Just by the docks is a chunk of land with a preserved “old town”, with turf-roof houses, occupied mostly by government and tourism organizations. The passengers – me included – busily took photos of it as the ferry churned the water and rotated around to anchor at the terminal on the opposite side of the harbor.
Unlike loading in Iceland, this time the bicyclists were last to roll off the ship. We had to wait for the trucks to unhook from the floor and slowly creep out ahead of us. The good news was, the ship had been loaded so all the vehicles bound for Denmark could just stay on the upper decks, and relatively few of us were disembarking here.
The first thing I did was swing around the north side of the harbor and check out all those turf houses. I wasn’t surprised at all to see that they had been rebuilt with modern materials and then altered to support turf. At first I thought it was a bit anachronistic but, considering that houses looking very similar had stood on this same land for centuries and the form they were emulating originated from around here, was it really?
Locals know the old town area as “Reyn and Undir Ryggi”. The area at the end of the peninsula is “Tinganes”, a.k.a. Parliament Point. The reason there are so many government buildings here is that the area has been a seat of government for over a thousand years: Around the year 900 the Viking parliament first began meeting on this spot every summer.
I eventually emerged from the twisty maze of old town and found the coffee shop I’d spent a few hours at the last time I was here. Their “swiss mocha” was just as great as I remembered, and I took a selfie to boast about it with the family back home.
I lounged around there for a while catching up on work, then located the AirBnB I’d booked on the south side of town. I was a bit wired from the mocha so I got back on the bike and went creeping around town with the camera.
When it started getting dark I figured it was because of a change in latitude from the ferry ride, but I glanced at a map and reminded myself that the Faroes are about as far north as the southern coast of Iceland. The darkness was just the advancing seasons.
Some time in the depths of the evening, snacks in hand, Skyrim soundtrack back on the headphones, I blundered across the Gamli Kirkjugarður (old cemetery) right down by the harbor. I had no idea this was here, and it’s awesome.
Pretty sure this is the scariest picture of me I’ve ever taken.
When I finally got back to the AirBnB, I sat down with the remains of my caffeine energy and tried to plan a bike tour that would show me some of the islands but also get me back to the harbor in time. The first thing I learned was that the amazing three-way underground tunnel that just opened is off limits to bicyclists. Drat!
It makes sense, really. The thing goes 190 meters (620 feet) down under the ocean. The ventilation isn’t great, and can you imagine a cyclist huffing and puffing their way back up from there, breathing car exhaust the whole time?
It was quite hard narrowing down the route. I had to sit in the living room staring at tunnel and ferry maps and scrolling over elevation charts, weighing the annoyance of covering the same ground twice – which was inevitable on these islands – with the majesty of the views at the far corners of the country.
There was definitely a part of me saying “Why not just skip this? It’s like Iceland except less hospitable for biking, with more aggressive drivers and wetter weather. Aren’t you done with this Nordic stuff yet? Don’t you want to be some place where it’s warm, at least some of the time?” I could use the sunshine, yes. But because of the ferry, I had six days to see the islands. I couldn’t do any less, and I didn’t have time for more.
I already had an AirBnB booked for the next two days in a town called Hósvík. When I made that booking (back on the boat) I thought I would need a day to recover from the ride, but after staring at maps all evening I realized scales were different here relative to the country I just left. Hósvík is just 32km (20 miles) outside of Tórshavn, and probably less than 150m (500 feet) of climb. I had to guess because my mapping applications refused to give cycling directions, and the walking directions don’t go through tunnels that are passable to cyclists. I’ve also learned that the locals stare at you like a lunatic if you ask about biking anywhere. They’ll give you an estimate of time, but a good estimate of distance or altitude is beyond them.
I really hoped that this truck would have a man in underwear on the other side. Nope!
I also purchased some snacks from the local market, and found some strong glue that I could use to repair my busted over-ear headphones. They hold my fancy microphone when I’m teleconferencing, and I didn’t want to spend any more time bugging my co-workers by leaning on the mute key and shouting into the laptop.
Last order of business: Repair these poor headphones.
In the afternoon it was time to cruise over to the staging area and line up. Having done this exactly once before, I was suddenly an expert. A few people strolled over to chat like they always do, and I answered their questions with a grin.
A last, lingering view of these fine Icelandic hills.
Eventually the road opened, and the boat started slurping up cars. I was among the first to go, so I could get my gear tied down in the far back of the hold.
As I busied myself with ropes and bags, a long line of cars filled up the decks, followed in the end by some enormous trucks and buses that packed in close and were then chained to the floor by the loading crew.
The reduced tourism from the lingering pandemic had made bookings much easier on the ferry, so this time I had a room for myself instead of a communal bunk. I hauled my bags into it and flopped down for a nap.
