Iceland 2/2

Iceland - part 2

13. 6. 2017 - 22. 6. 2017   650km

After few passing days when the weather was staying on our side we felt encouraged and were silently playing with thoughts that we could have actually biked around the whole Iceland. But it was not worthy to play the heroes. It could have revenged us after all. We rather chose the variant of return back on the
same old road. We variegated our way with a new game we called “Hide and seek with Rosa”. We tried to find the most hidden spots for sleepover which was quite funny due to the flat lava fields all around. Fortunately the lava brash was changing with lava stones overgrown with a high layers of moss. We
could have easily hid behind them and it was even a very soft sleeping.

The reasonable weather didn’t last for long of course. Smart that we changed our mind with the biking all over the Iceland, that would have been a silly idea. The temperature dropped down to 10°C, it started to drizzle and the wind was showing its power again. We just managed to arrive to a little town called
Vik before a real hell started. It was blowing so much that even walking was almost impossible. Drizzle was replaced by a heavy rain and everything got covered under a white fog. We hid in a camping place quickly and were thinking what to do next. Eventually we decided to stay there because there were several nice places nearby which we wanted to check. However building a tent in these windy conditions was a pretty stumper. Two pair of hands were almost not enough and Kata got slapped by a top tent sheet. We were holed up in a well stabled tent so we could have laughed to the wind and we didn’t even
went out to go to the toilet. The fact that we built our tent on the worst spot possible was found out just the next day morning. There was a pit under us full flooded with water which was soaking through to the inside. That was the revenge for the laughter. Around noon it stopped raining, the fog ebbed away a
bit so we could have finally continued to bike further. There was the Dyrhólaey Cape expecting us, famous for its whinstone rock gate and a black beach. Nevertheless the appearance of a fine mist above us it was an eye candies. Our technology had a different opinion so it didn’t show up that well in pictures.

Till our departure to Oslo there was still a few days remaining so we decided to visit Thingvellir the National Park which takes place on boundary of tectonic plates and also it’s important from the historical point of view. Between 930 – 1798 the general meetings were taking place in there. Those meetings were fully cancelled in 1801. However together with the Gullfos waterfall and the gusher it belongs to the “golden circle”, places which shouldn’t be missed by every visitor of Iceland. We personally weren’t very charmed by the park. Except of steep hills and poor quality paths we didn’t notice anything significant. We still had a lot of time, we set up further to north through mountains then. We regretted this decision a bit lately. Shoddy roads changed to gravel on which biking was as hard that our butts cried. All around just a depressive dark landscape. And when even the Icelandic popular trio “Cold- Wind- Rain” joined, we were like “kill us now”. But there was no way back. We were drudging further until we got from those ends of the world back to the civilization. The award for us was the view at the fiord Borgarfjörđur and even more beautiful one - Hvalfjörđur. Through this one there is a tunnel leading all the way to Reykjavik but only cars are allowed to use it. We had to bike all over it to get to the capital city.

Comparing to rest of the Iceland Raykjavik is just a busy city, even that it’s much smaller than other capital cities. One of the main dominant was the beautiful church Hallgrímskirkja with huge pipe organ. Unfortunately it was hidden behind scaffold because it was under reconstruction. There are many
various museums in the city, an interesting concert hall and many other stuff. Our interest was caught by a thermal beach by the shores of Atlantic Ocean which is washing its banks and which is not ideal for swimming due to its very low temperature. Icelanders used the thermal springs for heating a part of the
Ocean up so they can have a summer bath in it and they really did in the 11°C.
We slowly reached the airport and said good bye to this unique but harsh country. Hopefully we will return one day to see places we didn’t managed now but we’re sure already that we won’t return on bikes.