After a nice and quiet day in Sauðárkrókur it is raining in the morning when I plane to leave. Yesterday I learnt that my planned trip over road 744 to Blönduós is impossible since part of this road has been washed away. The alternatives are along the north through Hraun or south by Varmahlíd.
Considering there is a strong northwesterly blowing I decide to take the shortest route: by Varmahlíd. In my tent the rain doesn’t sound that bad but in fact it is a shower of drizzle coming down. The sun peeks through the clouds once in a while but it doesn’t stop the rain.  | Camping site in Varmahlíd | Due to the strong back wind it becomes one of the fastest stages I’ve done in my cycling “career” as it takes me 55 minutes from the camping site to the petrol station in Varmahlíd – 27 km away. It is noon now and time for a cup of coffee. When I put my bike against the glass front of the cafeteria I hear knocking on the glass. To my surprise inside there is Hausie and Susann - the Swiss couple I met before in Egilsstaðir - sipping coffee.
I join them and they tell me they came from Akureyri – against the wind. The man’s bike has been repaired well and so they left Egilsstaðir half a day after me. We exchange our experiences and then they inform whether I still want to go riding the F35 inland road. I do, and so I explain I’m on my way to Blönduós hoping to find other people there to join me, as I don’t want to go alone.
The Swiss say they plan to go riding the F35 to and so we agree upon going with the three of us. We take a look in the weather forecast but that is not too good; strong southwestern winds and showers for the next couple of days so we plan to do it in four days instead of the usual three. The weather has cleared up and so we pitch our tents at one of the two camping sites that this tiny village has.
The owner of the camping is kind enough to offer us sleeping-bag accommodation but we prefer our tents. Not that it is easy to pitch it in the still roaring wind. The rest of the day is spent drinking coffee, shopping food for 5 days and drinking some more coffee. In the evening the sky has become cloudless and the wind drops making it a beautiful but cold evening. |
