Day 5

Today's schedule afforded us a more leisurely morning to take breakfast at the Eldhestar and pack our bags ready to transfer to a hotel in Reykjavik later in the afternoon. An awesome sunrise signalled the start of a very cold but wonderfully sunny and clear day in Iceland. We drove initially to Thingvellir national park along a scenic route past an HEP power plant an the geothermal power plant producing all of Reykjaviks hot water. We also saw some very good examples of 'pillow lava' and a shield volcano clearly present in a rift valley between the North American and Eurasian plates.

A chance to walk through the Thingvellir fissure gave us a chance to walk between the earths plates and see excellent examples of ropey lava and layers of lava. We also saw the original Icelandic parliament said to be the birth place of democracy although this is debatable! The height of the land gave wonderful panoramas of the surrounding nature and it's volcanoes.

It was then on to Reykjavik for a chance to shop and see the sites of the city. We drove to a high point on top of the cities hot water storage to orientate ourselves and we then had some free time to pick up souvenirs and a worrying amount of fast food.

A stop at Reykjaviks huge geothermal swimming pool was a welcome refresher before dinner in our new hotel for the evening. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the slightly psychedelic flume and extremely hot hot pots.

The majority of the evening was spent at the volcano house cinema/cafe to watch a film on the Heimay and Eyafjallajokull eruptions followed by waffles, hot chocolate and an awards ceremony to close the trip. Our thanks was passed on to Ian Hardie for being such an informative tour guide for the 5 days and we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before our 3.30am breakfast and early flight back to the UK.