Gullfoss, the famous Golden Falls of Iceland

Gullfoss is also known as the Golden Falls of Iceland. It is a part of the famous touristic Golden Circle (or, Golden Triangle, if you prefer). To get to Gullfoss from Thingvellir National Park, where we were, you drive eastward through sparsely populated landscape.

We were in a mood for some more adventure, so we drove further on, past Gullfoss turnout towards the frozen inner core of Iceland. The center of Iceland has some of the biggest icecaps outside of Antarctica and Greenland. These icecaps occupy a pretty large part of Iceland. The one that you can see if you continue past the Gullfoss turnout is the birthplace of  Langjokull glacier. This one is quite a sizeable icecap, though not quite as big as the Vatnajokull icecap, which is possibly ten times bigger. We will get to Vatnajokull later in our trip.

So we drove on a gravel road, F35 (roads starting with F in Iceland are meant to be four wheel drive only, and they mean it). We were lucky that the road was dry and free of ice at this time of the year, so our little Volkswagen could travel some distance without any issues.

We stopped by a small river, that we learned later to be Olfusa. It was pretty in the late day sunshine. There were only two people around. They were in camouflage fatigues and with guns. They appeared quite harmless (at least to us), so we asked them about what they were doing. They told us that they are going hunting for rabbits. They left along the river, and soon, so did we. We didn't want to be collateral damage for the hunters, like Dick Cheney's friend.

We went some more distance along the gravel road, F35, but could not see the icecap, since it was hidden from view by ominous-looking clouds. The area around was quite barren, vaguely reminiscent of lunar landscapes. We marveled at the scale and immensity of it all, and the emptiness, before we turned around towards Gullfoss.

Gullfoss, or the Golden Waterfall, is a huge tourist attraction for day-trippers from Reykjavik. Its quite breathtaking, actually. The river Hvita falls into a narrow gorge and changes direction, nearly 90 degrees, here. There is a lot of water to go around in Iceland in general, so the falls are full and awe-inspiring almost all through the year. 

We spent quite a bit of time at the Gullfoss, watching in awe all the water thats pouring down the cascade, and getting drenched by the immense amount of spray that is generated.

Finally, it was time to leave for the last attraction of the day, the Geysir (in case that word strikes a chord somewhere, yes, this is where the english word Geyser comes from).