1 Introduction

In September 2016, I left for a 1400km cycle tour around Iceland. My trip, partly funded by the Gladstone Memorial Trust, had been a goal of mine for many years.

2 Arrival

I arrived in Iceland at 9am. The sun shone strongly through the cabin windows as we approached the landing, and greeted us with a surprising warmth when we stepped off the plane. A short bus ride later, and I was in the middle of Reykjavík. I set up my tent, and walked off to pick up my bike.

There was some confusion when I first arrived at the bike shop. The man who greeted me hurriedly put together a bike which had smoothed tires and a worn frame. I complained and we discovered a pre-prepared bike in the back of the shop for me. The new bike was much better - the frame was solid and brand new, the wheels were fresh and the grip still well formed, and the panniers were high quality waterproof Ortliebs with lots of capacity. As this was the first time I was seeing the equipment, renting was a bit of a gamble but it certainly paid off.

Tired from my flight, I thought I’d have a short nap before meeting my cousin Birna to discuss my trip. However, due to my flight fatigue, I woke up four hours later to 6 missed calls, having almost missed dinner entirely. Luckily her daughter, my second cousin, was able to pick me up and I made it just before the food was served.

I had not spoken to this part of my family before, so the dinner was a nice mix of getting to know each other and questions about my trip. I felt like I was being tested on my ability to complete the trip - which is something I am very grateful for, as it was a clear sign that my cousins cared and wanted to look after me.

That night I went back to my tent and resumed my interrupted sleep. Twelve hours later I got up for my last day in Reykjavík before I set off. I met with Auður, another cousin of mine who is a mountaineering guide and a generally experienced explorer in the Icelandic landscape. I faced a similar test, which lasted for a few hours, before having dinner with her and many other cousins, and staying for the night. The experience Auður shared with me was invaluable, as was the equipment she lent me for the journey.

The next morning, Auður took me on a final trip to the shop, showing me the food that she recommended (dried fish and smoked lamb, among other things), before dropping me off north of Reykjavík and leaving me with nothing to do but cycle.

3 Cycling

I struggled at first to get everything attached to my bike. Not ten minutes after I was dropped off, the journey ahead of me seemed more daunting than ever, as the luggage I couldn’t fit into my panniers perched precariously on the back of my bike. 2 hours later, at the end of the fjord, the wind was so strong that the heavier gusts brought my bike to a standstill, and even the roadsigns, bent backwards from a collision long ago, looked as if they were losing the battle with the weather. After 80km I rolled into Borganes, the last town with a supermarket that I would encounter for the rest of the week, and set up my tent.

I spent an average of 9 hours cycling per day. With 1400km to cover, I had to spend the majority of my day cycling and learn to appreciate the landscape without stopping to admire it more closely. Despite the heavy traffic near Reykjavík and Akureyri, my main challenge on the road was certainly the weather. The wind was a drain on my morale, stealing the little speed I could pick up with over 25kg of cargo. It fortunately only rained on a handful of days, but each rainfall was enough to keep my equipment sodden for several days, and the water reduced the effectiveness of my warm clothing. Near the end of my journey, 20km before Vik, I resorted to sucking the water out of my gloves one finger at a time just to bring some feeling back to my hands. On the cliffs above me, waterfalls turned to rainfall as the wind whipped then away from the rock’s surface. There were enough sunny days on my trip to make up for the rain. When the clouds parted, golden sunlight spilt over the mountains either side of me and often lifted my spirits along with my roadspeed.

Adjusting to the long distances was not easy, but after a week it was easier. My daily morning task, packing up my tent onto my bike, became second nature. I recognised which shops I needed to stop at, and which shops were useless to me. I even started to remember to cycle on the right hand side of the road. However, new problems started to surface; my knees, weakened by a running injury, began to hurt after each day of cycling. Luckily my knees didn’t get any worse throughout the trip, and I was able to continue to cycle at a reduced speed.

4 Landscape

Iceland is experiencing a tourism boom. Last year, more than a million people descended onto the island - three times the native population. As my cousins were only too eager to show me, high profile guests like Justin Bieber have used the rugged landscape as a backdrop in videos, and there is even a bollywood music video filmed in Iceland. The country is universally portrayed in media as an untouched landscape, with boiling geysers shooting out of the ground next to frigid glaciers. I experienced this side of the landscape. Often I couldn’t count the number of waterfalls in my field of view. My route, the only road that encircles the country, cut through mountains and bore under fjords. And yet, I felt a pang of guilt when I passed the few natural features that are touted in music videos and tourist guides. The landscapes surrounding the attractions were flattened by years of heavy tourism. Crowds of people took the shortest route between the sights, ignoring the majority of the country and warping the terrain. I was one of these tourists, and it was sad to see how my trip could affect the fragile environment I was there to explore.

