Arriving back on the mainland, and in dire need of a bath, we made our way towards Hrunalaug hot spring. Directions went something like - turn right before you get to Fludir, turn right again at the white church before heading down a track marked towards Solheimar and pulling into a parking area with a no camping sign. The spring should then just be a two minute walk over the small hill.
The directions were accurate enough and we were soon bathing in the best hot spring that we'd found.
Clean again, we headed off to do Iceland's equivalent of Norway's Norway in a Nutshell - the Golden Circle.
Having got used to car parks at sights where we were the only ones there, pulling up to Gullfoss and finding a car park filled with cars and buses came as a bit of a shock to the system. Gullfoss is epic and made up for that though.
Gullfoss translates as golden waterfall as it's said that it shimmers gold when the sun shines on it. No risk of that while we were there.
Next stop was Geysir. Yes, where the word geyser actually comes from.
Geysir itself only erupts after earthquakes however Strokkur erupts every five to ten minutes, sometimes exploding a couple of times within a minute.
It was only a fluke that I got the eruption picture because I was too busy taking photos of the other people taking photos. That shit's like the photography equivalent of Inception.
A few other shots from around Geysir.
Our final stop for that day was the Thingvellir National Park, a place of particular historical importance to the Icelandic people. It's where the country's first Parliament was established in 930 and where the Icelanders voted to become Christians in the year 1000.
It is also situated on the Mid Atlantic Ridge, where the European and North Atlantic plates move apart.
It was here that we decided to close out a loop of our own seeing as we were about to complete the loop around Iceland's Ring Road and what we saw as the climax of our trip.
Back on day one in Cologne (link) we locked ourselves onto its lovelock bridge and have since held onto the key. It was here in Thingvellir National Park, in between the North Atlantic and European plates that we parted with the key. In a place where we hope that it'll never be found and not be able to be reconnected with the lock.
We pulled in here for the night in not the most glamorous of spots but one that was good for some more moss schnapps and a bit of introspection on the incredible week that we'd just had.
