All photos now updated!

I have spent lots of time sorting the 500 photos I took on the UK, Faroes and Iceland cycle tour. These have been greatly reduced and are now available for your viewing pleasure.

Click Mr. Puffin here to view the Best of the Faroe Islands (by the way this isn't the Puffin I ate, that was a different one!)

Click on the photo of Langjokull Glacier to see the Best of Iceland

Well I made it......

1200 miles in 30 days - Bakewell to Reykjavik, this part of the tour is now over and I feel a bit flat for having arrived in such a big city (compared to what I have been used to this last 30 days!)

The last 20kms into Reykjavik were fantastic, I managed to find quiet cycle tracks through countless fields of lupins, these wild flowers smell amazingly fragrent and the perfume has been with me the whole trip - in fact one of my strongest memories of Iceland will be the smell of the purple Lupins.

I have made the crossing much quicker than I had anticipated, a combination of better weather, 10kms to 20kms a day more than I planned and I only took 1 rest day in the last 13. So what to do now? I will admit to letting my mind drift to the next part of my tour - the Greenland Icecap crossing, and I am a bit nervous to say the least. So I checked out the incoming weather and it seemed to spell an end to the great weather of the last 2 weeks. I also managed to arrange an early flight out, back home.

So I spent the day doing the tourist thing in the Capital, but I was distraught at how expensive everything was - I wont go into it here as I'll be blamed for exaggerating (ME! Never!) but I saved money by leaving early!

And all of a sudden I am back on the South Coast of the UK and a few days earlier I had been in the desert - a bit strange really, but I have much to do to prepare for a month on the ice so I wont let it get to me.

I am sure I will have reflections to post when I have settled, but I have much tyre towing along the local beach to get into training for Greenland - so I wont have much time for navel gazing!

Hitting the wall

Towards the end of the last day cycling out of the desert I had cycled more or less non stop for 6 hours. I had had a break at Gulfoss to see the huge waterfall, but I couldn't cope with the crowds of tourists and over priced coffee and Maple Pecan lattices. I had another quick stop further down the road at Geyser to see the famous 100 degree centigrade water spout, again too many people after my days alone in the desert and it wasn't great weather so the natural wonders seemed a bit sterile. I pushed on to Langvatn - a lake I planned to stop at for the evening and would have given me a 100km day.

At around the 90km mark, I just collapsed and fell off my bike, I had a few seconds warning of being very dizzy and feeling a bit nauseous, but the bike just stopped and fortunately I fell into the grassy verge. I just lay there for a few moments wondering what happened. I was still clipped into my pedals and the bike and trailer were still attached. After a very inelegant detachment, I composed myself and began a regimented process of eating and drinking. Within half an hour I was feeling better and managed to limp into town to find real sustenance and a campsite for the night.

The evening was stunning and I was feeling much better after a coffee and a hot dog (you can't buy much else here by way of fast food!) and thought rather than camp here, I would push on the extra 24kms to Pingvellir, Icelands most important historical and geological place.

At the top of a very steep pass, an American tourist stopped in his car and wished me luck on my journey and gave me a cold beer to drink when I reached the top, as he warned me it was very, very steep. Once at the summit I realised I had cycled a 20% gradient hill with my trailer, which for me was a great achievement - although my knees were not happy about the situation.

Pingvellir is the cultural home and birthplace of the modern Icelandic nation. On 17 June 1994 around a quarter of the Icelandic population, assembled at Pingvellir to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Icelandic Republic. The area is also famous for the Alpingi (the ancient high court and assembly of Iceland, which is also the name of Iceland's Parliament today) and is a national symbol for Icelanders, utilized to celebrate what the nation deems it has in common, while at the same time demarcating Icelanders' difference from other groups; that is, Pingvellir defines what sets Icelanders apart from "others," us from them.

Geologically this place is also very special as it is here where you can stand in the middle of two continental tectonic plates, one side is Europe and the other America - and they get about 5cm further apart each year. I spent the night here and enjoyed the peace and quiet as tomorrow I would reach the Nations Capital, Reykjavik.

Only in prolonged silence can you really hear yourself think

The central desert of this country is magnificent. Quiet, empty, moon like and very peaceful. It took me 3 days to cross it and other than a few passing cars I have seen no-one and spoken to no-one in that time - the silence has been incredible.

Rolling and undulating hills, glaciers, lakes and of course lots of sand and boulders. I have had all the weather imaginable, the most extreme being a sandstorm that I cycled into head on for 3 hours. I had to tape plastic bags to all the exposed parts of the front of my bike to ensure the paint wasn't stripped off. I wore a bandanna around my face to stop me from swallowing sand, but after an hour the lenses of my sun glasses were completely sandblasted and useless.