I squiggled up, and up, and the wind increased with the altitude. Rainclouds pelted me and then scooted over the horizon, making space for the next batch of rainclouds in hour-long intervals.
Just before the plateau, the wind got especially bad, as I knew it would. I made a little video of my defiance:
If only the wind was blowing the other way, it would shove me right to the top of this range in less than half an hour. Instead it shoved rain directly into my eyes, making the sunglasses mandatory.
Who’s smug that he made it all the way up here in this insane wind? This guy!
The art installation has lost a bunch of portable TVs.
All those blocks used to have television sets perched on them. Now they’re gone, but there’s still an expository sign planted there. Perhaps the artist printed a different sign, inviting a different interpretation… But I didn’t get close enough to read it.
The wind relented somewhat at the plateau, and the rainclouds moved past so quickly they barely had time to drop rain. The ground was still soaked, of course.
Large patches of moss appeared on either side of me, some large enough that it was more accurate to call them fields of moss.
Right around here, I set down my rain cap and it blew off the back of the bike. I didn’t realize it was gone until I’d pedaled half a mile away and felt my head getting wet. Drat!
Around me the clouds drifted low, and did strange things to the light.
As if to complement this rugged weather, I got a random text message from my nephew Nick, asking about rugged ancestors:
“Didn’t you say that grandpa is part Mongolian at some point?”
I spent some time narrating an answer into my phone, and sent it in pieces.
“Well, there’s no recorded history for his family on his father’s side, before they left the Volga river settlements. No one knows whether they were there for 50 years, or 150 years. With marriage traditions what they were, that’s as much as seven generations. It looks like somewhere along the line, someone with epicanthal folds on the outside of their eyes must have gotten involved. There’s no documented evidence for it other than ‘your grandpa’s father was born of a group of people who collectively all lived in X place for somewhere around 100 years’, though. Which isn’t much to go on.”
“Even less information is available for your grandpa’s mother, who was part of a large family that moved down from Canada shortly before she was born.”
Garrett: “Does the ’51’ mean you’re five-foot-one at this point?”
Ben: “Hah! No I was six-foot-two. ’51’ is the year I graduated.”
“And her father, Hans, was born in Denmark and comes from a large Danish family that crossed the Atlantic more-or-less together when he was a little kid.”
“Companies like 23andme do their best to nail down certain genetic trends to certain regions by correlating documented evidence and family anecdote with sequenced genes, but when it comes to the last 200 years or so in Europe and Asia, things get vague quickly.”
“Besides, as I am fond of saying, ‘your genes are not special; the way you were raised is special.’ You and me and grandpa and grandma are all from families that place a high cultural value on education and graciousness as the route away from not-too-distant poverty. Which is why we all feel more comfortable around people who embrace the same, no matter what they look like or where they got their genes.”
That fun diversion, including looking up the various photos I used as illustration, carried me across the plateau and down the first run of dramatic, whooshing descents towards the town. When I came around the arm of the mountain and saw lights in the distance I paused for a snack and a photo.
Good ol’ Valoria, always ready to stop for a photo — and hold my snack while I’m taking it.
A night-time approach photo to match the one from two years ago.
One more whooshing descent, burning the brakes, and I arrived in Seydisfjordur. Only order of business: Check in and go to bed.
The hostel room was quite cozy. No one in the building was wearing a mask, even in the common lounge area, which I could only shrug at. The rules have always been loose at tourist-heavy spots.
Sjanni is a great fellow and I wish I’d had more time to spend with him!
I was looking forward to today’s ride because it included a tunnel – the Fáskrúðsfjarðargöng – 20,000 feet of road straight through a mountain and open to cyclists.
I stopped in town for some breakfast and email with nephews. One of them was feeling despair over the state of the world.
It’s difficult to pay attention to work when the world is slowly ending. I can’t stop seeking information about the collapse. I wonder if I’m crippling myself by going to college to get a degree that might not be worth all that much and it might not matter if the country has burned down yet or been flooded or both. Also corporations are buying all the houses here so I’m fairly certain I’ll be renting my whole life. I’m sure my 20-something endocrine system isn’t helping here either.
I thought for a while, then emailed back:
Civilization and the planet will survive while you to spend some time concentrating on your own development and diversification. It’s a process and you don’t need to tackle it all at once or figure out where it should go. Take it one step at a time, one day at a time.
What I didn’t say at the time, was that I could remember being his age many years ago, and overhearing my sister – his mother – expressing the same frustration and despair. And I remember our Dad replying with pretty much the same advice.
That gave me two interesting thoughts: First, that young people are always prone to think the world is ending, because they haven’t been around long enough to see otherwise. So conversations like this will happen forever, no matter how good or bad things get.
And second… How much worse was this, centuries ago, when the world seemed to be at the mercy of inscrutable gods, and people usually didn’t quite live long enough to learn that the world would carry on past their own hormone-addled youth?
