Saturday 18. 2. - Gullfoss, Strokkur, Kerið
Hello everyone,
sorry for not posting for some time, but I´m kind of busy person and last weekends I have been spending at work or at some trips around Iceland. Well, not so far from Reykjavik I have to say, but still it was always great trip.
Do u remember as I was writing in October about my trip to waterfall Gullfoss, geysir´s area with the geysir called Strokkur, about crater called Kerið and about national park Þingvellir? Cool, good that u do :-))
I have been doing simillar trip on Satruday, 18th, with my two Czech friends, Andrea and Míra. We skipped national park and spent more time in waterfall area.
Because u already heard about these place last time, i´m going to post only some pictures here! I have to just mention one thing. We had beautiful weather, sun was shining and the best part was, that these places were still in "winter mood“, so they had own magic (totally different view than in fall or summer).
Enjoy!
panorama of all Gullfoss waterfall
- front part of Gullfoss -
- half frozen crater Kerið
geysir Strokkur -
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Saturday 25. 2. - Esja
Next Saturday, 25th of February, we have made small hiking trip to close mountain called Esja (horský masív). Do u remember some pictures of sea in Reykjavik? And some mountain somewhere there as well? That´s Esja, right!
We – me, Andrea and Míra (our Czech trio ;-) – took bus nr. 15 to Háholt and from there we wanted to take other bus, nr. 27 which goes much more closer to the mountain. Unfortunately the soonest bus was going in 1,5 hour, so we decide to do hitch-hiking. Luckily we got a car pretty soon and within 10 minutes we were below Esja.
We were climbing to the peak called Þverfellshorn, 780m high. It took us almost 2 hours to climb up the hill, .. yeah, we were a bit lazy and also if u are not used to it, u get pretty tired soon.
On the way we had to jump over few rivers, basically melting snow rivers, we saw few small waterfalls, even fewer trees :-) and beautiful view to Reykjavik, Mosfellsbær and sea.
One part, the closest one to the top, was quite dangerous and we had to use all our hands and legs to be able to go between rocks, icy places and slippery stones. But we made it and we´ve got to the top alive! I just totally destroyed my winter gloves as the stones were quite sharp.
Unfortunately at the top of the Þverfellshorn there was just fog so we couldn´t see any view – just look at this picture below. But we were really happy to get there.
Míra, Andrea and me at the top
Actually the way down the hill was worse then up – well, mainly this rock-climbing part. I didn´t feel really secure about going down, but I had to, it was getting dark and colder and I surely didn´t want to spend night there.
We got home pretty tired and frozen. Although it was sunny day, temperature was around -2°C and we didn´t have anything warm to drink with us :-). We wanted to heated up by going to swimming pool, but it was already closed when we got to Reykjavik.
Some pics to enjoy:
beautiful view from middle of the Esja (on the left Mosfellsbær, sea in the middle with Reykjavík in behind and Akranes on the right)
- top, which we were heading to
beautiful sunset
Saturday 4. 3. - Glymur
And again, the weekend was not boring J. Our Czech trio J (plus Míra´s daughter Diana) made a trip to waterfall Glymur, which is 70 km north-west from Reykjavik.
The weather was amazing, totally blue sky, shining sun (a lot!) and around +2°C.
We took a car and get out of Reykjavik around noon. We were really looking forward to see this place, because Míra was talking about it so nice.
On the way to Glymur we were going along the fjord (usually if you need to get to the other side, u can use tunnel, which was build up just few years ago). But our destination was kind of in the middle, so we didn´t go to the other side.
In the middle of way to Glymur we stopped by at small waterfall, I even don´t know if tourists know about it and actually I even don´t know name of it. But just have a look at this picture, isn´t it beautiful?
waterfall and Dianka
I was surprised to see this waterfall frozen, because temperature was above zero and water is usually going quite quickly so it doesn´t get frozen so soon. But anyway, it was really nice to see that magic of nature.
But let´s move on, we are just parking at the end of the road from where we have to walk to get to waterfall Glymur, which is suppose to be the highest one in Iceland.
We had to walk pretty far, but it was not really hard walk (not as to Esja)… until we got to the river. River, which was going in canyon made up of two really high hills. We wanted to go down the hill, cross the river and get to the other side, where we could climb and see whole waterfall in it´s beauty. Unfortunately the wood which was putted over the river, and was suppose to be as the bridge, was gone now and we couldn´t find place to cross this river. And it would be really dangerous for us to step into the water full of ice, with freezing temperature, and with fast moving water. We had with us 7 year old kid, so it was impossible.
We found out, that the closes bridge where we can cross the river is almost at the other end (where we came from), so we decided not to go back all the way. We agreed that we will see at least a piece of this waterfall :-).
On the way up the hill there is a small cave, where was really nice view to the river and also there were “krápníky” made up by frozen water. Just have a look at this:
inside the cave and view to the river
We had to climb up the hill, one par was pretty straight and just full of big and small stones. It was actually worse than at Esja. I couldn´t look down, because if I did, I almost lost my balance. Just look at that (and it´s not just a picture, but it´s straight like that in reality):
But the result of all this was great! We couldn´t see all waterfall, but still it was really nice. Frozen water, small part of it falling down and beautiful view over all area … simply great.
After we got home, I invited them to my place. We ate some spaghetti and I made “krupicovou kasi” for Dianka (that was still brought from my home, but I know about one place here where I can buy it, actually it´s one Polish shop in Kopavogur).
There are some pics for you :-)
canyon through which was river going
we were so high above the river, and even more
waterfall Glymur
