ICELAND EDITED: DAY EIGHT

This would not be our last day in Iceland but it would be our last day with the bus tour. The day began as the previous had ended: Cool and grey but not quite as rainy. We were very much looking forward to this day. Since arriving in Iceland we had heard much about the Icelandic horse and had often seen them as they wandered freely around the countryside. This morning we were visiting a farm which made their living from growing hot house tomatoes but who also bred, trained and showed the remarkable little Icelandic horse

The Icelandic horse is considered to be one of the "purest" horse breeds in all the world. Not terribly unusual on an island but the Icelanders work very hard to keep it this way; no horses are permitted to be imported to the island and if a horse leaves Iceland it or its progeny may never return

The lovely family at the farm put on a show for us, explaining the unique traits of this horse and demonstrating them for us

One of the things that makes the Icelandic horse special are its gaits. It was explained to us that there are six possible gaits at which a horse may move. Most horses do the same four gaits. Some horses can do five but only the Icelandic horse can use all six gaits

The Icelandic horse has had historically many uses: Transportation, haulage, sheep herding and they do all of this in one of the most extreme and diverse environments on the planet so they have to use all their gaits to travel across it, including the rigid lava fields. The horse show demonstrated this horse's remarkable dexterity (does that word apply to horse hooves, well  now it does) by riding the animal with a full mug of beer without spilling any ... now that is a unique waiter

It is easy to see why Icelanders love their horses. Even to the point where they use their images to adorn the walls of their .. um .. bathrooms

After the horse show back on the road, travelling across the southern part of the country to look at .. what else .. another spectacular waterfall

This is Sigridarstofa, a waterfall on one of Iceland's numerous salmon rivers. There is, in fact, a salmon run down the side of the falls and the day we visited an ardent fisherman was taking advantage

On our way to our next waterfall we saw more Icelandic horses, this time in a more "natural" environment. Like the sheep here the horses are free range, during the summer they are allowed to roam where they please finding the best fodder and water

Our next waterfall was Gullfoss, the Golden Waterfall. This was to be our last waterfall in Iceland but it was a pretty spectacular one

Almost hidden in a deep valley, if it wasn't for the sound and the mist this waterfall could surprise you, falling down a series of terraces into a chasm 32 meters deep

Gullfoss is one of the most popular waterfalls in Iceland. Even on this cool and windy day there were tourists everywhere, including this incredibly attractive and powerful couple from Ontario Canada

Back on the bus and continuing along Iceland's famous Ring Road. The weather improved, still overcast and a bit cool but not as much rain. We stopped at one of the biggest tourist attractions on the Ring Road. Collette's pic below pretty much says it all

Yes, this is the area that gave us the word geyser, the first hot spring of its kind to be recorded in print by Europeans. This is an area with several hot springs and a few geysers, but the one that we came to see goes off about every  15 minutes or so. There was a lot of activity in the area besides the geyser itself

It was always fascinating to walk around these geothermal areas and be reminded that where you are walking, the crust of the earth is thinner than virtually any other place on the planet. Some of the water that was coming up to the surface was in excess of of 100 degrees Celcius.

But of course the main attraction at Geysir is, of course, the geyser (that is a real "duh" moment for you) and never having seen one in actuality before, it was definitely worth viewing. The "pot"  from which the geyser spews is constantly steaming and slowly roiling. Then every 15 minutes or so pressure mounts under the earth, pushing at the vast water table that lays under the entire site up through the relatively small opening; you could see this huge bubble of water pushing itself up until it exploded into a spume of water and steam about 70 meters high

 

We continued west back towards Reykjavik and the rain was following us now. Our next stop would have us move back in time. Iceland has one of the oldest and most firmly established democracies in Europe. The Althing, or general assembly, was created in 930 at Pingvellir, the assembly fields. This was where we were headed.

The current parliment is no longer at this location but we went to the spot that held the speakers stone where any person, regardless of economic or social standing could be represented, usually by someone else but you had the right to do so in person.

As in most of Iceland, there is also a geographical significance to this area. This is the continental divide, where east literally meets west. The southwest tip of iceland pretty much straddles this divide, which is why things are so active in this country.

For a place that encompassed massive tectonic plates at war with each other, and even in the cold blowing rain, a lot of it was quite idyllic. The water here was incredibly translucent, pooling amid the broken, moss backed volcanic rock

That's pretty much it for Day Eight. Forty five kliks later we were back where the trip started, in Reykjavik. We were a little tired but not jet lagged as we were the first time so we were looking forward to seeing the town, finding our new hotel and as much as we loved our bus tour, just not moving for a while.