That’s the morbid angle on this “wisdom”: It truly sets in when you witness people your age – or even younger than you – dying, and then observe years, then decades, of the world continuing without them. And perhaps not into a future they would have expected, but in some way that’s real enough, and teeming with other living people who still have to deal with it.
This global pandemic business. Great for the soul, yeah? Ugh. Interesting times — who needs them!!
Today’s route appears to go straight up over a mountain! No wait, that’s a tunnel.
And there it was… The portal down into darkness. I didn’t realize until I got this close that the tunnel slopes downwards from here, for the entire run. A good idea for drainage purposes, and also for dramatic effect. It feels a whole lot like descending deep into the earth.
10 whole minutes of coasting silently downhill into the mountain. Very trippy.
And then, off I went. The slope seemed to grab the bike, and the cool air being drawn through the tunnel by the turbines on the ceiling streamed over me, making it feel like I was going faster. I had a brainwave and put on some music from the Skyrim soundtrack: The chanting and drumming of Sovngarde. I had plenty of time to play through the entire track, because 20,000 feet of tunnel is nearly 3.8 miles (6km). At a breezy 15 miles an hour on a bike that’s fully 15 minutes of creeping downward through solid rock, imagining that I’m on my way to some eldritch ruined city abiding in total darkness, teeming with ghosts and adventure.
I love being a nerd!
If you look close you can see the tunnel I came out of.
If you look close you can see the tunnel I came out of.
Once I was out of the tunnel, I paused for a look back. The exit was clearly lower on the mountain than the entrance, making the mass above it even more impressive.
The town of Reyðarfjörður was on my right, sporting some nice waterfalls and snacking spots, but I was too interested in forging ahead over the hills to Egilsstaðir, where the next room was booked. The wind could turn against me any time, and I didn’t fancy another late night on the road.
I was tempted to walk over and put my feet in, but I figured the water would be far too cold, and my socks would take far too long to dry.
If I’m reading the sign correctly, the motorist was only 16 when she died here.
The rest of the journey was a slow pedal against mild headwind, through a narrow and relatively featureless valley. I say featureless, but it was still very pretty. I listened to a podcast about world economics and kept on cranking.
I arrived at an intersection, and suddenly realized that for the first time in many weeks, I’d crossed my own path from 2019. Once again I was in Egilsstaðir.
Time to find more snacks!
Here’s a place that looks like it can serve up a lot of calories.
Snack-laden, I found my hotel and wrestled all my gear up several floors to the room, including the bike. It was good to be indoors and warm again, and the food gave me enough energy to put in some work hours before falling over.
Before leaving town I decided to have a nice breakfast at the restaurant. Only a handful of people were there, and the atmosphere was quiet and comfy. In the corner I noticed an interesting collection of furniture:
It’s pretty cool seeing all these little kid toy sections in restaurants.
It’s pretty cool seeing all these little kid toy sections in restaurants.
The owners had set up a little play area for kids to mess around while their parents ate. Lovely! I can’t imagine any American restaurant doing this, at least any corporate-owned one, because of liability issues, and the drive to make customers move along as soon as possible.
(Much later when I was thinking about this, I discovered that Djúpivogur is the first – and so far the only – Icelandic town to join the Cittaslow movement.)
Shout-out to Glen, giving his trailer a trial-run on this Iceland tour!
Glen is a long-range cycle tourist, and has been all over the world. For his Iceland visit he’s using a trailer, and is not entirely sure he likes it.
The luggage rides low to the ground and the trailer tilts with the rest of the bike, so maneuverability is pretty good, but there’s still extra drag to deal with. On the one hand you can inflate the wheel to a very high pressure to make it roll better – but on the other hand, the wheel is relatively small. Plus there’s the weight of the frame.
“So what do you like the most about Iceland so far?” I asked him.
“I think I’ve been the most impressed by the deep clear water here.”
“Is there a place you’re recently been that you think is under-appreciated by cycle tourists?”
“Turkey is amazing, and relatively unknown. It was kind of a paradox, to be honest. I wanted to stay there longer but I also knew I would never want to stay permanently. The people there are in denial about the social and political problems they have, to the point where it’s surprising Turkey even holds together as a country.”
We chatted a bit more and wished each other luck, and as he vanished around the corner I spent some time preparing my rain gear. I’d been lucky the past few weeks, but now it was back to the standard waves of rain, and the all-day dance of add-a-layer, shed-a-layer.
The back of the bike: Table, coat rack, extra hand, clothesline, and occasionally even a work desk.
The back of the bike: Table, coat rack, extra hand, clothesline, and occasionally even a work desk.
