Once again it was raining when I woke up. As it was early I decided to head up to the showers, with all my battery packs, to charge them before the kitchen area got busy. In the end I spent a good couple of hours hogging a socket charging and getting the blog fully up to date. The Icelandic weather app (Vedur) is winning my trust, and it is showing that the weather would be better (i.e. less rain!) later in the day.

So rather than rushing away from Reykjavik, I visited the Sculpture gallery (which is included in the 24hr ticket I bought last night). It was very close to the campsite, and in an interesting domed building. It turns out that the house is the home of a Icelandic sculptor and is full of interesting stuff. It must have been a slow morning as the curator gave me a very good introduction to the artist – Ásmundur Sveinsson (1893–1982) and the building. She described his various styles as he went from untrained artist, then moving to art school in Copenhagen and then back to Reykjavik. The domed house was built by him in the early 1930s when it was located in the countryside well away from the city. He added an extension to the dome based on the egyptian pyramids, and finally a semi circular workshop. It is a really impressive building and looks futuristic even now.

One of the things I learnt off the curator, is that they invite other artists to put “guerrilla” art exhibitions in between the regular pieces. Currently it’s an icelandic artist called Shoplifter (she went to New York with an unpronounceable name, Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, which – somehow got interpreted as “Shoplifter” and it stuck). She’d wrapped a few original pieces and put lighting on others (seems like a difficult gig!) but was interesting. Anyway, she has been selected to represent Iceland in next year’s Venice Biennale. She is a “hair artist”, and works/collaborates with Bjork, so is bound to be interesting, and I’ll keep an eye out in Venice.

I started on a slow cycle through the suburbs of Reykjavik, there is a well developed cycle lane network, but often too many un-signposted junctions lead to confusion. It was generally drizzling rather than full on rain, but enough to be unpleasant. I stopped at an N1 petrol station (which I thought it was the last opportunity for food, but had miss read the map and stopped way too early!). Even more unfortunate was it didn’t have food shop, so I availed myself of a Subway sandwich. Strangely, I was served by an 11 year old girl, who offered me 10% discount if I guessed her age. I decided on a strategy designed not to offend and guessed at 20, so paid full price. I did ask, but didn’t quite get to the bottom of why she was working in Subway and not at school.

I carried on with the various cycleways, cyclepaths, and diversions through suburban Reykjavik, or rather Hafnarfjordur by now. I stopped at a Bonus supermarket for supplies for an evening meal, as it was now 3pm and I had 60km to cycle and it would be risky to rely on any other shops.

I soon got onto the Road 42 headed southeast, into a modest headwind. I soon noticed lots of vehicles carrying bikes, together with ambulances and motorhomes covered in advertising. It appeared I had strayed into a bike race. I now know it was the “Race around Iceland” or the WOWcyclathon, as the banners said, which didn’t give much idea of what I was seeing. I rather thought it was a charity bike ride and as the riders gave me a wave I was trying to ask how far they had come. I didn’t get an answer, luckily, as it is an Endurance race for solo cyclists, 4 person and 10 person relay teams. The course is a 1358km circumnavigation of Iceland on the ring road. For solo riders it needs to be completed in 84 hours to count as a finisher. By my calculation this means averaging over 16km/h provided they never sleep! The team’s operate as relays, handing over between stints.

I was lucky to see them in the last 25km of the race, as I think some of the teams were riding at full strength and at speed with the wind behind them. There were some very big groups, being shepherded by support vehicles.

It was a long straight road out of Reykjavik which hid the horrors to come! After 10km of gradually climbing, a bend was turned, with the telltale mountain pass gates and then the road kicked up. It also became a gravel road! The racers were still coming and their “downside” seemed relatively smooth, but on my “upside” was rutted and potholed. The opposite occurred on my descent, so it must be something to do with the car traffic moving the dirt tracks around.

The dirt roads were really steep, and on two occasions I had to push up them. After a short descent the tarmac road reappeared, and I was rather hoping that the climbing was over. Obviously as this is Iceland, the climbing continued but levelled out alongside a big lake. I’m sure this is a volcanic crater with steep sides and a discernable rim. The various rock formations around the edge and the road were superb. The climbing continued until I reached a hot springs area, which had a lot of cyclists from the race gathered. I think this was the 25km point and the last point where support or rider changes were allowed.

Eventually I reached the coast road, 427, which meant only 24 km to the campsite, and as it was 6pm I was in good time. At the T-junction the racers were coming from the opposite direction, and there were still sporadic single riders appearing – I think this is when it dawned on me that this wasn’t a charity bike ride.

I was still high above sea level and the scenery was amazing. I was cycling through a lava flow, and the way the road had cut through it gave real perspective into the thickness of the lava. You could pick out the main flow paths as you crossed them where the lava was thickest. Most interestingly was at the edge of the flow, when the road went close to the mountain, I could see where the lava had made an eddy, the surface was smoother as it had come out of the main flow, circulated and cooled, or at least in my imagination anyway!

It was looking very hopeful for a downhill run right to Grindavik and the campsite, but obviously with 8 km to go the road kicked up and went into the mountains. It was soul-destroying, but at least I was close to the campsite. I have to keep reminding myself I’m in Iceland – so it will always be uphill and difficult, and never become optimistic that the hard bit has been done!

The final downhill was a monster, but with wet roads, wind gusts and my squealing disc brakes, I had to take it easy.

Grindavik looks like a sea battered fishing town with lots of spaced out windswept houses , but based on one building (a modern designer house built high on stilts, presumably for the view), it’s not completely run down. It is close enough to Reykavik to be prosperous, I would have thought.

The campsite is close into the town centre, and has the best facilities of any site I visited (definitely in Iceland, but maybe anywhere!). It also has be biggest supply of camper food I have seen, this is probably due to the proximity to the airport.

There was some form of French convention going on outside the main building (a party of motor homers I think), but I got confused after the long cold downhill ride, and I thought there was a fish and chips van. A sign pointed towards the campsite, but the french campers weren’t part of it – it was a shame as fish and chips would have gone down a treat.

It continued to rain a bit, so I pitched the tent close to the kitchen and considered my options. The kitchen but it was a bit busy, so I cooked in the tent. This time pasta, but jazzed up with salad and kipper fillets – so not too bad at all.

I finished it off with an Skyr yogurt (it’s sold everywhere – and is definitely Iceland’s official yogurt), I have now done nearly all the flavours, and Creme Brulé flavoured yogurt wins hands down. The meal was complete with a chocolate bar (with liquorice in it!), something you don’t see in the UK.