Day 10 - The Golden circle tour

Woke up tired and hungover as expected. The hangover wasn't too severe but I definitely wasn't on top form. After a shower, plenty of water and some jam baguette I was ready for the tour. I got to the bus stop 5-10 minutes before it was due to arrive. I got chatting to a Dutch woman at the bus stop that was also waiting for the tour bus. She had spent some time sailing around the West-Fjords, and had seen whales and Arctic foxes whilst on the water - it sounded awesome. We were at the bus stop for about half-an-hour before a tour bus arrived. She got on fine, and then I went to get on. It was the wrong bus. The driver told me to wait for the next one. Another bus from the relevant bus company pulled up shortly after. The driver said that I should have made my own way to the main bus terminal in the city and been picked up from here. Thankfully I hadn't lost out - I went into the campsite reception where the receptionist phoned Reykjavik Excursions and arranged for me to picked up in a few hours' time from outside the campsite to go on one of the later tours that day. I had an hour-and-a-half to kill so jumped on the bike and made my way to a section of the bay that I hadn't seen before. I came across some interesting sculptures and this weird isolated house made mostly out of random bits of various shaped and sized metal - very cool. Before I knew it it was time to go back to the campsite. I successfully boarded the bus - this took me to the terminal where I would then be boarding the main tour bus. On the first one I got chatting to a Canadian guy who had been doing some hiking around Iceland, and was planning to travel to some European countries in the coming weeks. One of his destinations was London - I told him he should visit Richmond Park and see the reindeer (in my opinion the best place to go in London excluding the standard Big Ben, Buckingham Palace etc landmarks). It didn't take long to get to the terminal and I got on bus 2 straight away. I was falling asleep within 10 minutes. The first port of call was Geysir. It was swamped by tourists and the first thing that greeted me was a huge souvenir shop/restaurant by the coach park. We had somewhere between 30-45 minutes here. I certainly wasn't going to waste any of this in the souvenir shop so made my way up to the Strokker Geysir a short walk away. There were even more tourists here, three-deep in places surrounding the main attraction. I had to wait my turn to get in the prime position for taking photos. It was worth the wait - I was fortunate enough to be in a good position to capture three eruptions in quick succession - something that didn't happen again during the time that I was there. I managed to take some more pictures from different positions before it was time to go back to the bus. Gullfoss was the next stop - just 10 minutes down the road. Again this was overrun by too many tourists and it was slow going down the steps to the waterfall. The waterfall itself was pretty awesome. I climbed down a small rock-face to get down to a lower level away from the crowds and closer to the cascading water. I made a point of sticking to the previously trodden areas to avoid causing unnecessary damage to the flora. It was definitely better down here than the main bit, and I was able to get some decent photos before climbing back up to the proper paths. These took me to the top of the waterfall (cue more photos) before looping back up to the coach park. I had to run back up as was cutting it very fine time-wise before the bus was due to leave. I was more awake for the next bus ride to the third destination. This meant that I was able to pay attention to the interesting facts that the tour guide was telling everyone (the world's first parliament was in Iceland, about how the energy from the volcanic activity is harnessed to provide water and electricity for the country amongst many other things). It was about 45 minutes until we got to Silfra Fissure. We had even less time here (about 20 minutes I recall). This meant having to run around for the entire duration of the time - it was a vast and truly spectacular place and 20 minutes didn't even allow me to scratch the surface. The interesting facts continued all the way back to Reykjavik, and like yesterday the driver was happy to drop me off by the campsite on his way back to the terminal. I thanked the driver and tour guide who were both brilliant before walking into the reception and buying my bus ticket to the airport. I wanted to savour every minute and delay going to the airport as long as possible, so opted for the slightly more expensive last bus. This left at 10.30pm, which gave me about 3.5 hours left in Reykjavik. There was only one thing to do - jump on the bike again and go exploring. I made my way further in from the city centre along the bay-side. It was a lovely ride hugging the waters' edge and took me around some suburban areas. I then saw this pyramid - type structure about a mile away so went to investigate. It turned out to be this clearing amongst some long grassy area filled mostly with giant cable reels. The pyramid itself was the focal point (standing at least 5 metres tall and made out of old scaffold boards). There was also a cannon and a little kids fortress amongst the reels. This would have made an awesome wild-camping spot had I discovered it earlier. Just behind this clearing there was an equally impressive old children's Wild-West/cowboy 'town' again made out of old bits of wood. Inside it was full of things such as a saloon, sheriff's office, giant flagpole and car. If I'd been 8 years old it would have been the best thing ever. Then there was a crazy-golf course to the side of this that was still currently being used, which featured a big ship and giant playhouse yet again made out of old bits of wood. Time was running out so I cycled on the road rather than suburban path to get back to the campsite. I got back with just over an hour to pack everything up including taking the bike apart, putting it in the box and squeezing everything around the bike within the box. I was done with about 15 minutes to spare, so finished the remains of last nights/this mornings hungover pasta before making my way over to the bus stop, and the bus came within 10 minutes. It was a gorgeous evening and the sky was stunning with the sun low on the horizon breaking through the clouds. I was sitting on the wrong side of the coach so wasn't able to get a clear shot of this. Thankfully when I arrived at the airport the sky was still the same and I was able to run across the car park to capture what was by now the midnight sun. A perfect way to end an amazing 10 days!!!