Iceland (2019)

Maybe you notice that the plane is coming in to Keflavik from the East?That's because the trip to Iceland was quite eventful. I was supposed to travel from Orlando to Newark, then on to Keflavik, Iceland.

The Orlando-Newark leg got cancelled, and I was rerouted via Frankfurt. That's like going from Orlando to Seattle to get to Boston.

When the map on the seat back matched what I saw out the window, I was pretty excited!

Of course my bags still took several days to arrive, and didn't catch up with me until 10 mins. before we left on our ride.

KEX hotel was cosy, but I did have a nice view.

And the coffee was good...

That evening, we met the riders and did a trip briefing.

The bikes were parked out front so we could be ready to go in the morning.

My trusty steed for the trip would be a 2019 BMW R1250GS - HP Edition, with an upgraded suspension. Quite the machine. I outfitted her with a tank bag, and we set off in the rain ...

Almost immediately after leaving the city, the landscape turned green, but barren and the earth showed off her energy.

The skies cooperated for a bit, and we visited a Viking long house reconstruction

The terrain was defintely rocky

For a while the weather cooperated.

We stopped at lots of waterfalls (foss) along the way.

Here you can see the scale of Haifoss.

We were only a bit wet when we arrived at Gljásteinn Hólaskógur Hostel for the night. It had been a long ride, and we were happy to have a place to stay. That's our orange support vehicle, snorkle and all.

The next day was wet. The rain was relentless. Despite the pouring rain, we climbed a glacier (kull). This glacier is called Sólheimajökull, and although Chris our guide repeated it's name like 10 times, I still can't pronounce it.

Despite the charming smile, I was overheated from climbing and soaking wet when we posed for this picture. The darkness in the ice is lava dust from countless volcanic eruptions.

That evening we stayed in cabins in Þakgil. After removing our soaked riding gear, our group made way from the cabins to a cave for dinner. It was only about 300m, but it felt like a million miles in the rain.

You can see the bridge needed to get into the cave in both of these pictures. The little spots of light in the cave are candles.

Despite the rain, the crew was in high spirits after we ate.

We donned our still-wet gear in the morning, and headed out.

As we rode, we were treated to spectacular views. And the harshness and remoteness of the land was ever apparent.

Then we began river crossings. Where the river was deep or had strong current, we all had to get in the (cold) water and help each bike across.

If we weren't wet enough already, this would surely do the trick. In all we crossed three "big" rivers (i.e., we're in the water) and many smaller ones that we could ride through without help

We capped off the day with a ride through the lava-dust roads of Vatnajökull National Park.

Bikes and riders were equally drenched when we arrived at Blágil. We ll splayed out our gear in an effort to allow it to dry, at least a little. Then we made a delicious dinner.

In the morning, more rain! Our morning tracks took us back over all of the rivers we crossed on the way to Blágil. It seemed now like we were experts ... or not.

I thiink this was the first time I saw a rainbow without any sun! But the route and scenery were spectacular!

We finally stopped for the night in Friðland að Fjallabaki, the mountains werre green from rain and our spirits were high! As always, we ate well.

After the sun went down, Chris and Lucy played the guitar and everyone (especially Peter) sang along. Did I mention that Peter sang along?

In the morning we headed out to Hekla, the volcano. According to the sign, Hekla erupted without warning in 1970. 1980, 1990 and in 2000. Apparently, she's 9 years overdue?

Peter's GS does look at home on a volcano:

The sign also warns of the 10 dangers of the volcano:

Hraunrennsli (Lava flow);
Steinkast (Bombs);
Oskufall (Ash);
Gisthlaup (Pyrocastic flow);
Vabisflod (Flash Floods);
Skridur (Landslides);
Libd skyggni (Poor visibility);
Eldingar (Lightning);
Aurskridur (Mudflow); and
Eitrad gas (Poisonous gasses)

Sounds biblical, no? We went up anyway.

As we were leaving, Llel couldn't wait to get away from Hekla ...

That night we went back to Vatnajökull National Park. We were, however, several mountains away from the location of our last visit to the park.

We cooked on the potbelly stove.

I think Julie's shirt sums it up well: "I took the road less traveled, now where the hell am I?"

And while our hut was "quaint", the walk to the showers and outhouse was substantial. Here's a shot of our hut from the outhouse door -- not the close one, but the middle one of the three with the red roofs.

Now I haven't mentioned much about the temperature, but it hovered around 5-10 C (40-50 F) during most days, and easily fell to 0 C (32 F) or lower at night. That made the walk seem a bit longer.

