Monday 25th June

At about 1.00am we were woken by the sound of the bow thrusters which are quite close to our cabin. These were working for about 35 minutes although we didn't appear to be going anywhere. Later this evening the Captain told us that they had to use them to hold the ship from being blown away from the quay.

Up early today to catch the bus for our tour at 8am. By 8.30 standing in the squally weather it turned up & by good fortune, we scored seats just behind the driver with an excellent view. The weather varied between terrible & appalling with strong winds & some fairly heavy showers when we started on our Golden circle tour, the most popular 1 day tour in Iceland.

Stop 1 was at Kerid volcano crater, a deep blue pool in the centre of the crater. We just looked down into it & scurried back to the bus to warm up. Then on the Faxi waterfall across some fairly forbidding country before dropping off some people to bathe at the Secret lagoon before moving on to Geyser thermal activity area, for lunch. Here we saw one of the geysers erupt a couple of times before lunching on soup.

Gerda, our excellent guide, told us about how geologically young Iceland is (17 million years) & how it straddles the American/Eurasian tectonic plates which move apart at 3cm per year on average. This apparently means that the Earth's crust is quite thin here allowing magma to rise to the surface forming volcanoes etc. She also commented on how the country is run & the incredibly low crime rate. The male prison has 157 prisoners whilst the female one has 3 rooms in an apartment block. Gun laws are very strict including a psychological examination of applicants & it takes about 1 year to get a licence. The police are unarmed, there is no standing army & there are virtually no drug problems. It's only drawback is the climate, which seems to us to be intolerable for 6 months.

Then on to Gullfoss waterfall where the weather took a turn for the worse & we again returned to the bus like drowned rats.

Finally we went to Pingvellir National Park where the 2 tectonic plates have left a huge lake & where the first Iceland Parliament was held annually from 930AD. This was held on land where the American plate has created a wall of lava above the lake valley. It was very spectacular but hard to comprehend all the information provided but it made a great day out for us.