Between the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the mighty “Jalur Gemilang” was seen to be waved!
After hours of battling against the strong headwind, I finally reached a small town called Hvollsvollur, with the population just around 800. The weather was pleasant, very sunny and clear blue sky, I find it very relaxing cycling under this weather, well, minus the headwind. Since I came from the rainforest of Malaysia, I love the sun, no matter how strong it shines. But Im afraid of the snow! Hehe…
I then realized that Im less than 100km from Reykjavik. If I really push myself, I can end my ride here in Iceland within a day. Reykjavik is so near to the west but suddenly, I decided to turn northeast! From the clear weather in Hvollsvollur, I can see the beautiful mountain of Hekla and the jawdropping landscape of Landmannalaugar from a distant. I stood still, watching the landscape from the roadside holding my bicycle, thinking.
the huge caldera
Many people told me not to cycle to the interior part with my heavy luggage. Its impossible since there are many river crossing, the road is very bad and Im carrying heavy. Even normal car is not advisable to go to the interior. Only 4WD goes up there. The Italian riders warned me NOT to go to Landmannalaugar with my bicycle. But there is one problem. Im one very stubborn creature. When people tell me not to do something, that’s exactly what Im gonna do. So that’s the case with this problem. I pitched my tent at the campsite in Hvollsvollur, , stayed overnight there and studied the map really carefully. Its around 800m climbing vertically from Hvollsvollur to Landmannalaugar, with the distance around 70km. Riding back to the mainroad to reach another town called Hella, that’s 150km on bad roads. Well, how bad can it be? I rode on bad roads before in Tibet and Tian Shan. Only difference is, that time I was riding in a group, this time Im riding alone.
So the next day, I left the campsite really early. Thick clouds started to cover the sky again and rain started pouring lightly when I was packing my horse, eh… I mean, my bicycle! The road was good for the first 30km. The last 40km to get to Landmannalaugar was difficult! It was climbing steadily from sea level to 800m and the road was sandy! Some parts, its quite soft, makes it very difficult to cycle with heavy luggage. There were a few river crossing, but it wasn’t so difficult. Only the last part was quite deep, so I used all my energy left on me to push the bike through the river.
The weather in Landmannalaugar was more stable compared to the coastal area. I spent 2 days exploring the surrounding areas of Landmannalaugar and it was sunny most of the time. I climbed to the peak of the highest mountain here. I camped in a campsite in Landmannalaugar, there were many people camping there and it feels like Im camping in Everest basecamp, when I see most of them were serious hikers carrying their climbing equipments here. As for me, I don’t carry any climbing equipments u know, I do it the Malay style, without any equipments, just climb blindly LOL! But at one point I almost fell down a steep cliff when I was climbing. I fell for a few meters and I managed to grab one of the rock here, but the rock was very sharp and I had a minor injury on my finger. Well it was nothing serious.
no matter how hard the climb is, its always rewarding once ure up there!
actually it was just a minor injury thehehe…
The surrounding landscape here is truly amazing. Landmannalaugar is surrounded by multicolour mountains, it is seriously colourful here. On sunset, you can see that the mountains here shining its colors, brown, yellow, black, white and green. This is because of the volcano here, This is the part where the North American Plate and the Eurasian plate meet. There is also a huge beautiful caldera here and a few smaller ones. Hiking here is really amazing and it is definitely one of the dream trail for all hikers all over the world. I met so many hikers from different nation here, surely most of em are European. After spending 2 days in Landmannalaugar, I rode back to the coast heading to Hella. It was downhill this time, but I was struggling fighting the headwind again! I reached Hella early, there is nothing interesting in Hella, its just a small town so I decided to cycle further to the west and finally I get to Selfoss. Im now taking a rest in Selfoss. Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland is only around 60km from here, so I will think on where to go next. I might head north towards the Geysers instead of ending my ride in Reykjavik. I will see how it goes, I don’t have any plan for now…
I left Vik late, around 11 am. While I was busy packing, a French woman approached me. She was impressed on how much I’m carrying on my bike and told me that shes cycling too taking her 10 month old baby with her around Iceland! That is crazzzyyyyy!! I would never do that, taking my baby, 10 month old, cycling with me with this kind of harsh weather! We wanted to talk more but communication is a big problem. She doesn’t speak much English and I don’t speak French at all! But I gave her the link of my blog since shes interested to follow my journey. She then told me that shes heading the same direction as me, towards Skogar. But shes one day late. I told her I can meet her in Skogar the next day, because Im really interested to see how can a woman cycle taking her 10 month old baby with her! That’s amazing! I hope to see her again somewhere on the road and capture her on video!
double rainbow!! realize the half visible second rainbow?
The Italian couple left earlier, they need to get to Reykjavik fast because of their flight back to Italy, so I rode alone. A few kilometres after I left Vik, I came across waterfalls, so many waterfalls. I rode along the coast with cliffs, and every few kilometres theres waterfalls! I then came across a huge waterfall and decided to camp here for a night to explore the surroundings. Here I met an American film-maker! Well, not actually a film-maker but more like a cinematographer. I then told him that Im a film-maker from Malaysia. He got really interested when I told him about my cycling journey and I’m actually filming my journey, so I let him to watch some of the clips on my phone. For the first time, someone really talk to me. How nice when 2 filmmakers from a totally 2 different continent meet each other, we talk about so many things.
Skogarfoss, one of the hundreds of waterfalls in South of Iceland!
He then camped next to me we chat and waited till close to midnight. When the sun nearly touches the horizon, we both start climbing the hill to film the waterfall under the magical light. This place is really a kingdom of waterfalls! Its everywhere here. Once I climbed to the top, I see moreee waterfalls, some even higher.
countless waterfalls from the mountains all the way to the sea
The next day, Im heading more towards the west, and the American cinematographer, named Peter, went to the east towards Vatnajokull glaciers that I passed a week ago. We exchanged contacts before we left, making sure that we can still keep in touch. Hopefully I will meet him again one day, maybe in the US when Im riding in my dream place, the Yosemite!
taking a break somewhere on the road. Eh…. do I look sexy??
While I was riding, I see countless waterfalls for every few kilometers. This is truly the realm of waterfalls! The weather is good now, the sun is shining again, the blue sky is so clear. Only after 30km riding from the last big waterfalls, I found another big one and its very beautiful. You can actually walk behind the waterfall! I wanted to go more since I only cycled for 90 minutes, but whats the rush. I’m not catching any flights. So I camped nearby. The weather is so good and its actually hot, around 25 celcius! That is very good for Iceland standard! So I lied down on the grass and slept under the sun for few hours lol! When the sun almost touched the horizon, I quickly grab my camera and explore the surrounding area to film the waterfall. The sky is so clear, giving really a magical color to the landscape on sunset! When the sun touches the horizon, the landscape really giving a fantasy color, out of this world! One of the most beautiful waterfall landscape Ive ever seen in my entire life!
the last light of the day…
Before I left the campsite owned by the Filipino lady, an Italian couple approached me while I was packing my stuff on the bicycle. They camped nearby as well and they were impressed to see how much Im carrying. Theyre cycling around Iceland as well for 5 weeks. Our communication is quite limited since they don’t speak much English. But they told me that theyre heading to the same direction towards Vik on their way back to Reykjavik. Very friendly couple. So after a long chat, I told them that we will meet in Vik in the evening and camp nearby each other. I told them to go first since I wanted to charge my laptop and camera batteries. They went 90 minutes earlier than me but somehow, I didn’t see them along the way and I arrived Vik 1 hour earlier.
Cycling away from Kirkjubaejarklaustur to Vik was easy. For the first time after so many days, its not raining at all! The wind was gentle and I rode fast 80km towards Vik with ease. The landscape was the same for the whole ride, grassland with mountainous background. Good news is it gonna be sunny for a few days now! Thank god!
Vik is a small town even for Iceland standard. The population is only around 300 people but it’s a very beautiful place. Its at the seaside and covered with many towering cliffs. There are so many birds here, I mean Iceland is a kingdom of birds but here in Vik, birds outnumbered human by a lot! The next morning, it was raining a bit so I decided to continue sleeping and feed my laziness. Woke up late around 11 for breakfast and started exploring the surrounding areas. It was sunny! As in, hot! So I took this opportunity to dry my clothes and went for hiking.
drying everything when the sun is out!