In the morning we set out again. The truly relentless rains kept the ground wet and made our water crossings more "fun." We started to wonder if it should have been named Rainland instead of Iceland ... but maybe we wondered that a bit too soon.

As we rode we stopped at Aldeyjarfoss. It was a magnificent fall. What I found most interesting, however, was the rock formation. Look along the far canyon wall at the almost crystaline strands of rock that "bend" out of line towards the left side of the photo.

We spent the night, actually two nights, at Guesthouse Stöng. Stöng had electricity, indoor plumbing, in room showers and toilets. It was like paradise.

The next day was a rest day, and the temperature had dropped to 0C. I decided to ride out to see Detifoss. There was a good climb over some rocks to get there.

Totally worth it, Detifoss was an enormous, magnificent fall. But the white streaks in that picture isn't mist from the fall, it's snow!

I rode back to Stöng the long way around lake Mývatn. There are well known nature baths in Mývatn, it's called the Blue Lagoon of the North, but having been to the Blue Lagoon years ago, I decided to ride on and see more sights. The skies were still dark, but the GS looked mighty in front of lake Mývatn.

In the morning we headed out to Goðafoss. What I thought Chris, our guide, said about Goðafoss was that it is where the Christians threw the Pagans when the Christians took over. It turns out that this is where they threw the Pagan idols, not the Pagans. Less scandalous than I thought.

The skies broke briefly and we saw blue for the first time in days as we came down out of the Highlands, and headed for the city of Akureyri. Although we may not have realized how much we missed it, Peter, Lars, Carsten and I were positively giddy about the sun.

As we headed back up into the Highlands, our dose of civilization now over, the skies got bluer; this made Llel giddy, and we all loved his way of showing it!

Iceland took on an entirely new character in the sun. Not that it had warmed up at all, the temps were still near freezing.

The sleeping loft, with its ladder and trap door access was, uh, quaint.

That night we stayed at Laugafell, a rustic cabin-about 250 m from the "facilities."

Laugafell was truly a special place.

Peter's smile while having a beer in the natural hot spring was only beaten by the sunset.

It was very cold when we started out of Laugafell in the morning, snow fell and there were rivers to cross. Then Llel filled his tires with helium and afterwards had substantial problems keeping his KTM on the ground.

Although there were a few brief showers, the skies mostly cooperated and we continued on to Gljásteinn Gíslaskáli Kjölur.

Compared to our other cabins, Gljásteinn Gíslaskáli Kjölur was like a palace. Pauli did have some electrical issues on the KTM and had to plug in.

And then after nightfall, on September 1, on the first clear night since we were in Reykjavík, we got to see the Northern Lights. What a sight.

They moved and danced. The temperatures were about -5 C (24 F) as we watched them!

The morning air was frigid as we prepared to leave Gljásteinn Gíslaskáli Kjölur.

Kerlingarfjöll was quite a treat. The earth was frozen and boiling all in one place. We walked down her muddy slopes to the bottom.

We then got the bright idea to ride the bikes onto the Langjokull Glacier. See it there, it's only about 2k away!

The road down was rough and strewn with bolders.

Everyone celebrates once we make it.

When we left the glacier, we're just crusing along down a stretch, Claus riding behind me with his GoPro shooting, when all of a sudden, boom. Down I go in the sand and rocks. I don't get hurt, but I heard that very special sound that only R bike riders know, that special sound when a rock cracks open the valve cover. And that's all she wrote.

The end of my ride.

We loaded my steed onto the trailer of the support truck, and just like that, I got to have Guido be my chaufer for the remaining day of my trip.

I was pretty down about it, but the team cheered me up when we reached the Gljásteinn Skálinn Hostel.

The next morning my view of the world was a bit different. I mean literally.

On the way back to Reykjavík, we stopped at Silfra--the continental divide. The left side of this path is part of North America, and the right side is the European shelf.

I definitely had more time to take pictures riding in the support truck.

But Guido and I got to know each other, and enjoyed the road ...

We all shared one last beer as the luggage was unloaded from the truck and we said goodbye.

Thank you to Chris, Pauli and Explore 360 for being wonderful hosts and tour guides! Thanks to Llel for the countless pointers and exceptional patience he had to give them. Thanks to Julie and Peter for having band aids and other remedies when I needed them. Thanks to Guido for the companionship in the truck, not to mention for having the coffee at every rest stop. Thanks to Carsten for helping me dry out my gear when it was wettest. And thanks to Lucy, Claus, Hamish and Lars for being such good riding buddies. And thanks to you all for putting up with me and making my trip so memorable.

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