{"id":2301,"date":"2014-11-08T23:48:33","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T04:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/?p=2301"},"modified":"2014-11-08T23:48:33","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T04:48:33","slug":"water-falls-and-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/2014\/11\/08\/water-falls-and-rises\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Falls and Rises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having biked from Reykjavik to Laugarvatn, I checked in at H\u00e9radssk\u00f3linn<\/a>, a hostel in a former school building.\u00a0 After getting both rained on and sweaty through the day, it was nice to be someplace warm, and I took a nice shower after getting situated.\u00a0 I got dinner in the cafe there, which was vegetable soup with bread and a small salad.\u00a0 They had reindeer meatballs as one of the menu options, which sounded intriguing, but I passed as that dish was pretty expensive.\u00a0 The soup was unlike any vegetable soup I’ve had in the US, as it was basically a cloudy broth, as though all the veggies had been pureed, and it had a dollop of sour cream on top.\u00a0 The bread was freshly baked and crusty.<\/p>\n

I had no trouble going to sleep after all the riding I had done, and I got up nice and refreshed in the morning to ride some more.\u00a0 I was going to head further east to a couple of sights, and then back to the hostel.<\/p>\n

I had the breakfast buffet in the hostel cafe, which included more fresh-baked bread, with options of jam, butter, cheese, tomato, and cucumber to put on it.\u00a0 They also had thick, plain yogurt with jam and muesli to mix in, and hard-boiled eggs.\u00a0 I ended up having a few slices of bread with jam, a cup of yogurt and meusli, and some tomato and cucumber on the side.<\/p>\n

Just before hitting the road, I took this picture of a mountain just across the road from the hostel:<\/p>\n

\"laugpeak1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here is the lake (also called Laugarvatn) on the other side of the hostel:<\/p>\n

\"laugarvatn1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I saw a few more nice views on my way (though a bit more rain fell on me, as well):<\/p>\n

\"rt37mount1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"rt37stream\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"rt37mount2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"rt37mount3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"rt37mount5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I also crossed a couple of rivers.\u00a0 Here’s the first, helpfully labeled:<\/p>\n

\"bruarawater\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"bruarasign\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I also saw quite a number of sheep (I had also seen some the previous day):<\/p>\n

\"icesheep1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"icesheep2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That one on the left appears to be looking at me, but sheep have just about a 360-degree range of vision, so really all the sheep were looking at me, in some sense.<\/p>\n

I also saw horses, who seemed curious about me:<\/p>\n

\"icehorses1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"icehorses2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These 2 were scratching each other’s backs:<\/p>\n

\"icehorses3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And at one point, in the middle of a field, I saw a geothermal water spout:<\/p>\n

\"fieldspout\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After about an hour-and-a-half of riding, I passed the site of Geysir, where there are multiple hot springs and spouts (also know, of course, as geysers, taking their name from this place).\u00a0 I would be stopping off there on my way back west.<\/p>\n

Here is the other river I crossed:<\/p>\n

\"tungufljotwater\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"tungufljotsign\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The first rain of the day had not lasted very long, but soon after passing Geysir, I got rained on more solidly, and for longer.\u00a0 It cleared just before I climbed a hill up to the site of Gullfoss, the golden waterfall.<\/p>\n

Right near Gullfoss I saw some more, somewhat jagged-looking, mountains in the distance:<\/p>\n

\"rt35mount1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"rt35mount2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And there appeared to be part of a glacier visible beyond them:<\/p>\n

\"rt35glacier\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I parked my bike on a rack at Gullfoss, and then started down a wooden boardwalk toward the waterfall:<\/p>\n

\"gullfosspath\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I then got a couple of pix of the fall itself:<\/p>\n

\"gullfoss1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"gullfoss2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was able to go a good deal closer to the water, but it started to rain again as I did so, and thus I didn’t want to get my camera or phone out for any more photos.<\/p>\n

I went inside the cafe\/gift shop after I’d had my fill of the falls and the cold rain.\u00a0 It was late enough that I decided it would be a good time for lunch, and the “traditional lamb soup” sounded pretty good (it came with 1 free refill, plus bread).\u00a0 The soup contained chunks of lamb, along with carrots, potatoes, onions, and cabbage.\u00a0 It was very nice on a chilly, wet day.<\/p>\n

After lunch I browsed around the gift shop a bit, then headed back into the rain.\u00a0 I headed back west, with the rain continuing until I was almost back to Geysir.<\/p>\n

The geysir site is rather surreal, as much of the ground is steaming:<\/p>\n

\"geysland1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"geysland4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Those areas are roped off, because the water flowing over the ground is quite hot:<\/p>\n

\"geyswarning\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Around this site you constantly smell sulphur, and there are several spots where minerals are left on the surface:<\/p>\n

\"geysland2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The main geyser at the place is the original Geysir, which I did not get to see erupt.\u00a0 It apparently only does so after earthquakes:<\/p>\n

\"geysir3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"geysir2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"geysir1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is one geyser there which goes off frequently (every 8 to 10 minutes or so).\u00a0 It’s named Strokkur:<\/p>\n

\"strokkur1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"strokkur3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"strokkur2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite its regularity, I had difficulty getting a good picture of it erupting.<\/p>\n

There was also this little bubbling pool, called “Little Geysir”:<\/p>\n

\"litligeysir\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There were also some calm steaming pools, and I love the deep blue of this one:<\/p>\n

\"geysland3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I spent some time looking around in the gift shop here, too.\u00a0 At both places I saw nice looking Icelandic wool sweaters, but they were pretty expensive (and I didn’t have room to transport one anyway).<\/p>\n

From there I headed back to Laugarvatn.\u00a0 A little more rain fell, and I was once again very glad to get a hot shower.\u00a0 After showering, and before dinner, I went to the town’s little grocery store:<\/p>\n

\"samkaupstrax\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I picked up some granola and yogurt there, to have for the next couple of breakfasts.<\/p>\n

I then went and had dinner at a spa near the hostel.\u00a0 It’s called Luagarvatn Fontana, and its main feature is geothermal baths.\u00a0 I did not take advantage of those, but in their cafe I got a slice of geothermal rye bread (yes, they bake it by burying a tin of bread dough in the hot sand by the lake) topped with smoked trout from the lake.\u00a0 After eating that, I had a piece of a flourless fruit and ginger cake.\u00a0 All of the food was quite good.<\/p>\n

Next: Back to the parliament plain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having biked from Reykjavik to Laugarvatn, I checked in at H\u00e9radssk\u00f3linn, a hostel in a former school building.\u00a0 After getting both rained on and sweaty through the day, it was nice to be someplace warm, and I took a nice shower after getting situated.\u00a0 I got dinner in the cafe there, which was vegetable soup … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2339,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301\/revisions\/2339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}