29.05.24 Vik i Myrdal - Kalfafell

A hard day. I thought I would have a good tailwind, but with the route turning north and northwest wind, I had two hours with pretty strong headwind, average of 10-11km/h. Exhausting. But also a day with lots of beautiful and/or interesting landscape. I guess headwind is in the DNA of Iceland, you just have to live with it - and I was prepared for that. 

It rained most of the night, but I slept well. Was in no hurry to get up with the rain; but then it stopped, and minutes later the sun appeared, and it turned into a beautiful morning. 

Early morning in the tent

The first hour was nice and easy with a fair tailwind. Beautiful landscape with green fields, deep blue rivers and steep cliffs behind. 

Then approaching the Myrdal glacier, and one of the rivers coming down form it. 

And then mainly scrub land with endless numbers of lupine. I was kind of frustrated but that - are they taking over everything - BUT

When I stopped at a resting site, there was interesting information both about the area and the lupine. I took pictures of the information boards, hope they are readable - enlarge. The short version: these are the "Myrdal sands", created by outbursts of the Katla volcano under the Myrdal glacier. Such an outburst creates enormous volumes of ice, ashes, lava etc. This ends up as a kind of desert. 

In the area there used to be regular sand storms, so bad that they needed to close the road. They found out that only a few plants can live under these conditions, lupine among them. Planting those eventually ended the sand storms. So lupine are not only bad - the world is more complicated than it seems, as usual. 

So after a couple of strenuous hours against the wind, the road turned northeast, and the wind got much better, but still somewhat against. And then: roadworks. 

I promise you, this is not nice with a bike with 25kg of luggage. 

Lava fields along the road, grown with mosses

After 70km I reached Kirkjubæjarklaustur (try to say that!). Could stay there or take another 25km - decided for the latter. More beautiful landscape. 

And exciting rock formations. 

Staying the night at Foss hotel Nupar - a little comfort after today's efforts. And shortly after I arrived, it started raining. Lucky with the weather today! 

Statistics:

96km, total time 7:45, active time 6:10, which gives a moving average of 15.6km/h. Total ascent 295m, net ascent 55m.