Great Waterfall

Yesterday we went on a long 8 hour bus tour around the southwestern part of Iceland. This tour is more famously known as the Grand Golden Circle tour, probably the best package tour regularly organised here by several tour operators. It brings you to the most famous locations and great sights that are located close enough to Reykjavik.

The tour guide was excellent, describing the history, geography and above all the geology of Iceland as we progressed through the day. In fact it was like a geological tour - I had been to many geological field trips but this was the first time I managed to bring the family to one! The tour was a real good value for money costing about 55 Euros each.

One of the stop was this waterfall called the Gullfoss waterfall. Gullfoss means Great Waterfall. The water comes from melting glazier which is actually quite close by. The glazier's front is in fact only about 30 km away. A large part of Iceland is permanently covered with ice and Glaziers. This particular one is the largest in Europe.

Because Iceland is located quite close to Greenland, an hour flight away, is actually more located further north latitude-wise than Anchorage in Alaska. The weather here is normally extremely cold except for the southern coastline where it receives warm air from the Gulf Stream. The temperature like today was just nice and cool at 20 deg. C. But going north, the temperature becomes extreme. In fact there is a drop of 2 Deg. C for every 100 m elevation. And that is why just 30 km away from here one could see the front of moving ice or glazier.

One could see a lot of great falls resulting from the melting ice all around the island but would need a week tour. Gullfoss is probably the best known because it is the easier and closest one to reach. But there are more spectacularly and higher ones elsewhere.