Humera & Meagan Go to Iceland: Day 3- The Golden Circle.. Kinda

April 13, 2018 was a gorgeous Wednesday in South Iceland. On this particular day Meagan and I performed a partial trip around Iceland's Golden Circle. The Golden Circle is a 300 kilometer trip around southwest Iceland that allows tourists to visit Þingvellir National Park, the Geysir Geothermal Area, and Gullfoss waterfall. We decided to skip Þingvellir National Park and visited Kerið and Bruarfoss waterfall.

Gullfoss Waterfall

Keeping like the day before we started the trip at the location which was the farthest from our hotel and worked our way back to Reykjavik as the day progressed; first stop: Gullfoss waterfall in Gullifossi, Iceland . This was probably the largest tourist attraction we visited while in Iceland. It was around 45 degrees Fahrenheit when we arrived and the wind was pretty brutal but watching the semi-frozen waterfall churn was soothing. We climbed to the top to see the view over the top of the waterfall then walked over to the gift shop to see if we could find gifts for our family. After fifteen minutes of perusing we decided to check out the Geysir Geothermal Area we passed on our way to Gullfoss.

Gullfoss Waterfall

The Geysir Geothermal Area was also packed with tourists but that is expected when visiting the Golden Circle. We walked around the various geothermal geysers which are all around the park.

The big attraction however is Strokkur- Fountain Geyser which erupts every seven minutes. Meagan and I had never seen a geyser erupt so we waited patiently with our GoPros ready to get the excitement on video. After many false alarms and a lot gurgling it finally erupted. The geyser even erupted about three minutes after we caught it on film as we were walking away. If you really want to see a geyser erupt in Iceland this is definitely a safe bet.

Pretty happy over our first two tourist attractions of the day we decided to find Bruarfoss waterfall in Brekkuskógur, Iceland. This by far ended up being my favorite waterfall we visited while in Iceland and funny enough we almost didn't even find it.

I must start out by explaining that Google Maps works pretty great about getting you to the destination you are intending on visiting, however finding Bruarfoss wasn't as easy as the other sites we had gone searching for. Google Maps put us in the general direction of the waterfall, forcing us to park in a rental cabin area full of locals and trying to find it on our own. Luckily, we stumbled upon three male tourists that were also walking in area we were walking. Feeling bold and confident in Iceland I stopped and asked them if they were also looking for Bruarfoss. Only one of the three spoke English and he said yes and invited us to walk with them while we looked for it. As we walked along a very muddy path in the middle of nowhere, we got to know the three gentleman from Canada that were in Iceland for a video game convention. Two would speak in French while the other translated in English for us. It was very scary according to Meagan because she said the whole interaction was a lot like a scene from the movie Taken which i've never seen so was completely oblivious to it. I instead marveled at how sweet they were to us; taking our hands to help us walk through the mud and constantly asking if we were okay or needed help. Finally after walking about half an hour we walked/slipped down a muddy hill to find the most beautiful waterfall i had ever seen. The best part was that there was only three other people there enjoying the waterfall, barely any tourists around we really got up close and personal with Bruarfoss.

We climbed down near the bank and touched the icy cold water, we hopped from rock to rock near the rivers edge so happy we had not given up and found the waterfall. 

Meagan feeling how cold the water is.

Humera and Bruarfoss

After spending an hour with our Canadian friends we decided to head back to the car and visit Kerið. Kerið is a volcanic crater lake that is over 6500 years old. Before we left for Iceland visiting Kerið was honestly the only item on my bucket list. Visiting Iceland had been Meagan's idea but i had seen enough amazing Instragram photos that I had decided it was a must on my list.

The water was semi-frozen in the middle but still had a blue/greenish color from the water that had melted.

Kerið

We walked around the crater and eventually made our way down to the bottom which is 55 meters deep and according to my Fitbit 77 flights of stairs on the way back up.

Feeling like champs for seeing so many amazing and different natural wonders in one day we headed back to our hotel in Reykjavik wondering how we were going to ever top the amazing day we had just had.