The first night I didn't stop until after 1am and cycled through a torrential downpour and sought shelter in an Emergency Hut on the side of the track. A 2 roomed affair with a simple bunk to lay my head. At least it was a place to dry off out of the wind and rain.

The road for the first day was a smooth gravel track and I made good progress, the 2nd day however the road deteriorated to a track that would switch from soft sand to large rocks, which is impossible to cycle through and therefore, I would either push or carry my bike (which meant un-hitching the trailer.) This type of terrain called for absolute concentration for every meter of travel and therefore I was lucky to average 4 mph.

The end of the 2nd night I wild camped by Hvita lake. A gorgeous evening with sun setting behind Langjokull Glacier, the wind had died down early and so the air was still and silent. I could hear the glacier cracking and groaning as it moved. I was enjoying being completely alone with my myself and my thoughts. I was no longer feeling any pain on the bike and now considered an 8 hour ride wasn't enough, as I didn't feel tired anymore at the end of the day.

The hour or so that I had looking out over the water and snow capped mountains was for me a very spiritual one - I reflected on how far I had come both in terms of distance but I also felt a much stronger person - I had pushed myself physically and therefore mentally far more than I had ever done in my life. Everyday I had moments when I had to overcome a problem I had not anticipated and everyday I had "short cuts" or "easy way outs" presented to me and I never took them. When I was feeling tired or in pain, I always pushed myself that little bit harder before I took a break or rested, I always took a break at the top of the next pass or mountain and never at the bottom.

That day I had passed the 1000 mile mark and was feeling very pleased with myself and for the first time content that I was alone experiencing this journey - I had grown used to my own company and became annoyed when surrounded by too many people.

I know that if you had plonked me down in the same amazing spot as I'm in now, but from a helicopter or car, without experiencing anything of what I had done over the last month - the moment wouldn't feel as special as it does now. I also knew I had to savour the moment and enjoy the cycle ride out of the desert tomorrow, as there were going to be a lot more people and the end would come to this simple solitude.

Icelands Central Desert

Gravel, sand, boulders, lakes (so many of them, they have never been counted.) Volcanoes, thermal pools, geysers and of course glaciers and ice caps - this desert accounts for 2 thirds of Icelands land mass and is completely unfit for habitation. I've cycled 130km to reach the start of the Kjolur route in the 24 hours and as the tarmac changes to a gravel road I am excited about what is to come.

This for me, is expected to be the highlight of this part of the journey and a good test of my endurance, fitness, survival skills and my planning thus far. No food or real shelter now for 3 days or so, and I should be prepared for snow, rain, wind, sand storms and baking sunshine. Aswell as a rough road and very few people, I should also be experiencing solitude, glorious raw scenery and clean crisp air.

Fixing a puncture in the desert.

The Jewel of the North

I am in awe of the determined cycling souls I have met so far, a Belgian who has been on the road for 3 years now, a 67 year old German who does a 3000 km tour each year - all have tremendous stories of their travels and listening and learning from them is true highlight of this trip. I get the feeling I'm not going to meet too many locals here in Iceland (there are not many of them around!) so I am trying to get the most from the other travellers I meet.

I am starting to look a bit gaunt and ragged now, I have slept in a tent now for 6 days and haven't shaved for nearly a month and I only have one set of clothes that I use for best occasions, and they are starting to look somewhat ragged, I have a tear in my best trousers that is patched with Gaffa tape on the inside, when I was in Aberdeen the beggars on the street and the Big Issue man never asked me for a penny!

After a another long day in the saddle (I am managing 100kms now without too much problem, a consequence of increased fitness and finding a new slower pace) I arrive in Akureryi, Icelands 2nd largest city and home to about 15,000 people (yes that is only fifteen thousand!). Only this weekend, Iceland's equivalent to a May Bank Holiday all of Icelands Boy Racers seem to be in town and have been told there are over 30,000 just here for the festivities. The last 3 kms into town I am passed by every modified Camaro, BMW and Dodge you could imagine. Sporting a variety of over the top modifications, all have the trade mark drain pipe exhausts and blaring bass retarded sound systems - just like the Kings Road on a Saturday evening. Once of the main roads is sectioned off for an organised drag race where male (and female) testosterone compete to see who can make the loudest noise and reach the end of the kilometer track and brake before shooting off the end of the pier into the Arctic Ocean.

Not wanting to do anyone an injustice and certainly not wanting to compare the UK to Iceland but as in the Faroes, Iceland seems to have a bit of a problem with alcohol. Lots of teenagers strolling the streets with bottles of spirits, beer and alco-pops. Everyone at the tables around me in the local alfresco cafe have a large glass of beer and a few shot glasses filled with the local Brenevin. This is Icelandic schnapps, and in my opinion tastes fermented seals blood over here they call it the Black Death. It might have just been this holiday weekend, but the whole atmosphere was like the pub district in central Liverpool on a Saturday night, but the Icelandic girls wore more clothes.

