August 1: "National Holiday"
Off at 9:30. Sun with few clouds. (Quarrel because I cannot find the way
out of the city on the map: we almost cycled around Iceland clockwise having
taken a wrong turn and being loath to cycling extra kilometers!) Unfortunately,
we chose as starting day a national holiday (with festivals all over the country)
which this year fell on a Friday making it a long weekend. Thus of all the
days of the year we happened to choose the one day with the most traffic.
We can confirm: a car every 5 seconds on the average (which to make things
more fun often grazed us). Added to that, shifting problems that didn't
exist the day before. How did the derailleur get misadjusted and why in
this deafening and nervewracking traffic? The gears jumped each time we made
an additional effort, just at the time when it was important to pedal hard.
Just great!!! The small adjustments had to be done at the edge of the
road in this hyper dense traffic with a woman on his back saying "this
is going to be fun ". For three hours we battled against the stream
of cars and head winds at a miserable average of 10 km/h on a gentle uphill
slope which on several occasions steepened to the point where we preferred
walking to avoid straining our knee joints. A little discouraging because
even on the flatter parts we were only averaging 13 km/h. To finish with,
we found ourselves at the top of a plateau that we descended at top speed:
55 km/h of pure fun for me but pure fear for Anne ("be caaaarefull,
slow doooown!!!) We were amazed by the beauty of the landscapes which
much reminded us of the Alaskan scenery we had discovered several years before
playing hide and seek with grizzlies. (We were the ones hiding of course.)
And the sun which kept us warm all day was an unexpected bonus. A very good
beginning. (22° C at noon.) Morale was also nice and warm and confidence
growing; first compliment since the beginning: "Bravo dear, you manage
well, it's really not easy with all this traffic and the heavy load! ".
Just before arriving
at the Selfoss campsite, we were encouraged by the honking of a bus which
as it passed us, waved a small Canadian flag held out the side window by one
of the passengers! At the campsite where we set up the tent at the edge of
a pretty duck pond (with live ducks), we met two French cyclists, both equipped
with BOBs like ours, one of which was in very poor shape: tubing fissured
right, left, and centre. As though Anne didn't have enough to worry about!
(BOB is the abreviation for "Beast Of Burden", name given by the
California manufacturer of these trailers with a reputation for reliability
and robustness!)
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Between
Reykjavik and Selfoss
|
Service
staion in the middle of nowhere
|
Camping
at Selfoss
|
Repaired
BOB trailer
|