Three sightseeing destinations
From our stay in Austurhof5 (Fludir) we were able to visit two waterfalls and a geysir in a day with plentiful of time to spare. After which we easily returned to our stay in Fludir, cook dinner, eat and relax. The furtherest destinations for the day was just 35 km north of our stay.
We started the day at 10 am and by the time we were done with Gulfoss it was only about 3pm in the afternoon. With the long daylight hours in the summer days of Iceland there was really no necessity to hurry back to our stay, because at 3pm the day felt young and at 9pm it felt like noon!
We originally planned to stay at Gulfoss Hotel which was just 4 km from Gullfoss as we thought that by the time we were done with Gullfoss it would be late and would like to get back to our stay as soon as possible. We eventually decided against booking a room at Gulfoss Hotel as it did not have rooms with kitchenette and for a small double room the cost was relatively more expensive in the vicinity.
FAxafoss
It was a 14 minutes drive from our stay to Faxafoss (or was it Faxi fall?). We reached the Faxafoss carpark at about 10.30am. From the carpark was just a short 100m walk to the fall and there were hardly anybody around. Faxafoss was not in the list of the iconic falls of Iceland so it was not so popular with visitors.
This was a one tier fall and was not high only 7m tall. It was more beautiful than we had expected. The fall was pretty wide (80m) and the waterflow was forceful. We started our exploration from the top side of the waterfall and then went to explore the falls at its base. The waterfalls certainly looked better from the base!
Geysir
From Faxafoss to Geysir was about 11km, 10minutes drive. Parking was free at Geysir Visitor Center. From the center we crossed the road and walked about 100 m to the Geysir Geothermal Area.
In the geothermal area, by the sides of a proper paved path were “muddy” , “fuming” looking water patches some of which had “bubbling” water. We could see a big geysir from afar… it was “shooting” up and high!
We walked close to the erupting geysir, as near to the the perimeter barricade as we could. It was a short wait and soon hot water was bursting out of the geysir hole. Wow! The water spray went up as high as a 100 feet into the air and almost every 5 to 10 minutes we would see an eruption.
Strokkur Geyser was one of the active Geysirs in the Geysir Geothermal Area. The “Great Geysir” was also in the same geothermal area but was in a period of inactivity, the Great Geysir apparently could shoot up to twice as high as Strokkur Geysir.
Gullfoss
From Geysir Visitor Center to Gullfoss was about 10 km, a 10min drive. There were two huge carparks (no charges) near the falls. The upper one was just in front of a restaurant/cafe and a lower one. We parked our car at the lower carpark and walked a short distance and soon we saw the fall! It was gigantic! We saw a path that led near to the the falls and the humans on the path looked like tiny ants! The falls were so huge and the sound of the water was thunderly loud!
Gullfoss which also meant “Golden Falls” was one of the most iconic falls of Iceland. The falls had two distinct cascades positioned at right angle to each other. The first tier had a modest drop of 11 meters but the 2nd tier was a massing 21 meters plunge into a deep canyon. The sheer power of the water falling down brought up a layer of mist into the air. We took the path that brought up close to the first tier and got to look at the falls at a different angle. This falls was definitely magnificient!
We went up a stairs that brought us to the upper carpark. At the edge of the carpark was a cafe “Gullfoss” . We thought this cafe could have a good view of the falls unfortunately the cafe was packed so we were unable to get our “cafe latte with a view”.
Outside the cafe we saw a path leading to “somewhere” and the many people were walking to that “somewhere”. We trekked along and then after about 350m walk we came to a “lookout”. There we had a “top down” view of Gullfoss. The view was magnificient! Glad we walked “this way”.
