Iceland, Day 6: Haifoss, Geysir and Gullfoss

Our previous day in Iceland was heavy on waterfalls, and day 6 followed into its footsteps. It started with the Haifoss waterfall.

Haifoss and its neighbor waterfall Granni are located not far from the famous volcano Hekla, in Southern part of Iceland. Both belong to the river Fossá, which splits into two streams shortly before the waterfalls. Haifoss has the drop of ~122 m / 400 ft and looks more powefull than Granni, which has the drop of ~100 m / 330 ft. They are located about 250 m (800 ft) apart from each other:

Haifoss is fun to watch. The falling water hits the bottom with an impressive energy and quite a noise, raising clouds of droplets:

Downstream from Haifoss and Granni the river Fossá calms down and flows relatively quietly down the bottom of the canyon:

We went for a 2 hour hike down the river. It was raining, sometime heavily, so we put on our rain gear and followed the trail that was descending from the top of the plateau to the valley below.

In about half an hour we were out of the canyon, and the landscape around became different:

There was no sign of civilization apart from an occasional corral:

Despite the reddish volcanic soil, the vegetation was present here and there, and looked lush and exotic:

Our next destination was more than an hour drive away, in Árnessýsla upcountry. This is an area of intense agriculture.

Then we arrived at the place called Geysir. If the name sounds familiar, it is because the word geyser was derived from it. Geysir is famous for its geysers.