The next morning in Iceland I woke up bright and early eager to visit Geysir hot spring, Strokkur and Gullfoss waterfall in The Golden Circle of Iceland but I found myself also strangely kinda frustrated.
Like how could we have gotten the hike to the volcano the day before so wrong?
And then for some reason, I decided to check the news and also Instagram and there I found so many photos and videos of people who had gone on the right hike path to take you close to the volcano.
It took all of 5 minutes of reading to realise where we’d gone wrong.
For starters, we hadn’t realised that there were two paths you could go on for this hike.
Also, the path we drove in from Reykjavik meant that the first car park we saw was the one that takes you further away from the volcano.
If we had come in via the other way, we’d have stopped at the correct car park.
Hard as the hike was the day before, I decided we would just have to redo it.
And this is a big deal for me because I can’t say I particularly enjoy hiking. Haha! Especially when it’s got such a steep incline.
Actually, I take that back.
This trip made me realise how much I love hiking, just not when I have to do it in large groups and attempt to keep up.
I like to hike relatively slowly and take my time to appreciate everything around me.
When you do it in a huge group it’s very easy to find yourself trying to play catch up with the fastest person in the group and so much of my energy is spent doing that instead of appreciating the hike that I’m on.
And not to mention the fact I would then carry a heavy camera, huge lenses and extra gear all before adding a huge water bottle and snacks.
It was like carrying a small child on my back to go hiking with so that made things a lot trickier.
These days, I’ve decided I’d only do it with my phone and at best maybe a light camera.
Anyway so it was decided that the hike would have to be re-attempted but my feet still hurt from the hike the day before so I figured we’d leave that hike till later in the day.
Thankfully as it’s summer time in Iceland, the sun doesn’t really set so the hike could be left off till much later in the day.
The plans for this morning would be to go to an old favourite in Iceland – Geysir.
Geysir is informally the name of the general area where geysers erupt but is actually the name of a huge geyser which used to erupt quite frequently but now only does so every so many years.
In the area, though you will find the more active geyser called Strokkur which erupts every few minutes and the eruptions can be quite huge.
This tour here is such a great way to explore these sites, by the way.
It’s one of the first places we visited in Iceland many years ago and I still find it fascinating every time we visit.
Also all around it you’ll find little pockets of bubbling hot water on the ground which is why you need to stick to the walking paths here as the ground is literally boiling.
Not too far from Geysir, you’ll find Gullfoss. Gullfoss is one of the most powerful and most magnificent waterfalls in all of Iceland.
Back when we first visited over a decade ago the path here was a little bit more ‘makeshift’ but these days, it’s so clearly defined and has levels to it that make it easy to appreciate even if your mobility is limited.
After a jaunt around the area, we decided it was time to leave Gullfoss and start to plan for this evening’s hike.
In an attempt not to make the same mistake we did the day before, we went back to the hotel to stock up on the supplies we’d actually bought before going on that volcano hike.
We then made our way over to a local restaurant for a rather early dinner (like seriously early) before starting the drive towards the Meradalir Volcano.
As we drove over to the volcano for the hike, I’m not gonna lie, I started dreading it.
It was long and hard the day before and that was with absolutely gorgeous weather.
The weather this evening couldn’t be more different.
It was raining, windy and a lot colder.
But we were determined to make our way to the proper viewing point of the volcano so we carried on to the correct car park this time.
On arrival, we found that there didn’t seem to be many cars in the car park and when we tried to park, a local police officer had blocked the entry and said no one was allowed to do the hike due to the weather conditions and wind change.
I didn’t even hesitate or pretend to be disappointed and just jumped back into the car.
We were so pleased and I’m pretty certain our legs were thanking us for not putting them through this ordeal all over again so quickly.
So with that, we just headed back to The Greenhouse Hotel to relax.
That’s actually when we found the whole food hall under the hotel with lots of different dining options.
There’s even a taco truck here.
As we’d eaten earlier, we skipped the food options and just went straight for what felt like a well-earned cold bottle of white wine.
Oh, and there’s also a shop here selling lots of Icelandic goodies.
Things we hadn’t noticed when we arrived in the middle of the night less than 24 hours ago.
It actually turned out to be a much better way to spend the evening.
The only thing though is that we couldn’t attempt this hike then for at least another week as we’d be heading further away the next day to our next stop in Iceland and there was no way we could do the drive and that hike all in the same day.
Spoiler alert – that volcano hike closure lasted days and we couldn’t even have done it if we stayed near the area.
We did eventually get to do it but I’ll tell you all about that when we get there.
After visiting the Icelandic gems that were the Geysir hot spring, Strokkur and Gullfoss waterfall in the Golden Circle of Iceland our next stop was gonna be these incredible waterfalls of Iceland.
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