Not far from the adventure between the tectonic plates is another exciting feature of the Icelandic topography. Like the “Old Faithful” geyser in Yellowstone National Park in the United States, Iceland has some attractive geysers too. The biggest is called Geysir or Great Geysir. Notice the subtle change in the spelling of geyser? Within 400 feet of this geyser is a smaller one that attracts more tourists because it erupts more frequently. It erupts every 4 to 10 minutes and sometimes twice in a row when the hot water quickly flows back into the crater.
The bus left the North American Plate and drove across the bridge to the Eurasian Plate where our guide gave us a welcome and a warning. The water from the geysers is boiling hot.
Before we were able to get off the bus, our guide gave us the itinerary for the lunch break here at the geyer field.
So, we knew the geyer erupter every seven minutes, give or take a few. From the bus parking lot we got our pre-lunch exercise walking to the geyser field to watch and hope to catch a picture of the geiser at just the right time.
I finally got to the right place and set up the GoPro to capture the event. It was hanging upside down from a lanyard in front of me. With a wide angle lens it was bound to catch it when it happened. I was not expecting a double one but because I was getting so good at waiting, the camera was still recording when the second erruption happened. The video was upside down, but that was easy to rotate when I made this blog.
Now, the next most important thing is lunch.
And some time to look through the souvenir shop. There was an interesting sculpture outside the restaurant. What do you make of this?
Here is a LITTLE Nordic something you might want to take home for the kids.
That was super entertaining. I loved watching the geysers erupt! All of that water was so cool! And even just the steam rising from the ground was fun to watch, too. I kept wondering if there was a tea kettle underground that was steaming. Hmm, geyser tea.
And, of course, there’s lunch. One of my three favorite times of day!
Thank you for the show. I truly enjoyed it.
When I visited Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, another volcanic area, I was told the birds would burry their eggs in the warm ashes to incubate. The natives would dig them up and put them into the boiling water to cook them.
https://jarvie.ca/rabaul/
Thanks for sharing another round of spectacular pictures. You surely make me want to see the geyser firsthand.
Yellowston’s Old Faithful may be closer for you.
I would say that’s blowing off stem all right! Love your photos and videos!!
Excellent camera work, Doug. This reminds me of my trip to Australia a long time ago. We visited a place full of mineral springs with steam coming up out of the ground. I think we got there in a helicopter.
I would like to visit a geyser once but if I could visit somewhere today I think I would go take a closer look at the home in the picture that looks so calming and like a nice place to live. Have a good month and I hope to see you the next time the #UBC happens.
Thank you. I will have another post this evening of a waterfall a short way up the river.
Doug, what fun watching the smaller steam vents and finally the actual geyser! I have never seen a geyser in person, so this is quite the experience for me. I love the bird eggs anecdote.