Day Twenty-five - Tourists (Gulfoss & Geysir)

Rise and shine to rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty pertaining to the day’s itinerary, only to be confirmed by a quick word with our man in London. 

Swimming at 10.00am (or so) then lunch, then a trip, then dinner. The day looked positively eatable! And none-the-less very beautiful. The bus came to take us swimming and we arrived and went into the changing rooms which seemed to have been taken over by military dictatorships! Undressing here, towels here (NO drying in the dressing area) and a wash (without swimming costumes and “here is the soap, would you please use it”). Obviously a paranoia of social diseases. 

Having survived the treatment we actually got to have a swim!! In a great big outdoor pool which was, though, very warm, sulphurised and chlorinated. Along the sides were hotspots for the thick skinned, and on the other side, a great big kiddies pool, where great big kiddies played ball. 

Out by 1.00pm and led by Snorri to lunch – a bit of a walk, but worth every calorie! Cauliflower soup followed by … fish garnished with onion and potatoes, and lashings of salad and 1000 island, AND seconds! Followed by the closest thing to trifle since… school trifle, which was quite delicious.

A person provides scale

Then the two-hour coach journey across south-west Iceland boring landscape to waterfalls and geysers.. Well it was a jolly good waterfall.

Gulfoss Waterfalls

Liz and I - reunited after the adventure phase

The geyser, a smaller one Scrottur, not the famous one Geysir, did erupt.

Scrottur erupts....

..and recedes

.. and, since it goes off like clock-work,
we're allowed a closer look

  .. and I bought an Icelandic sweater and got rid of some travellers’ cheques.

And what a worthwhile 6 hours that was! Then we reached the restaurant and were told to sample the bright (traffic?) lights of Reykjavik for 45 minutes until dinner was ready. Well in Iceland, girls whistle boys (and girls), people like driving around, and around, and around and benches are not forthcoming.

Then we got back to dinner, hailed as a great Smorgasbord layout. The chef obviously had great delusions of being French, and the sumptuous bowl of mushy soup with brown bread and butter, was succeeded by a meagre, but none-the-less very beautiful, meal of flounder in hollandaise sauce, 3 shreds of carrot, a sprig of cauliflower and two potatoes. 

Very tasty but Val saved the day and very generously supplied 2 bottles of old nouveau! ALCOHOL!!! The meal was concluded by skyr with mil followed by a more jazzy contribution by the band, and various attempts by the likes of me and Liz, along with Woody and Nick Braithwaite, to induce some dancing – but apart from an attempt at a tango by Ray and Janet and some impromptu break-dancing by Adrian Miller, we were not totally successful. 

We were shepherded out at about 12.30am following a leader’s speech, piled onto the coach and finally back to Arsel where John brought his martini out. With Ian rather the worse for wear (but none-the-less very beautiful) from the effects of the local Brennevin, and Claire, Rog, Liz, John and myself quite well along the way, we sang, guitared, broke glasses, headbanged amongst numerous other activities to the strains of Queen and Howard Jones, about one hour after which we were ushered to bed by the rather less jolly members of the band. However we did continue with a little game of ‘grab the spoon’ in our corner until a shortage of matchsticks reduced visibility. 

A jolly last night in Iceland!!