11 July 2023

Dramatic landscapes, wild, remote, but utterly entrancing.

The way I would describe cycling through Iceland is like slowly moving through a film set, or looking at a piece of art and seeing the detail gradually unravelling itself in front of your eyes. It is amazing for most people but a haven for photographers.

For speedier cyclists who aren’t pulling heavy panniers this might not be true ha ha but I just loved the fact that you get to study every bit of detail of the dramatic scenes you pass by, usually in real quietness with just birds or fast flowing rivers for sound. We were travelling round Route 1 which is the main tarmac road round Iceland. It’s great because you never get lost or have any arguments about the best route for the day as there’s only one option and it’s signposted everywhere. The people are incredibly friendly and it’s so remote that you have to map out your food stops days ahead of time to ensure that you have plenty of snacks for days where there are no shops, cafes or petrol stations along a 100km stretch!

I could write forever about Iceland but here are a couple of things about our trip:

It’s easy to become slightly obsessed with wild lupins which are out in all their glory in June. From afar they give off this amazing blanket of mauve along the foothills and then close up, the most uplifting carpet of hardy purple flowers 😊

You can always find good coffee when you’re away if you look hard enough. I can really recommend the Skool Beans Cafe bus in Vik – it was amazing ☕️

I wouldn’t have made it up any of the 5km long hills without my AirPods and Sam Fender 🎶 Having a fast beat song is sometimes the only good distraction from the steep hill stretched ahead. Spotify have got some brilliant cycling playlists for this 😁

I did a lot of training for six months but my poor achilles hadn’t seemed to take it on board and after seven days of 740 km windy, hilly, pannier-weighty cycling they said no more! They were painful and swollen and weren’t looking good for the remaining 700km so I reluctantly hired a car. It did mean that I could be support vehicle to my co-cyclist Steve – he’d hit the jackpot not having to carry panniers any more 😆 It also gave me the chance to stop and take EVEN more photos in between meeting him to pass out snacks. Scroll down for but a few… 📷 (Thankfully my achilles are healing very quickly now)