Today was always going to be a slow day, as I was close to the airport and not too much to do. I spent much time rearranging my packing to suit flying home rather than more camping. I was able to do my laundry at the campsite, I find it amusing when cycling you put everything you own into a washing machine and it is barely a quarter full, unlike at home when it is always bursting at the seams. Getting the washing done means it  will be nicer for whoever is sitting next to me on the plane.

I had a chat to a German guy (Sebastian) camped next door, he is heading off for a 4 week tour around the western fjords (very remote) and back over the Highlands on the Sprengisandur Route (very long and remote). I gave him the last of my meths which may help him!

I had a stroll around town, and found the Vinbudin shop (the only place to buy beer stronger than 2.25%) for a last interesting bottle of beer (or at any rate one I hadn’t seen in the craft beer shop at home). I also booked in at the Blue Lagoon, it was fully booked except for 11pm to midnight slot. When I thought about it this fits in quite well with my plan for an overnight cycle to the airport. When I booked my flight home, I didn’t think through the logistics of a 9 am flight. Calculating backwards, two hours check in, packing the bike ready to fly and cycling to the airport from a campsite was never really going to work. So I’m aiming to get there at 3 am to sort the bike out and grab some sleep if I can, let’s see…

Packing up is an opportunity to lose all the  little bits you have been carrying on the bike, but don’t want to lug around an airport. After the laundry, I has a luxury shower using up all my travel miniatures in one go. I even resorted to eating one of my dried emergency meals, it wasn’t too bad to be honest, I’ll keep the other one as for an emergency, as I still need to cycle 30km in Iceland (and therefore there is bound to be an unexpected mountain pass, or 100 km/h headwind!). You can’t be too careful!

The packing is further complicated by needing my swimming stuff for the Blue Lagoon, and some food to get me through the night. I’m bound to need a midnight feast between Grindavik and the Airport.

I sat in the campers kitchen as long as I reasonably could, however it was filling up with chilly campers. I decided to get going and started the final pack, I put on lots of warm clothes and headed off about 8pm. I had a real revelation on the glove front, I have  been using fingerless cycling gloves (with a huge gel pad, which I squashed to nothing in three weeks), and some Ron Hill running gloves (which I got for Christmas). In combination, with the Ron Hills inside, they are superb – top tip!

Anyway, I cycled about 500m and I saw the N1 cafe was open and decided a coffee would be welcome, and waste some more time. So I took off all the warm clothes I’d just put on, and hit the coffee. It’s typical, that on my last night I discovered that the N1 Cafe coffee is an endless cup, with free refills. This has never before been mentioned in any of the N1 cafes I had visted, so I set the record straight and drank coffee for an hour.

I left at 9pm and headed up the 43 road. The cycle map showed a cycleway all the way to the Blue Lagoon. Initially it was a tarmac path just following the road with a heating pipe on one side and lava field on the other. It was a pleasant ride following the road and just skirting a mountain. Interestingly, there was a noticeboard naming the path after Grindavik woman who, in the 1950s, started planting trees on the mountain. The route to the Blue Lagoon followed this path, going through the “forest”. Trees are still being planted by the townspeople today. There were a couple of short, sharp climbs on the cycle path where the gradient didn’t keep up with the road, but otherwise it was easy. There was a big tank at the highpoint, and a good view over the Power Station. The plaque described the process and output of the geothermal power plant.

This ride was turning out far better than I had anticipated.

At this point the tarmac ended, and was replaced with loose stone which headed away from the road. It was a lovely route, around the bottom of the mountain and through the wood. It was tricky to ride on my loaded bike, and I think proves that my 38mm tyres would not have been wide enough for the Kjolur route.

The path got even better, as it headed off across the lava field, with lots whoops on the singletrack gravel path. It was surreal, crossing the lava with the steaming power station in the background as the light levels dropped (a little). However, it got better as the path hit the bright silica pools downstream of the Blue Lagoon, with plenty of warning signs about how hot the water might be.

I pushed on to the Blue Lagoon, it’s clearly a huge commercial undertaking with massive carparks, and lots of coaches even at this time of the night. Perhaps unsurprisingly there didn’t appear to be a bicycle parking area. Instead of pushing the bike up the fancy entrance avenue and padlocking it by the front door,  I asked at the luggage centre. I got a brilliant response, they let me push the bike into the back of the luggage storage, for no charge – they said they didn’t think anyone had cycled before! I described the path across the lava field, and suggested that everyone should cycle – there cannot be a better way to arrive.

I chanced my arm at getting in early at 10:20, but was politely rebuffed so waited in the cafe until 10:55, a more acceptable time for an 11pm ticket. It’s a very automated affair, with a wristband being the key to the locker, for charging for drinks, and getting out. I had selected the cheapest package I could get (but still expensive!), the “Comfort” level, which included a towel, a complimentary drink and a silica face mask (which I dodged).

It’s a strange, yet pleasant experience, especially as you bob around in the water with a pint of beer in your hand. It claims to be one of the Wonders of the World (in the top 20 I think), but I’m not sure I would give it that high a ranking. I spent over an hour in the lagoon, bobbing around in the heat of the various pools, managing to swim a bit. I took in the steam rooms, the first one which wasn’t too hot, but the second one I visited caught me out and was really hot. I can’t remember if I mentioned that I had to improvise a retaining strap (a piece of string) for my glasses, as security after they were blown off my face in the Faroe Isalands. Well it came in handy here so I could quickly drop the glasses of my face as they instantly steamed up, but with a slight risk of the hot metal and glass burning my chest!

