Planless on Iceland

[pip_muenster]

The previous evening we'd been drinking some whiskey and exchanged stories and road tips with a group of bicyclists, while the hut was decorated all over with wet socks, shirts, tents and so on. They had brought three specially designed bikes with the widest tires I'd ever seen and an inflatable float lashed to each handlebar.

Our gas situation and the maps revealed 3 options:

• a shortcut to the 35, where a gas station was indicated on the map,
• the F752 to Vidimyri near the begin of road 35,
• the F821 back to Akureyri.

The bicyclist had taken the shortcut from the 35 and mentioned a water crossing with at least 1.8m depth (more than a paddle's length) - just exceeding my snorkel's limitations, so we tried the F752. The first water crossing came after a few kilometers. It was glacial water and the boiling water indicated lots of rocks underneath the surface.
This meant, Maddin wouldn't be able to ride through as he could hit a rock at any time. As he couldn't reach the ground with his feet sitting on the tall Tenere, he would actually have to push the bike through - a guarantee to get wet. Since I still had wet boots from yesterday, we decided to go back to Akureyri. No need to get ill again.

We only stopped for gas, as we'd seen this town a bit too often.


My GPS track for Akureyri ...

There were some German bikes at the gas station: a couple of old MZ 250's. These were old two-stroke bikes build in the former German Democratic Republic and at that time everything a biker could dream of in eastern Germany. (A couple of weeks later I should meet a guy who was able to tell the year of the bike on the photo just by the look of its foot peg. There were not many other bikes available, so they knew basically everything about these ones.)


MZ on Iceland

The next day we should see the couple on the MZs again under less fortunate circumstances, as one of them was following an ambulance. Other bikers we met told about a crash where a bike had fallen down a steep edge. I don't know them but would love to hear about the hopefully positive outcome of that story. So, if anyone knows these guys, please send me a PM or post it here. Thanks!

There was also a couple two-up on a heavy loaded Africa Twin. They even had a bag strapped underneath their panniers ...


Another Africa Twin

Anyway, we left the town quickly and headed west on the ring road. We'd been in touch with Benni and Ernst and they had experienced the worst weather with storms, heavy rain - and no end in sight. The forecast for the west fjords however was bright sunshine!

The weather on the ring road changed between rain and sun after each crest. We stopped for a burger and looked back at where he'd been coming from:


Frequent weather changes in the north

That house under the rainbow was a camp site, should that tell us something? We turned around and checked in.


No Iceland report without horses