We had a lovely lie in planned but low and behold the other school reared their loud selves in the corridor. What a surprise! Yes that was sarcastic. We have taken a dislike to them. Busy day today. First stop Thingvellir National Park. Now this isn't like one of our national parks, there were very few people and a lot of nothingness but the views were amazing. Actually thinking about it, it is pretty similar, however one major difference at this one is that you have the North American plate on one side and across a void of rocky baron landscape the Eurasian plate. The gap is solidified lava that has filled the gap as the plates move apart. Now due to some plebs in our group who didn't bring their coats (it is -1*C and snowing!) we couldn't do the full walk. They had a stern talking too and hopefully they were cold! We went on a short walk, saw a great waterfall falling onto snowy rocks and the views with the mountains/volcanoes around in the snow were epic. I think the kids were suitably impressed!
Boarding the coach in what felt like a blizzard we then headed to the Geyser Exhibition Centre. We had our lunch on the coach due to the weather (and our plebs tided the coach up!). In yonder distance we could see more steam - creates an air of mystery around the place - it's like this round the whole island I think. First stop here was the loo - we were desperate (not as bad as the coach to the airport though!) then obviously the gift shop! We told the guide we weren't shoppers then loved the shop so much we had to build in another stop! There was lots of fur though. We went into the exhibition centre and the kids were brill filling their workbooks. The earthquake shake table was good making it feel like a 5.1 Richter scale quake. Trying to exit the centre we ended up walking into a taxidermist horse! Right in your face! This was massive - life size but there was no way around it than to shimmy past! Turns out it wasn't even the way out. The kids thought we'd come all this way to see pictures of the geysers and not see the actual things!
After some tat shopping - yep a fridge magnet has been purchased - we took the walk to the geysers, now we were told one of them goes off every 5-8 minutes so as we approach, yep you've guessed it, it went off! So we all line up, up wind of the geyser cameras poised ready...for what felt like forever...then as it went off we jump, take a photo quickly then thought it'd be a good ideas to have a look at the photo...only to not realise that the geyser would go off again...and again straight away! We were definitely treated here.
Final stop of the day is Gullfoss - a massively epically impressive waterfall. As we approached you couldn't really see much except the natural landscape but as you walked towards a roaring noise the land opened up to reveal a massive series of waterfalls. It did look amazing - unfortunately due to the weather we couldn't take the path closer to the waterfall but we still had amazing views from a safe distance! Health and safety first!!
The ride back was prime for a snooze and after a stern talking to the coatless boys (who we think learnt their lesson as they looked freezing) we headed to the pool - well the kids did - we took our seats at the bar to supervise them! After a fab day we are ready for tea!
Next stop tomorrow - Heimaey.
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