Scott had bad news today! There is no McDonalds in Iceland. It was expected to be partly cloudy today with a maximum temperature of -6C with some wind. It was a good day to take a car trip.

I prepared for the cooler regional outing with the thick tights, fleecy leggings, warm boots, a polo skivvy, my merino wool sports jacket, my denim dress, a warm scarf, gloves and the green puffer coat. I needed all the layers today!

The Golden Circle is a tourist route that takes in some of the interesting natural beauty of Iceland.

There was a mobile phone inside the apartment with a designated number that operated the boom gate for our parking area. The car had sat in the car park for two days so a layer of ice had formed on the windows. They need to be scraped before you can drive anywhere.

The landscape is insane with white mountains and snow broken up with some black roads and horses. Heads up – there are a lot of videos in this post.

First stop was the Kerid crater. It was very cold and the little lake at the bottom was frozen over which took about an hour to reach this destination. We paid $12 each for the privilege of freezing while we avoided slipping over to see the frozen crater.

Back in the car, the next stop was about 45 minutes away to see the Geysir. There was a service centre here so we ate before walking across to see the Geysir.

Lunch was delicious fish soup with bread (that was more like a cake texture). Scott rescued the bread basket from a table beside ours set for tour groups. The place was teeming with tourists. We carefully navigated the icy paths to view the Geysir only to be sprayed with volcanic water on the second spurt.

Gullfoss waterfalls was about 10 minutes away by car and it was lovely. The temperature was -6 but felt like triple that with the wind chill, like -19C.

You can’t get the vastness of what we were seeing on film. The full moon was captivating.

It was really cool to see the wind sweeping the snow across the roads.

We really were so lucky with the weather, as cold as it was, we did not have to worry about blizzards or rain. Apparently Neil Armstrong trained out here because it is so like the moon landscape.

While driving, many signs are covered in snow so thank heavens for Google maps!

Someone summed up Iceland as uncomfortably cold and uncomfortably expensive, and they are right!

You don’t need a special travel card for financial transactions – all transactions are on my debit card so there is no need for cash. I have not had to go to an ATM to get krona for any transaction. The exchange rate is set by the bank . Even for Germany, I have only had to go to an ATM to get Euros for the hairdresser and this can be done once you are in the country. No need to load currencies onto cards… it’s just unnecessary.

We decided that it was time for fish and chips so we ate at the restaurant around the corner and then settled in for the night at our apartment.

G óða Nótt