Visiting the big Gullfoss waterfall

We drive in the morning from the geyser park to the next big attraction at the Gullfoss waterfall. It is only a short 15 minutes along a good road. Early in the morning the traffic is fairly light since the day trippers from Reykjavik hasn’t made it out here yet.

We arrive at a parking lot in front of the waterfall. We are pretty much in the middle of nowhere but there are a lot of buildings out here which are only present to service the many daily visitors to the waterfall. There is a shopping center of Icelandic souvenirs of different sort if you like to by that Iceland jumper you have ever dreamed about this is your chance unless you prefer just to do your shopping in Reykjavik where there might be a bit more competition for the costumers.

We walk away from the building and go towards the waterfall .there are a few paths leading to the falls. You can go on an upper path which will give you a view of the falls from above or you can actually go down some stairs to get closer to the water. Most people tend to walk down to get close to the waterfall. We join the crowd and walk down the stair.

We get down and at the bottom of the stair there is another parking lot to the right of the stair – this is better for the waterfall – but parking down here is restricted to tour busses and disabled parking so you have to walk up and down the stair if you like to get close to the falls.

Across from the stair is a small viewing area from where you get a pretty good view of the canyon carved below the falls. Most people head straight to the falls so we get to enjoy our canyon view almost alone. After a bit it is time to get close to the falls.

Form along the trail there is some good views of the fall but as we get closer you can feel the waterfall spraying up water. You might get a little wet around here so it is good thing to have a water proof jacket for protection. Finally we reach the area close to the fall from where it is easy to admire the falls. They are not quite Victoria Falls big but it is a decent size waterfall well worth the visit.

After visiting the lower platform we decide to go up the stairs – after all the car isn’t magically moving itself down to the lower parking lot. We head out to the small trail to have a look at the upper viewing platform. It is nice but the lower platform is better.