a warming moment

It's a lousy day - the road crosses a large featureless bay sitting under a grey sky.  The rivers we cross are black and menacing, the mountains seem harsh and unwelcoming.  It's cold, very cold. To our left is the sea, sometimes close, sometimes far away.  There's no respite from the elements.  We put on our wet weather gear before we stop for lunch at a roadside picnic table.  Tourists in a four-weel drive pull in but don't get out, don't say hello.  We gobble down the cheap tasteless bread smothered in, and this is the brightest spark of the day so far, delicious blackcurrant jam. 

but the winner is .... mcvitie's dark chocolate digestives

On we go, the road pushed back out to the coast and around yet another grassy and rocky headland.   We wave to the sheep.  It starts to rain.  And then, the Vatnajokull ice cap comes into view - a large snowy white expanse layered over the mountains on the horizon.  We pause at a pull-in where there are some stunted firs - the first we've seen for a while.  Gayle goes off to explore the lay of the land and reports that it would do for the night, even though it's only mid-afternoon.  Down below us is a farm, hotel, restaurant and museum.  We decide to wheel down to the restaurant and see if we can get dry there.  Inside a coachload of Chinese tourists are finishing off their late lunch.  We pretend to look at the postcards for sale and check the weather forecast displayed on a TV screen.  A young woman asks if we need any help.  We ask her a question, she divines we are cyclists (perhaps the helmets give us away, or the drowned-rat look), and tells us that she too is a cyclist.  Margot arrived here with her partner from Poland exactly as we have done, and stayed to work ever since.  She is now running the restaurant and kindly offers us a hot drink, invites us to sit down at a table and then brings us cake too.  Such a sweetie.  She knows what it's like.  

this is why Gayle usually takes the photos

After drying off we check out the museum, which is a small but fascinating display about the life and work of Þórbergur Þórðarson (in Icelandic the letter Þ = Th), a man who grew up on this isolated farm and then left to become one of Iceland's greatest writers and thinkers.   Around the usual heritage stuff such as the old wooden house he lived in and a model of his study are many quotes from Thordarson's books.  These have been translated briliantly.  It turns out to be a real gem of a place.  Thank you, Margot.

It's about to start raining when we leave, and we quickly ride back to the road and then push into the trees to camp - trying to preserve that bit of warmth Margot has filled us with.

in the morning