The wind makes or breaks you in Iceland. Yesterday I said there were no easy days here, today I reconsider. If there is little wind (exceptionally?) and what there is comes from behind, Iceland is not so different from Norway. Still quite cold for June though, 3-4 degrees maybe.
As indicated yesterday, I went for the secondary roads, 12km longer, slightly more ascent, but more quiet and arguably more beautiful.
The first 20 km are due North against a weak headwind, nothing serious. Many farms in this area, I saw mainly horses and also sheep.
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| Passing the charming small church at Reinistad |
Reinistad is a historical places with connections all the time back to the sagas.
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| One more picture especially for my old aunt |
Arriving in Saudarkrokur, a surprisingly large town (2600 inhabitants in 2019 according to Wikipedia). Best of all, an open gas station with coffee. Good to sit insight a warm room for a while.
Then starting up to today's first mountain pass at 230m. Not many signs of summer up there.
So down again, and continuing to the next at 320m. Before that, lunch.
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| Can't be too picky to find a lunch spot |
From there a steep but perfectly rideable ascent. The map indicated >10% slope, but it was not that steep.
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| Summit picture |
From there a long and easy descent. Gradually more farms, but the highest ones must have a pretty short summer, everything still brown.
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| View up the valley where I came down |
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| Finally stopped to take a picture of one of hese signs, you find them on each mountain pass (which doesn't need to be very high), and also some places along the fjords. Been closed a lot last week! |
Finally arriving in Blönduos where I booked a guesthouse again. Tent is not too tempting with this temperature + wind.
Statistics:
68km, total time 5:45, active time 4:15 which gives a moving average of 16.0km/h. Total ascent 555m, net descent 55m.
An observation: there seem to be more Teslas here than any country I have been, apart from Norway. Checking this - indeed, Iceland has the second highest EV share in Europe!
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