Photo of the day - day 2

Day 2's winner of the 'photo of the day' competition goes to Ben Garratt for his excellent black & white shot of Gulfoss.

Day 2

We started the day in relatively good spirits despite last night's disappointment of the northern lights not showing up, hopefully tonight will be better. We boarded the bus at 9 o'clock and went to visit the Hellishedi Geothermal power plant, which was fantastic. The cleanliness and relevant design of the plant made it all the more interesting, in fact this plant is so powerful it could nearly handle the whole of Iceland's domestic energy needs. However the most interesting observation of the day came from one of the staff; now you would expect a geography teacher to be in heaven in a power plant, learning how renewable energy is made, but no. The main item on our teachers mind was that the power plant would make a great party location! After sizing up the power plant for its party potential we moved onto the Geothermal areas. It was very interesting seeing warm mud seep up to the surface and learning how the soil and clay mix along with the usual dose of the smell of sulphur (wouldn't be Iceland without it!) After the mud springs  we moved onto the Kerid crater lake, this was amazing. The scenery was unbelievable, there was not a building insight, and as always the Icelandic's did a great job preserving the environment, they were completely unspoiled - fantastic! After a quick lunch we visited the Geysir, again it was fascinating, I'm sure someone will upload a video of it exploding at some point, words just can't describe it! We finished off the cultural day with a visit to the Gulfos waterfalls, these were beautiful and what made them even better was the quick and easy walk down! Finally we finished the day at a local pool, it was very good fun and more importantly warm (not a word you'll hear much on this trip). The pool was of course accompanied with traditional Icelandic culture - naked men in the shower!

All in all a great day!

Ben Thrasher