Iceland Golden Circle Road Trip Part II - Geysir

Our next stop was the spouting hot spring Geysir. This was the first famous spouting hot spring in the world and is from where the word "geyser" originates. In history books it was said to shoot out boiling water up to 170 metres high! Unfortunately nowadays it is considered virtually inactive and only shoots out water once or twice a day and no where near those heights. The main active geyser in these parts is called Strokkur and erupts on average every 6 minutes. From our experience on this day it only really erupted once every 15-ish minutes. Check out the photos and videos including one of us all getting wet from the eruption!

The sulfuric smelling smoke from the hot geyser's in the background. Yes, this place does smell like sulphur, in fact a lot of places in Iceland do. It's the gas seeping through the cracks created from all that volcanic and tectonic plate activity. Even the hot water straight from the taps smells like sulphur (Hot water is taken directly from the many natural hot springs around Iceland and therefore brings with it the smell, unless you are lucky enough to be in a place which filters this out. You do get used to it though. Plus the cold water from taps is sulphur smell free and considered to be some of the best drinking water in the world).

The restaurant/shop across the road from the geyser's.

 VERY touristy and a lot of expensive, but very warm, clothing etc. Worth looking though nevertheless.

Walking to the geyser's! This is the official entry gates to the area. Like every natural wonder in Iceland, it's all free. Back in the day they used to charge an entrance fee when this area was privatised but that didn't last long, thankfully.

Another iced-over bench. Something we were to come across again and again on this trip. Also notice the path? That is ice! This was also a common occurrence of this trip. Very slippery and dangerous (but fun!)

The crowd waiting around the main geyser, Strokkur.

Icy floor. We were walking very slowly.

The eruption of water came from the middle part of this body of water. It would tease the crowd and pretend to erupt with a rise in water but then clam back down. It took around 15 minutes before it would spout out hot water. This doesn't seem like much time to wait but with the extreme wind chill it felt like hours.  Our faces were numb from the cold.

Here is a video of the geyser spouting several times in a row.

Once again please choose the HD option once the video starts and even go full screen if you want the best view.

This is the geyser spurting its hot water on the crowd, including on my camera. Word of warning, where ever the smoke goes, that's where the water will spout. On this windy day the smokes direction was changing every second. Hard to predict.

There is much to see in this area. Many hot springs. You could easily spend over an hour here.

This geyser was very interesting. You can't quite tell from the photo but that bit of blue water looked like it went underground forever. Would be an interesting dive, if it weren't for the boiling water...


 A quick video of this particular geyser. (Choose HD!)

That's the Strokkur geyser again erupting in the distance.

You could touch the hot water coming from the spring. It was hot. Not too hot to touch though. It was actually soothing on our frost bitten fingers.

Lloyd and Adam looking very cold. The next chapter on this trip - the massive Gullfoss waterfall. Very big...and very wet!

If you'd like to read more about the geyser's in this area then visit the Wikipedia page.

The geyser area can be found here on the map: