So here we are on the island of 'fire and ice' and we are yet to see a volcano or anything volcanic. Until today. We are riding through an enormous volcanic lava flow which comes from the highlands and flows out to the coast. It is now set solid, frozen in time, a field of black tuff now coated in an irridescent green moss. Our road cuts across it to Kirkyboojie. This is not it's real name, but we are struggling with pronouncing Icelandic names and Kirkjubæjarklaustur hardly trips off the tongue.
Kirkyboojie is significant primarily for it's supermarket. But we are also interested in the Hot Pot. Now, this might come as a great disappointment to all the many visiting Chinese tourists, for whom hot pot is almost a national dish, because in Iceland a Hot Pot is something you get in. The country has invested heavily into building swimming pools in many small communities and these all have hot tubs and sometimes saunas too. We are itching. almost literally, to have a wash and a soak. The day is grey and cool and the pool and tubs are outside, but this adds to the pleasure, as the hot water soaks through our bodies and warms us to the marrow of our bones. Mmmmmmmm. It's not busy - a few locals and tourists from the hotel next door. WE chat to a local young man who runs 'adventure tours'. He complains about rising house prices in Reykjavik and how tour companies are copying each others ideas and itineraries in the new tourist boom. The currency gets stronger, the tourist numbers this year are over 2 million, and prices rise. He predicts a bust in the near future.
When it all gets too hot we get out and do a bit of laundry. There's even free coffee in the foyer. Then it's back in for that lovely heat again. By the time we get out I feel like Mr. Softmint. Over at the supermarket there's a Spanish couple on touring bikes. They seem a little subdued and monosyllabic. We can tell they've been riding into a headwind all the way from the airport at Keflavik - right in the south-west corner of the island. Duro, muy duro.
Kirkyboojie sits right in the middle of this rather stunning lava flow which came from a huge eruption from a series of vents in the earth's crust in 1783. It is considered to be the largest eruption of lava in world history and was the largest disaster to hit Iceland. Over 8 months the gases and ash cloud led directly or indirectly to the death of about a quarter of the whole population and the effects were felt across Europe and North America. I read later that in New Orleans even the Mississippi froze over that winter.
It's late afternoon and we realise that lava, hot or cold, isn't actually ideal camping ground. But just as we're tiring and our morale is dipping and the inner warmth we built up from the hot pot is starting to fade, we sense the lava thinning out. Sure enough, we see a stream and ground that isn't coated in lava. It looks like a place the road builders dug up and disturbed which has now overgrown. Behind a hillock we can camp out of sight of the road and just over another hillock is a large slow-moving stream. That'll do for the day.
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| "try not to look so gormless" |
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| most farms look abandoned or only with a few sheep |
Kirkyboojie sits right in the middle of this rather stunning lava flow which came from a huge eruption from a series of vents in the earth's crust in 1783. It is considered to be the largest eruption of lava in world history and was the largest disaster to hit Iceland. Over 8 months the gases and ash cloud led directly or indirectly to the death of about a quarter of the whole population and the effects were felt across Europe and North America. I read later that in New Orleans even the Mississippi froze over that winter.
It's late afternoon and we realise that lava, hot or cold, isn't actually ideal camping ground. But just as we're tiring and our morale is dipping and the inner warmth we built up from the hot pot is starting to fade, we sense the lava thinning out. Sure enough, we see a stream and ground that isn't coated in lava. It looks like a place the road builders dug up and disturbed which has now overgrown. Behind a hillock we can camp out of sight of the road and just over another hillock is a large slow-moving stream. That'll do for the day.
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| ...at last |