5 Camping

Campsites are plentiful in Iceland. Frustratingly, they are rarely marked on maps, and each campsite will be on some maps but missing from others. Their quality varies significantly, with some boasting free warm showers and cooking facilities, and others just offering a flat square of land. The price, though, was pretty consistent; about 1200isk (£8) per night.

My favourite nights were spent in the wild. It is legal in Iceland to camp on any land that wasn’t too close to a farmhouse or intended for farming. Lifting my bike down the steep sides of the roads, any signs of civilisation quickly dropped away, replaced by trickling streams and swaths of moss and grass. Taking care to leave the land undamaged, I would set up my tent and start to cook dinner. The gas stove, strapped to the back of my bike all day, was often too cold and refused to work unless I got into a sleeping bag with it for a few minutes.

Waking up in the morning, I would stroll over to a river or waterfall to get cooking and drinking water for the next day, sometimes picking wild blueberries on the way. My tent was comfortable and warm, making it a daily challenge to exit, pack it all up and cycle off into the cold.

6 Towns and cities

The majority of my time was spent outside of towns and cities. Aside from Reykjavík, there are only 4 cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants. I often looked forward to arriving at a town spotted on my map, only to find when I arrived that the town consisted of a petrol station and some closely grouped farmhouses. Arriving at a town called Húnaver late one night, I was informed that hundreds of farmers were going to descend on the hall that evening for a sheep herding celebration. Having just cycled for 6 hours through an uninhabited valley, I had a hard time imagining where these people had travelled from.

I spent 2 nights in Akureyri, the biggest city in the north of the country. It was an opportunity to speak with other travellers, and have time to visit restaurants in the area. Eating at a fish restaurant near my hotel, a miscommunication resulted in me trying some shark - not a wholly unpleasant experience. I stayed in a hostel, which was pricey but gave me a place to dry my clothes and to have a warm shower for the first time in a week. I enjoyed Akureyri, but couldn’t wait to get back to the Icelandic countryside when I woke up on the third day.

7 People

The Icelandic people that I met were all incredibly friendly. Despite the vast numbers of tourists passing through the country every day, I could always ask for help or advice and receive a warm welcome. Although I met many people, one particular encounter sticks out. Arriving at Bifröst at around 4pm, wind-battered and soaking wet, I saw a sign for a coffee shop and excitedly pulled over at Bifröst hotel. Dripping on the floor of the reception, I was directed to a shop at the back of the hotel to pick up my coffee. To my dismay, the shop had closed half an hour before I arrived. When I told the receptionist what had happened, she offered me coffee from the hotel office, and even allowed me to sit inside to dry off. I left an hour later, my spirits lifted and my shoes less wet. I continued to cycle for a few hours, as the weather improved throughout the afternoon, before locking my bike to a roadsign and descending down a steep hill to find a flat piece of land for my tent. When I got back to my bike after a cold night, a jar of instant coffee was resting on top of it.

8 Family

This cycling trip has been a target of mine for a long time. My grandmother, having grown up in Iceland, would tell me stories about the Icelandic countryside where she grew up, making me wonder why she ever left. Because of her, I have many relatives in Iceland. I met 8 of my first cousins, and more second cousins than I had time to count. As I mentioned at the start of this report, I was lucky to have done so. When arriving, I had dinner with my cousins and was given valuable advice about my trip. On one extremely windy day, my uncle Böggi was able to pick me up and drive me to Fáskrúðsfjörður, my grandmother’s home town, to stay with him for a few days. When I got back to Reykjavík I was welcomed into my cousins house for the week before my flight home. Their kindness made my trip much more enjoyable, and made me feel at home in a country as alien as Iceland.

9 Conclusion

The one thing I thought about when leaving Iceland was when I would be going back. Every night in my tent I would write down in a notebook the towns and sights that I wanted to visit again, and the ones that I was unable to get to but wanted to experience in the future. Even though I spent a month there, I feel I have left with so much of the country still to explore.