I was sat having a quiet but very expensive beer (over £5 a pint), watching all the boy racers cruise up and down the strip, when suddenly from the passenger window in a pimped up Mercedes, a bottle of orange Fanta flew through the air, hit me on the side of the head and then knocked over my beer. I was up out of my seat in a flash, and ran towards the car and without really stopping to think, I shoved the bottle up the exhaust pipe, it was the diameter of the channel tunnel so slid up easily. I got a cheer from the other drinkers at the bar, then the driver revved his engine and the car stalled - another cheer from the crowd. I thought this would be a good time to make myself scarce and so disappeared into the crowd.

Myvatn (Midge Lake)

We meet up with another cyclist the next day who was struggling with a sore knee, so bad in fact that he is pushing his bike when we pass him. It is 40kms to the next town so I take turns with my new cycling partner to tow him with the aid of a rope and karibiner. This puts added stress on our sore knees but we take it easy. As we haven't seen a car for a few hours, we decided this is the best thing to do. It is pretty big ego thing to accept this type of help from another cyclist, suffering through the pain and coping with all that is thrown at you is part of the journey and adds to the experience.

The Myvatn lake area is one of the highlights of the Iceland, a huge lake in the north of the country formed thousands of years ago by a volcanic eruption. The surrounding area has lots of geothermal activity, the Krafla crater is nearby and last erupted in 1984, so you can imagine the place is pretty active - one gets the feeling that something could blow at any moment.

Unfortunately Myvatn translated means 'Midge Lake' and the flies here are incredible, they don't bite but there are literally millions of them and they wont leave you alone, you have to wear a netmask constantly, well you do if you are clever and read up on the place before hand but if you are like my antipodean friends who just 'turned up' un-prepared then you can't really sit outside unless you protect your exposed skin.

Being so charitable yesterday, I wasn't able to visit the Dettifoss waterfall and Asbygi canyon, so rather than backtrack on the bike the 80km round trip, I hired a car for the day and did some tourist sight seeing. I found a few other injured cyclists in the campsite (out of 15 tents here, 10 belong to touring cyclists) who helped cover the cost and we sped off in our Yaris upgrade - a Toyota Landcruiser. In Iceland the 4X4 is king and when you stray off the main No 1. ring road all the roads are gravel and small cars can't really handle them.

As we left the campsite, we started to pass the other less hardy cyclists from the boat, that had taken their time. Jake the Aussie from London, who arrived in Iceland not having ridden a bike for 10 years let alone carry 30 kilos of weight, sported a spanking brand new bike and all the gear. To achieve the same daily distance as us in an 8 hour day he would take 13 hours! I offered him a lift as it was now deluging with rain and he was stopped on the side of the road, sodden making a brew. He was in high spirits and we chatted about where he had made camp the night before and he was glad to hear that the campsite we were all staying in was not too far along the road. I had a lot of respect for him for pushing on in the weather, the other cyclists that I was chauffeur to, helped him with some repairs on his bike, as he really had no idea how to even oil his chain!

Half an hour later we passed another tourer, a retired German who had already cycled 3000 km before he had reached Iceland. He was pushing hard over the loose gravel road, the surface had become so bumpy that it had a corrugated iron effect, the water was tumbling off the front of his baseball cap, like the Dettifoss waterfall we were about to visit. He was again in high spirits and didn't want a lift or to shelter from the rain, he had been though, caught out by the massive distance between civilised townships and so was running low on food - we all gave over our packed lunches for the day.

Blasting over the rough roads through the desert in the pouring rain in a Landcruiser, handing out aid packages to other cyclists, I thought we were part of some UN cyclists peace mission. I was struck by how much camaraderie there is on the road amongst long distance touring cyclists and how easy it is to strike up good friendships that seem to be at one moment as if they had been formed for years and then the next, they are gone - suddenly you reach a fork in the road and you both have different routes and agendas, and its goodbye. I felt very fortunate to be a part of this fraternity.

It was sad to say goodbye to Andreas and Clements (my German and Austrian friends) we had been inseparable for the last few days, but they both had more time to explore this wild and breathtaking country and I was on a mission to be one of the first cyclists to make the crossing of the central desert for the year, I was told that the route had only just been cleared of snow and so had to get moving.

Day 25 - The longest day so far

After cycling alone for so long, it is great to have some company for a few days, especially a Touring Cyclist as experienced as Andreas. He has major 'coast-to-coasts' under his belt, a crossing of the US and Australia, he knows a lot about endurance, pace and the mental and physical aspects of long distance riding – I ask him questions constantly and the time disappears. The head wind picks up and we take turns in drafting to save out legs.

