We woke up in Iceland today, that’s sounds so cool. I’ve wanted to come here for quite some time and it feels great to finally be in this part of the world, I feel very grateful to be able to be here.

Our Golden Circle tour didn’t start until 12 noon so this morning we wandered around our neighbourhood and visited the Hallgrimskirtja Church. The construction of the church commenced in 1945 and in 1986 the church was finally consecrated. The church was built in memory of one of Iceland’s greatest devotional poets, the Rev. Hallgrimer Petursson. His best known work is the Hymns of the Passion which contains 50 hymns  and the hymns are familiar to every Icelander and apparently has had more influence on Iceland’s religious practices and prayers than any other book.

I found the inside of the church particularly beautiful and very different to most churches and cathedrals that generally have intricate murals, stained glass and decorations. The inside of this church is quite stark but equally beautiful.

The views from the church tower were brilliant and provided a great perspective of the city and helped us get our bearings for how the city is set out. We were up there at around 9.30 to 10.00ish, just as the sun was rising so was able to see the city lights and then the transformation of the city as day broke.

Our tour guide picked us up around 12 noon, unfortunately I missed his name as it was hard to pronounce but it was something close to Flokie. We had two other couples on our tour, Kevin and Jen from New York and Steve and Karen from Brisbane. They are all friendly people and we got along very well with Karen and Steve, in fact Amy and Karen are now Facebook friends.

Our first stop was at the Thingvellir National Park which is the location where the Althing was first established in 930 and continued to be convened there until 1798. The Althing is the oldest surviving parliament in the world and was a form of government quite unlike anything else found on the European continent. The National Park epitomises the history of Iceland and was World Heritage Listed in 2004.

We then visited the geysers which was an eerie place, surrounded by sulphur smelling steam. The geyser went off several times while we were here and we also managed to sneak in some traditional Icelandic Lamb Soup which was delicious.

Following the geysers we visited the Gullfoss Waterfall which is another natural wonder which would have been lost forever had it not been for Sigridur Tomasdotter who fought for the conservation of the waterfall as it had been earmarked as the location for a hydro power plant. Sigridur is often referred to as Iceland’s first environmentalist.

The Gullfoss gorge was formed by flash flood waters that forced their way though the cracks in the basalt lava layers. The average water flow in Gullfoss is 109 cubic metres per second but can reach up to 2000 cubic metres per second. For comparison the average annual discharge of the Murray River is not even 1 cubic metre per second.

It was starting to get dark as we arrived at the Secret Lagoon for a swim in the thermal bath. We were keen to visit the Secret Lagoon after watching Rick Stein swim there on one of his cooking shows. We also thought this would be a better experience than the Blue Lagoon, which was confirmed by Steve and Karen who visited the Blue Lagoon yesterday. Anyway, the swim was awesome, the water temperature seemed to fluctuate as occasionally you’d find really hot water flowing around you, and no that wasn’t someone peeing in the water. The swim warmed you up for at least a couple of hours after getting out and was extremely invigorating.

We then dined at a restaurant which was another great opportunity to get know our fellow tour companions before settling into our bubbles for the night. This has been a highlight of the trip so far, it was great to sleep under the stars for the night and see the northern lights which was one of the main reasons we travelled here. The northern lights weren’t overly active and they only lasted a short while but I can at least say I’ve seen them. The photos actually picked up the colours better than our eyes, for me the northern lights were more a whitish colour almost like a cloud but the photos show them as green.

I am fascinated by what creates the Northern Lights, it actually is the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earths atmosphere with charged particles released from the suns atmosphere. According to Norse mythology the aurora is a fire bridge to the sky built by the gods.

Anyway our sleep tonight was sporadic as we set the alarm to wake up nearly every hour to check out what the northern lights were doing. I highly recommend the bubble experience, it was great and made even better by our informative and friendly tour guide and our new friends Steve and Karen.