Day 4: Húsafell Valley to Somewhere-on-Rt-60
Day 5: Somewhere-on-Rt-60 to Bodadalur
The aim of day four was two-fold. First, to make a good distance to Bodadalur, where we would finally be able to find a supermarket. Second, to avoid cycling on Rt 1, the busy ring road.
After a bit of a leisurely morning, we continued alongside the river where we had camped. We appreciated that the road was smooth, and that we didn't have a headwind. It was also quite pretty.
We stopped at another waterfall, and then around lunchtime (which we ate outside a very small church, which we calculated would seat around 30 people), turned off onto dirt for a long "shortcut" that would largely bypass Rt 1. This was a really excellent decision, the reasons for which will follow.
First, it was excellent riding on empty dirt roads, through rugged hills.
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| We had this section of dirt all to ourselves. Clearly Postyn took this photo... |
Second, we passed a cool section of "organpipes," a type of hexagonal volcanic rock which forms naturally in some places. We spent some time messing around on them, wishing we could climb them.
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| Perfect hand-sized crack. Just a bit green. |
Third, as we emerged from the hills, we spotted a house. Said house appeared to be empty, and had a hot tub out back. On an impulse, I jumped off the bike, and put my hand to the side of the tub -- it was hot. The house was empty (unfurnished) but since heat and electricity are basically free in Iceland, due to abundant geothermal resources, no-one had bothered to turn the hot tub off! So we stripped ourselves and the cover from the tub and spent almost an hour in somebody's hot tub. Such a luxury to be warm and relaxed.
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| There are other, more revealing versions of this photo, but I will keep things PG. |
We hit Rt 1 in the early evening, and went a mile or two along it before turning off, uphill, onto route 60. We offered a ride to two hitchhikers, but they turned us down. Instead we continued climbing looking for water and a spot to camp. Both were in scarce supply as the river in the valley was well below the road, with very steep banks. And both sides of the road were fenced off, meaning no (legal) wild camping. Eventually we were able to get down to the river where a smaller stream converged, and then just above there, found a secluded spot to camp, in our very own glacial valley!
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| Postyn down in the river taking artsy photos |
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| Like this |
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| But more like this |
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| Nothing like a private glacial valley for your campsite |
On the morning of day 5 we continued climbing up Rt 60, into the clouds. We then had a nice long descent, at the bottom of which we stopped for a snack, and consumed the last of our food. Here is Postyn describing what we had (turn your volume up):
Transcript: Free range granola [what the container said]: corn-nuts, sunflower seeds, almonds, Wasa [cracker] dust, granola dust, did I say dried cranberries? All it's missing is some olive oil [the only other food item we had left!]
We then proceeded to Bodadalur, and successfully shopped for another 4 days of food. However, Bodadalur, despite being one of the main population centers in the area, only had one smallish food shop. Prices were about 25% higher than in Reykjavik, and nowhere in town had stove fuel, which we were running out of, but we had no choice but to continue with what we had.
For lunch, at this point quite late in the afternoon, we were ravenous. We made an incredibly weird rendition of the english classic baked beans, cheese and eggs on toast. The toast was just bread, and we cooked the eggs simply by mixing them with the several cans of beans, and then heating. Unfortunately, this meant we had no way of telling if they were cooked. And the entire concoction was quite mealy. It in fact tasted very strange. With copious amounts of cheese melted in, and bread to eat it with, it was palatable, but not much more than that. It took us many bites to realize that the mixture looked and tasted similar to mashed sweet potato. Not very tasty mashed sweet potato.
We headed back the way we had come for a few miles, before heading off west onto the north coast of Snaefell peninsula, where we found a nice campsite by a gently flowing river. We spent the evening fixing my bottom bracket again (yes, it had worked its way loose again, after only a couple of days!) and skipping stones. As a result of overly enthusiastic skipping, we had a sore shoulder each for the rest of the trip. Whoops. We had a light dinner of bouillon cube soup as we were still in recovery from our huge, late lunch.
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| Dental hygiene and a hint of color at sunset (Photo courtesy of Postyn) |
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