We pull our first 110km day, the longest of my trip so far, when we stop we are tired, sore and dusty from the day. A welcome stop at a remote farmstead where an old woman serves us smoked salmon (Lax) with home made flat bread, Eider goose eggs and my first taste of the eponymous Skyr (a National institution, a yogurt like desert made with soured cream.) She even lets us shower before dinner!

Looking forward to a supermarket and civilisation tomorrow as well as a rest day.

Wild camping

Just pitching a tent in the middle of nowhere next to a complete stranger is not something I do often in life, but camping wild is a wonderful experience. The peace and quite is incredible.

It is a wonderful evening, 20 something hours of sunshine and daylight the whole day. Clear days though often lead to clear and somewhat cold nights. I woke up to ice on the inside of the tent, and made a mental note to leave a flap open the next night to lessen the condensation build up.

When I said in my last blog that there was nothing for a 160kms, there was a petrol station, but not of the Wild Bean Cafe variety, just a shed and pump and no-one in attendance. So you really have to carry everything with you on your bike, all of the time, except for water – which is in abundance everywhere and very safe to drink.

Iceland sits amid the mid Atlantic ridge, the great undersea gash that separates the American and European continental tectonic plates. This means that the whole country is pretty raw and jagged, and looks as though it has just been made, infact it grows a couple of centimeters each each as the plates spread. There are volcanoes everywhere, some active and some dormant, not a day goes by when you don't see some steam rising from the earth. Iceland also has the most glaciers outside of Antarctica and Greenland – combine these two elements, heat and ice and you get a truly powerful landscape.

Iceland is also famous for its deserts, one in the north-east and one large one in the centre. I have just passed through the remote barren region of the north-east. It is what I would imagine the surface of the moon to look like. Dust, rocks, sand, mountains and craters. Everything is black, brown or grey. In the 12 hours it took to cross, we saw 5 cars, other than this we saw no-one (not even a tree to rest out bikes against!) This vast and empty landscape is truly humbling to experience, I read on a Tourist Information plaque the next day, that NASA had used the area to test the moon buggies for the Apollo lunar missions!

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.

The slow boat to Iceland

I´m quite excited to be back aboard the Norrona, it has come from Hanstholm, stopped in Bergen, Lerwick and now here in Torshavn on the Faroes (Torshavn means "Thor´s Harbour" just in case we forget that we are in Nordicsville, culturally the whole area that I am exploring Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes is known as West Norden.)

I managed to get my bike on the boat without paying the hefty excess and parked it next to 10 other fully laden touring bicycles, all with multicoloured panniers adorning their frames. I´ve not seen fellow touring bikers since I started this trip so I am a bit shocked and somewhat annoyed, as I was getting used to the idea that I was the only one mad enough to cycle up here this early in the season.

As I tie up the bike, a memory from childhood returns to me. I am listening to the Shipping News with my dad late one night and I hear for the first time the countries of Iceland and the Faroes, as shipping zones for the weather forecast. South East Iceland and the Faroes are usually the last 2 to be reported and always seemed to be at the high end of the Beaufort Scale with stormy seas. I put a few extra turns on my rope, ensuring my trusty steed has a safe bed for the night.

I take my bag and go in search of my couchette in the bowels of the boat. As I descend deeper and deeper below the water line, I can hear and smell the engines. The door to my cabin is like those swing doors to a saloon in a Western movie, in side there are 9 bunk beds stacked to the roof in sets of three. I lie on mine and find that I cannot turn over on my side as the bed above me is too close. Also there are 3 people already asleep in their bunks at 6pm and the stink of cheap Vodka and beer is already strong. It is a 3 day voyage from Denmark and maybe these pour souls have had to drown their sorrows from being stuck down here every night. I am not happy about the sleeping arrangements and go to see if I can upgrade or at least pitch my tent on deck.

After a few beers myself (at over five quid a piece!) and a hearty meal in the restaurant, I make it down to my berth collect my stuff and head back up to the upper decks in search of somewhere more roomy to sleep.

I am now in the lounge, all is quiet and I have found a nest in the children's play pen in amongst the a load of plastic balls. You know those cages that kids jump around in, filled with thousands of multicoloured small plastic balls. It is so comfortable in here it is incredible. I had to crawl through a rubber castle gate small enough for a 5 year old, across a rope bridge, through the main castle, over a draw bridge and then descend a small slide (which I think I broke!) to get into the ocean of balls.

I had a fabulous nights sleep, glad I didn´t need a pee though as there was a jungle assault course to get over to get out.

The fog horn sounded at 8am, we had an hour before docking in Iceland. I crawled out of my Ball Heaven, much to the amusement of the other travellers eating their breakfast in the lounge, and went to untether my steed.

Iceland here I come.