I had to pause for a moment and enjoy a thankful thought for something I use every day: The flat surface on the top of my backpack. On a tour, it’s my kitchen table, my workshop, my clothesline, my staging area, and my extra pair of hands.
This could be a clear day or a cloudy day, depending on your perspective.
This side of the rock was constantly getting wet from streams of water and then quickly drying out from the wind, over and over.
As I rode along, the rain intensified, and so did the wind. By the time I stopped for a self-portrait in the afternoon, I was fairly soaked by the wind blowing water sideways into my jacket and hood.
Just how much mist is an excessive amount? Iceland has no such limit!
I kept pausing for photos, or to eat snacks, or to just stand around breathing the air, and lost all track of time.
You could climb to the top, but I don't know where you'd stand when you got there!
Creepy!
Another world, above and below the clouds.
Gorgeous sandwich layers along every fjord.
I cairn do this all day.
Mysterious!
And all this geography, right by the side of the road...
Ride on in, the mist is fine!
Farming the sea.
Watch out for them trucks!
That rock's in the way! Blast it!
Before I realized it, between the cloud cover and the hour, it was getting pretty dark.
I assumed I wouldn’t be doing any night-riding on this trip, partly because I have to pay more attention to a work schedule and keep regular hours, and partly because it’s less interesting to ride at night in a country as gorgeous as Iceland.
If I was riding through boring terrain with nothing new to see, then night time would have some clear advantages: It’s quieter, there’s less traffic and more privacy, and there is a real increased sense of intimacy with the bicycle. On a recumbent it’s like sitting at home in a chair in a comfortable study, though of course you need to keep spinning your legs.
Is something wrong with my lens? Nope. It’s the northern lights.
On a whim, I pulled to the side of the road and dismounted. My headlight went dim, and then slowly began to fade out entirely.
I looked up and saw two satellites slowly coasting across the sky. As my vision adjusted, I tilted my head and realized I could see the arc of the galaxy spread right across the top of the sky like a stripe. Turning my head to take in the view all around me, I looked back up the road, and above it on a shelf of cloud the constellation of the Big Dipper was right in the center of my vision, looming larger than I had ever seen it before.
I looked around for Orion‘s belt – which I thought would be easy to see because it’s a very familiar constellation – but there appeared to be so many other stars in the sky that I couldn’t pick it out. If I set my camera up for a long exposure for 30 seconds or more like I did a few days ago in the Viking camp, I was certain it would reveal a deep royal purple undertone filling half the sky as the northern lights undulated across the camera.
The aurora, vaulting up behind the clouds. I did not expect to see them this time of year.
The aurora, vaulting up behind the clouds. I did not expect to see them this time of year.
I stood around in darkness for almost half an hour, lost in thought, and then abruptly realized that I hadn’t been passed by a car the entire time. The only car I could see was a microscopic point of light on the outer edge of the mountains across the bay ahead of me, just where the mountain slope met the ocean. I saw another light below it, coasting off in a straight line to the east, following the horizon. That would probably be a fishing boat, starting the night’s work.
Perhaps the majesty of this environment isn’t entirely lost when the sun sets.
I got back on the bike and rode for a while, reaching a decent speed, and then tilted my head to look at the Milky Way again. Instead of a scattering of stars forming a rough shape, it was now a distinct band with its own weird texture. Tilting my head made my balance a bit wonky so I tried to keep it brief, but nevertheless in that few seconds a minor gust of wind shoved my helmet right off my head. As it rolled on the highway behind me I hit the brakes and burst out laughing. Nothing says “safety” like a helmet that tumbles to the ground randomly because you forgot to clip it on…
As I laughed quite loud at my own folly I looked up again, and a meteorite went streaking across the horizon. I stood and appreciated that, and a few seconds later I heard a loud bleat from a sheep directly behind me, surprisingly close at hand. This patch of road was full of surprises! I wanted to stand there for hours, watching the sky get ever more grand, but there was a number I had to contend with: The one on the thermometer. In conditions like these, if I stop cycling for more than about ten minutes I grow very uncomfortably cold, even with all my layers on. And tonight my layers were compromised by water. Best for me to move along.
Fjardabyggd:. More than just that thing you shout when you stub your toe: It’s also a town!
Fjardabyggd:. More than just that thing you shout when you stub your toe: It’s also a town!
Google and Apple maps could not agree on where the hotel was. Apple maps had the nerve to present two results for the same address, each about half a mile apart on the same stretch of road. I found the place on the third try, an hour after I passed it the first time.
It was a four unit lodge built underneath a house, with a common kitchen and showers. There were plenty of shoes propped on the rack by the door so I tried to stay quiet as I lugged my gear and my exhausted ass inside.
My room had two beds, so I luxuriated by pouring all my stuff on the smaller one to organize it. My last act for the night was to prop my squishy gloves on the windowsill over the radiator.
