless you had a ton of time it was not worth the trip. However, he urged us to continue up this road for about 0.5 km to see a magnificent valley called “Gjain”. We did and saw a jaw dropping valley with several waterfalls, and a beautiful small river running through it. It was an oasis set in the middle of a landscape that was moon-like in appearance. Remember the movie “The Lost Horizon”, about a place called Shangri-la?  This could have been it.  We descended into the valley floor, took lots of photos and simply absorbed the beauty of it. It was simply breathtaking and I believe it was the prettiest place I had seen while in Iceland.

The final “suggested” stop when driving the Golden Circle is at the tourist-oriented “Blue Lagoon” which is basically a high-end hot springs spa. We passed.

We retraced our steps to Reykjavik where we dropped off our luggage at the hotel and returned the car. We had driven 2484 km (1543 miles) on our 8 day journey around the island of Iceland. We spent 37 hours behind the wheel and countless hours on our feet seeing all the sights there were to see.

We celebrated our successful trip with a beer at the local pub followed by dinner at a sushi restaurant where I ate “cooked” sushi ( i.e. chicken teriyaki)!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a local pub to watch the rest of the Iceland soccer game against Ukraine as part of the qualifying play for the next World Cup. About a dozen of the locals were watching the game;  no women were there.

Steps for the day were 14,479 with 30 floors of elevation change. Not bad for a ” late middle-aged” 76 year old!