Day 2

Keflavik to Strandarkirkja

After a rather restless night, it never got dark, I got up just before eight. I packed up straight away and then had breakfast in the warmth of the hut. Bread and jam, a biscuit and water, hmm! It was quite cold outside, 12C, with a stiff wind blowing from the east. Guess which direction I was heading in.

I headed off planning to take a road to the west and around the south west tip of the peninsula I was on. Of course I missed the turn and so ended up heading further east before turning south towards Grindavik. The landscape here was amazingly stark, the photo from the first page was taken along this stretch of road, only 30km's from the camp site. The photo came out too dark but in the middle is a burst lava bubble, it was very impressive at the time. The road is reasonably good quality but the wind was quite noticeable, at times my speed was dropping as low as 13kph. However all the training in the Pyrenees must have helped because I didn't find it tiring at all.

Just outside of Grindavik is the Blue Lagoon, a huge thermal lagoon which many people come to in order to soak in the waters. Of course when I got there it was closed, too early (opening hours are 10-21). So I rode on to Grindavik where I bought something to eat. I debated for a while whether to go back to Blue Lagoon or not but in the end decided it would be a good idea, and it was too!

I headed back, there was already a tourist bus there, and headed in. A shower prior to entering the lagoon is mandatory, as it is at all pools in Iceland. Then into the water, it was lovely, very warm, up to 43C in some parts of the lagoon. The bottom of the lagoon is lumpy but the surface is very smooth, all the silicates from the water I assume. Lots of fat tourists and some people with terrible looking skin problems.

Feeling fully refreshed I had another shower and then ground my way back to Grindavik. I got some more food and this time stopped at the camping ground to eat it. The next big question was should I ride on or stop here for the night? I hadn't ridden very far and was still feeling good so I decided to go on, after all what else would I do for the next 12 hours?

The road ahead was gravel and would be my first encounter with a real Icelandic road. Just before I started on to the road I met up with  group of Dutch guys on mountain bikes. They all looked very tired and were incredibly dubious of my chances of completing the road ahead on my 25mm road tires. I decided to press on, couldn't turn back now could I? I started on the gravel road straight away and began to realize that they might be right. However there was a more immediate problem, one which recurred repeatedly during the trip, Arctic Terns. These bloody birds live near water, the ocean in this case, and they are very territorial, i.e. they swoop endlessly. I truly grew to hate these birds during my trip. Fortunately they were only in one small area before the road turned inland a tad and they stopped swooping. After this began what was probably the worst section of road that I did during my entire trip. And just to get me into the mood was a fairly long climb with very little traction. As you can tell from the photo I was pretty tired after the climb.

Once I finally got to the top, and took the photo, I had to decide whether to go on or not. The main reason not to go back was those bloody birds, and of course admitting defeat in the first two kilometers seemed a bit wussy. In the end I decided to go on, which took me on to another very bad piece of road, the descent. However I survived that and continued on. After a while a finally started to get the hang of when to ride, when to coast and when to walk. Fortunately walking wasn't required all that often and I began to enjoy the solitude of the ride. I had planned to ride to Krustivik but somehow managed to miss the turn for that, not the best of navigational days for me, so I just kept on going. The road was very quiet and I stopped occasionally for a biscuit and whenever a car came by, the road was not too wide. One of the cars stopped to make sure I was okay and they wondered where I was going. I said I didn't know, East somewhere. They looked at each, shrugged and wished me well:)

I had been making fairly bad time, around 10kph, when I came across a section of sealed road. It looked like a flood plain so I guess that is why the road was sealed. After that I had another long section of gravel, it had some rougher, more corrigated sections of road, but in general it was not as bad as before, also the wind had died off a bit so I was able to ride much faster, an average of 13kph. The scenery here was pretty stunning, huge towering cliffs of black lava, lava flows heading off in all directions and lots of bright red lava too.

I eventually came to the "town" of Strandarkirkja, which had a quaint little camping ground, the hut in the picture is all there is to it! It is basically a coffee shop that has a grass field out the back where you can pitch a tent. The lady in charge didn't speak a word of English but she did have an electronic cash register and all the signs were in several languages, so there was no problem resolving all the minor details. It was fairly cold outside so I spent a long time in the hut before venturing out, a mandatory hot chocolate to try and warm up.

I set up the tent and then had a shower. It was a really, great shower. Really. After that I decided to walk to the church that is the name sake of the town (village?). Unfortunately it was by the sea, I'd forgotten what that meant. Yes those bloody birds. Even the locals get swooped by them. I managed to evade them by going down to the beach and sitting for a while. There were lots of ducks with ducklings and some swans. Eventually I had to head back to the tent, and past all those bloody birds:(

Back at the tent I had a lovely dinner of cold baked beans. Yes I know I said you could get Kerosene at the camping ground in Keflavik, however I worked that out when I got back there, not when I left there. Oh well. I also had a tin of peaches for dessert, not too bad a dinner all told. To finish off though I needed something warmer, so I went back to the coffee shop and had another hot chocolate, only $4.40 each and cheap at that! While I was there I signed the visitors book, there are several books and they go back a long way, with visitors from all over the world. Germany, the Netherlands, the U.S., Canada, England and even ones from Israel and Australia! The owner gave me a free pancake and I showed her my intended trip  before heading off to bed.

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