Iceland. Valley of Geysers

 Not seeing the active geyser Strokkur when visiting Iceland for the first time would have been a big mistake... When you witness a column of hot water shooting up to about 30 meters in height, it's truly impressive... And just 40 meters away lies the currently "sleeping" Great Geysir, from which the whole geothermal phenomenon takes its name... We visited the Geysir Valley and Gulfoss waterfall twice, as the tourist bus stopped there for half an hour during our trip to Kerlingarfjöll and on the return journey from the Hveravellir geothermal field...

  Twice the weather wasn't particularly pleasant; the sky was overcast with light rain...

   The Gulfoss waterfall impressed with its grandeur...

  

  Very close to the waterfall is the Geysir Valley with its most popular attraction - Strokkur geyser, which erupts hot water every 3-5 minutes... In half an hour, you can wait to see truly powerful eruptions...

   Before a powerful eruption, the geyser seems to prepare, throwing relatively small streams of water...

 In the Geysir Valley, near the active one, there are many "sleeping" geysers, and approaching closer, you can see tunnels leading deep underground... The functioning principle of active geysers is that at depth, due to late volcanic stages, the water temperature reaches boiling point, and steam forces the water out...

 The Great Geysir stands apart from all others, and its eruptions are very rare... Geysir translates from Icelandic as "to gush" and after gaining popularity, its name became synonymous with the entire phenomenon... 

 In the Geysir Valley, there are about 30 hot pools and "small geysers"...

  

 After visiting the Geysir Valley, we took a tourist bus to the town of Hveragerdi and stayed overnight at a local campsite... The next morning, we went to the main natural landmark of the town - the thermal river Reykjadalur...

  The weather that day was the worst during our entire stay in Iceland, but we were prepared for it... Firstly, we saw the forecast a day before our visit, and secondly, we had all the necessary gear - membrane pants, jackets, and raincoats...

  Here's how windy it can be in Iceland, and quite often...

 The water in the river wasn't very warm and was shallow... But the most unpleasant part was changing clothes in the rain...

  The stream in the lower part of the route was significantly warmer, even hot... Here we could relax a bit...

  Returning to the campsite, we packed up our tent and backpacks and headed to the main road to hitchhike to Grindavík, as the next day we had a reservation to visit the Blue Lagoon...