I came too early

I'm sorry it has been so long since my last entry but since arriving in Iceland there hasn't been a tree to rest my bike against let alone an Internet connection.

This tree exaggeration (not) is a great summary for my experiences in Iceland. “Lost in Iceland” seems to be the advertising slogan used everywhere for promoting the country, t-shirts, book covers and postcards are adorned with the slogan, along with some windswept blond girl up a mountain, a glacier or fording a river.

Iceland is wonderfully empty of everything I have become familiar and comfortable with over recent years; people, cars, shops, roads and of course trees. It does however have the most incredible waterfalls, glaciers, volcanoes, mountains, geysers and vast rocky deserts. Oh and did I mention the sheep (even more ugly and stupid than the ones at home, if that is possible?)

I arrived in Iceland by way of the eastern seaport of Seydisfjordour, at the end of a long fjord, surrounded by snowcapped mountains and topped off with a biting cold wind. From the bow deck, all sorts of anxious thoughts about what lay ahead filled my mind, mainly concerning the weather, did I have enough warm clothes to take on an early spring in Iceland?

I had a short day planned to the only main town on the eastern side of the country, Egilsstadir. Iceland is about half the size of the UK and has about 300,000 inhabitants and just under 200,000 of them live in the Reykjavik area, so there is not much around on this eastern coast – as I was about to find out.

1st off the boat again and this time I was stopped by a customs official asking if I was importing wine, beer or spirits. I looked at my trailer and then back at him and smiled, I had second thoughts about a dry English humored wise crack about how I had heard the Iceland grog is so bad, I bought a case of Theakstons and bottle of Fernet Branca with me for medicinal purposes! He didn't look in great humor, with his bushy handlebar mustache all he needed was a helmet with horns and my images of Vikings axing and pillaging the tourists would have been complete.

Straight off the boat the hill climb was immediate and quad killing. No warm up – just 1:45min of pure climb in the lowest gear I had. After 2 days off I was annoyed that I found it so hard. I kept looking behind me to see if the other cyclists were catching me up but there was no-one. I later found out that amongst Touring Cyclists the hill climb is legendary!

At the summit I was hit in the face, full on with a blizzard, nearly a white out and I had to put on most of my clothes, but stopping for even a few minutes just made me even colder. Finally I started the descent, a fabulous 8km run all the way into town to a coffee shop and supermarket where I needed to stock up for a few days worth of food.

I met Andreas after I had done the shopping, a German cyclist, here for 5 weeks, we agreed to cycle together for a few days, as there was absolutely nothing between this town and the next Myvatn, 160km away (or 2 days riding) and this would be safer for both of us.