We ride into Hvolsvöllur from the pleasant back road which has taken us past a few farms. It's a lovely quiet rolling road and it gives us a view of the village hidden under a canopy of trees. It's a weird and wonderful sight on an island that distinctly lacks trees. On the way out of the village, back on the ring road, we pass a large stand of new trees. We take a look. It's a perfect camping spot, so we stop early. In fact, it's such a good camping spot we stay for three nights. The weather is blustery and wet, but more importantly there's a service station nearby with free wi-fi. It's time I started writing this blog and Gayle wants to upload her photographs to Flickr.
We take it in turns to sneak out of the woods and back along the main road to the petrol station. It's one of a national chain, N1, and they're located all around the ring road. They're very useful for us - we can do laundry, plug in and charge while we're using the wi-fi and we don't have to spend a penny because they're usually busy. They are staffed only by children, most of whom are producing deep-fat-fried fast food. The cheapest item on the menu are hot dogs and quite a lot of the customers are chewing on these.
Now we really do feel like hobos. We could live like vagabonds here for a year probably, without being discovered. It's a good opportunity for us to have a break from the cycling and gird our loins for the next stage - the highlands.
Gayle gets an e-mail form her sister, who has been here a couple of times. She writes in response to a comment from Gayle about how most tourists just seem to drive around in their vehicle, stop, take a photo, then drive on. Her sister points out that we are doing just the same thing, but much slower. "It's just the same, but slower" becomes our catchphrase over the next couple of weeks, as we struggle with the elements that make Iceland a challenging place to cycle.
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| a rare modern church in a small village |
We take it in turns to sneak out of the woods and back along the main road to the petrol station. It's one of a national chain, N1, and they're located all around the ring road. They're very useful for us - we can do laundry, plug in and charge while we're using the wi-fi and we don't have to spend a penny because they're usually busy. They are staffed only by children, most of whom are producing deep-fat-fried fast food. The cheapest item on the menu are hot dogs and quite a lot of the customers are chewing on these.
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| classic hand-knitted jumpers go for £200 |
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| our home sweet home |
