hour later, headed off. The ride to Keflavik
was very easy and quite warm. I wandered around town until I found the camping
ground. It happened to be next to a supermarket so I did some shopping first.| Riding, Km | 6.9 | Total Km | 6.9 |
| Altitude, m | 0 | Altitude, m | 0 |
| Average, kph | 27 | Max, kph | 39.5 |
Accommodation in Amsterdam is very expensive so I stayed at the Youth Hostel in Wandelpark, even it was 34.50G per night but it does include an all you can eat breakfast. I lolled in bed until almost 8 am before going down for breakfast. I had a huge meal, of course, cereal, toast and orange juice, and then packed and headed out to the airport, Schipol. At the airport I had quite a while so I checked in all my gear, with out any problems I might add, even though I had 35Kgs of gear, 6Kg being the KLM bike box. Then I wandered around the airport for a while. It is quite a nice airport outside, plenty of shops and things to look at, even a supermarket. I bought lunch at Burger King (they take credit cards!) and spent the remainder of my Guilders on Belgian chocolates, hmm.
One thing to avoid doing is going through passport control too early, there is nothing to do on the other side and, basically, it stinks. With nothing to do many people smoke, the airport has smoking areas all through it, but no special ventilation to get rid of the smell. It's the first thing you notice when you get off a plane at Schipol, yuck.
Anyway, it was finally time to board so I went through passport control and immediately boarded the plane. Surprisingly the plane was full, and after a long delay we finally set off. I was lucky enough to have a window seat and had hoped to see some of Scotland as we flew over it, but unfortunately it was cloudy almost all the way to Iceland. However it did clear up just as we were coming into Keflavik. The landscape was very stark, large lava plains, very desolate looking.
Once we landed there was usual rush to get the bike, repack everything and
get out. Another big mistake was forgetting to buy film before coming to
Iceland, very expensive here. Once everything was done I got some money out of
the auto-teller and finally, one hour later, headed off. The ride to Keflavik
was very easy and quite warm. I wandered around town until I found the camping
ground. It happened to be next to a supermarket so I did some shopping first.
The camping ground is just a large grassy field, freshly mown, and windy. When you go to a camping ground in Iceland you get one of these stickers/labels which you need to a fix to your tent somehow. It shows where you stayed, and when you are paid up until. You can create a collection of these as you travel around Iceland. This camp ground is a really good place to stop the first night. I talked for quite a while to a German cyclist who had just finished five weeks of cycling, he had been all the way around Iceland. There is a central hut which is fully heated where you can eat dinner, it is also a place where people leaving drop of stuff they don't want to take home with them. If you use a Trangia stove this is a good place to get some free methylated spirits (red spirits).
After dinner I went for a walk around the town, it doesn't get fully dark of course. It is rather stark and bare, there are lots of Americans driving about, presumably from the NATO base. Many of them have brought their cars with them from the US. After the walk it was off to bed, not the easiest to do, it was only 13C outside but the sun was on my tent and it was 20C inside.