There are so many tourists here unlike any other place that I visited before. I realized I started to see many tourists since I left Westfjords. And here I saw many Asian tourists! This is the last town which has complete facilities like supermarket and banks before Hofn for people coming from Reykjavik. As for me, Reykjavik is less than 200km from here and I will end my cycling journey here in Iceland very soon. So I decided to move slower now, I still have a lot of time to spend. So after this I might explore some interior part around Southwest Iceland before reaching Reykjavik. The Italian couple might be cycling with me from now on! So I wont feel so lonely anymore now :)
view of Vik from one of the cliff
beautiful cliffs near my campsite in Vik
Icelandic horses!
couldnt stop watching all these!
Leaving the glaciers of Vatnajokull, I came across one of the toughest ride! I left Skaftafell under the very heavy rain and strong headwind. This is the heaviest rain I’ve been through so far in Iceland. Besides the rain, the strong headwind makes it difficult to cycle. I was wet all over! While riding along the Vatnajokull glaciers, I could hear the sound of avalanche coming from it. It was scary, sounds like a storm but I couldn’t see it because of the heavy rain and thick fog everywhere. Visibility was poor.
Mordor! Orcs hiding here!
After I cycled further away leaving the glaciers, I came across a huge , vast area of black lava sand. This might be the effect of huge volcanic eruption that happened years ago, destroying everything in its path. I rode at least 20km along this dark area, nothing but black sand, lifeless! But this is unique to me, I feel like Im riding in an unknown planet rather than our planet Earth. This is the transition of landscape between the land of ice and the land of fire! This country is sooo Lord of the Rings to me. It should be here rather than New Zealand! While in the glaciers, I imagine Icekin, Trolls and Elves, here I imagine Orcs! With the volcanic landscape around it, it looks a lot like Mount Doom of Mordor!
finally… some greens!
Only after more than an hour of riding, I started to see some green areas again. The rain was showering heavily, nonstop. I was cold and hungry. And the worst thing happened, I started to crave for our nasi lemak and the nasi beriani bukhara in Bangsar! Aicoooo… it was really demotivating!
slowly, more and more greens!
But all the pain ended when I was around 7km away from a small town called Kirkjubaejarklaustur (I seriously gave up trying to pronounce it!). There was a guesthouse with a camping site at the roadside so I decided to stop there. There was an Asian lady saw me from inside the house and quickly came out to me. I was shivering while talking to her. Shes actually our neighbour, from Philippines! Brown people! Married to an Icelandic man and been living here for 12 years. She was happy to see a Malaysian here, so she helped me out to dry all my wet clothes and let me to take hot shower! She has a daughter and her cousin is living here too taking care of the guesthouse. After I was done pitching my tent under the rain, I went inside and she cook for me for free! She let me to use all the facilities inside the building, drink as many hot chocolate as I want, eat all I can. I ended up staying 2 days here. The next day she cooked rice for me! And the rice is from Thailand!!! Mannn, I felt like at home! I actually wanted to eat with my hand but there were many tourists here, so okayyy, I used fork n spoon huh? Hehe…
the guesthouse owned by the Filipino lady during the Midnight Sun
I spent my time here exploring the area. Theres a hill here so I sprint as fast as I can to get to the top to train the strength of my legs and my stamina. When its raining, I stayed inside the building editing my film and talking to the Filipinos. Theyre very nice people, they have been so kind to me, feeding a hungry traveller. When I wanted to leave and was about to pay, the lady refused to take my money! Nooo, that is too much. I told her, at least let me pay for the 2 nights of camping. So she finally let me pay for the camping only. I then left a note at the desk saying thank you for showing the great Filipino hospitality here in Iceland to a solo Malaysian traveller. I left them my email address, hoping that they will write to me so that we can keep in touch and I will definitely visit them in the Philippines one day when theyre back in the homeland.
climbed here few times to train my legs into a machine!
the surrounding areas
Diary Of A Traveller 