Afterwards, I chatted to the girl in the luggage room, who asked what I thought. I thought it was good experience, and I’m pleased that I did it, despite the cost. Especially as I was so close and the timing was perfect – and it maybe saved me the cost of a hotel. I won’t rush back, and if coming back to Iceland, but put more effort into finding the local natural pools like Laugfoss. I liken it most to going up the Eiger on the Jungfrau train – you do it once to tick it off and it’s a good experience but probably wouldn’t do it again, or at least not for a long time.

Anyway I headed off at about 12:45pm, with still plenty of light to cycle by. There were good cycle lanes out towards the airport road. I wasn’t in any rush, so decided to stop to make a sandwich in a picnic area. It turned out this was Dollan, which I had spotted on my map and is a Lava Tube area. I got out my headtorch and descended the ladder into the Lava Tube. I was quite scared, it being the middle of the night, miles from anywhere and nobody for miles. So I didn’t leave the bottom of the stairs and just peered into the darkness with my headtorch. I could see the various tubes heading off in many diections, and was standing in a big chamber where the roof had been broken through for the stairs. I had no desire to venture any further (you can tell I was nervous as the picture shows I got Bernard out to join me my meal!).

I carried on, with the last 3km down to the airport road without a cyclelane, but I was well lit up, the traffic was quiet and there were no issues (except the car to come closest was red!). These cars are definitely driven by tourists! The girl in the luggage room was telling me that Iceland is getting so busy – the population is 335,000 yet if you include tourists that number is 2.25 million! Crazy.

Once on I got onto the main Reykavik to airport road, I had to ride one junction on the hardshoulder (it seemed like a motorway). When I got to the next turnoff, there was a police car parked in the central reservation and they gave me a wave, so it must be ok and there’s not much else going on in the middle of the night. My next target was the 24hr Subway, which I got to at about 3am. I joined the latenight youth of Keflavik and had a cup of coffee together with a few cookies to keep me going. It hadn’t been too cold and seemed to be warming up, as it was getting lighter. I now took the local roads along the sea front, at a very leisurely pace. There were a few people out and about, and a couple of clubs were still going in downtown Keflavik.

I picked up the Cycleway which took me straight into the airport and directly to the Bike Hub. The Bike Hub is a container equipped with tools and stands to build up or break down bikes for flying. There were two Spanish guys building their bikes, so I set up outside as I had all the tools I needed. I had carried with me some bits for packing, I’d made a front fork spacer (so the forks cannot be crushed without a wheel in), and intended to use my drinking bottles as packing between parts.

I dropped the front wheel, removed the pedals, turned the handlebars and rotated them to hook under the top tube. I zip-tied or strapped all the bits together, before slipping it into a special plastic bag (the famous CTC bag) that I had carried with me from the UK. I also had a large Sports Direct bag which has plenty of room for both panniers and tent. At the last minute I decided to strap my helmet over the exposed brake/gear lever on the handlebar before sliding it into the plastic bag. As soon as I’d done it, I began to think it was a mistake, as it made the package much wider, but it was too late.

I finished this around 5:00 and waited in the terminal until 6:45 when the easyJet check-in opened. Nobody batted an eyelid about the bike, and it even went through the oversized baggage scanner lying flat. I have read stories of people having to unpack bikes or joggle them through at an angle to fit. I managed to spend all except about 18 ISK on various bars of chocolate, I tried to give the remainder to charity, but the box was so full no more change would fit in!

My flight was on time at 9:30, and unfortunatley it was full. So I spent the next 3 hrs squashed into a tiny seat thinking about my 3 week journey on the ground. What made the squeeze worse, was I’d put a small rucsac into the overhead locker, and had my handlebar bag under the seat. Someone got on with a massive bag, and I was asked to put the rucsac under the seat as well – leaving no room for my feet, and paying the price for travelling light. I dozed a bit and had brought plenty of food so I just sat tight. Rembering my journey out to Iceland, and hearing all the people around me talking about the “Golden Circle”, which are the very touristy bits of iceland in the south. Flying might be quicker and cheaper, but as a form of transport it is incredibly uncomfortable. I’m a great believer in “its the journey not the destination” (although I accept I may have taken it too literally) and flying, while convenient does kill any essence of the experience of the journey.

I landed at Luton Airport, in a heat wave, so packed away my down jacket – but I was still well overdressed. The bag with my panniers came out really quick, and was directed to a door, where after a short wait my bike appeared. To my relief it was undamaged, and it only took me 25 minutes  before I was wheeling the fully loaded machine out through the customs channel. I’d read that it’s best to assemble the bike before customs, as it is easy to find a quiet corner, and if there is damage you can report it straight to the baggage desk.

Luton airport appears to be in a permanent state of renovation and getting to a road I could cycle on, was a long walk between construction sites. Eventually I made it to the road, and had a fast run to Luton Airport Parkway station, and a direct train home. The train was on time and did not not terminate early (unlike almost every other train I had been on this trip).

I was home by about 4:00pm, and all in all an amazing experience. I’ll dig out some facts and figures and do a summary, but I think I cycled just over 1300km. I stuck pretty well to my vague plan, which included back-up plans for bad weather and consider the trip to be a real achievement.

I’ll definately go back to the Faroe Islands, Arhus and Iceland in the future (in that order!).