What to do

So we have nine days left in Iceland before we fly to Tromsø in northern Norway on July 5. We are in Akureyri after three glorious, sunny, warm days. One of those we spent at Myvatn, recovering from 10 days straight cycling by going for some hikes around the area. We sat in the warm sun in shorts and short-sleeved shirts, soaking it up for all it was worth.

We left Myvatn the next day and had a nice ride around the lake and back on to Highway 1 on the way to Akureyri. When we arrived at Godafoss, we had had enough, and it was such a lovely afternoon, we decided to stay. We made camp behind the hotel and went for a hike along the river to see the falls.

Tour bus after tour bus spewed forth its loads of passengers to see the falls before moving on to their next stop. We sat in the sun, cooked dinner and met another cyclist, Myra from Germany (apologies if I spelled your name wrong).

A torrential downpour came in the evening but we were warm and dry inside the hotel dining room enjoying coffee and apple cake with lots of whipped cream and updating you on our travels. The rain storm produced a lovely rainbow.

Yesterday we cycled into Akureyri, again enjoying glorious sunshine. The view of Eyjafjördur coming down over the short pass was stunning. The fiord is lined with snow-clad mountains and contrasts beautifully with the blue water.

Akureyri is in that same pretty setting at the bottom of the fiord and built up along the lower slopes of the mountains on the west side of the fiord. It’s the largest city outside of Reykjavik and has all the things one would expect in a modern city: shopping galore, cafés, restaurants, hotels, etc.

Today, the weather has crapped out: rain and wind from the south, the wrong direction for us. And by the looks of the forecast for the next few days, summer’s over, no matter which way we go. We are trying to decide what to do. One option is to continue on the Ring Road, 400 KM back to Reykjavik. The other is to go through the interior highlands along the Kjölur. The distance is the same but the road is much more challenging than the Ring Road and there are no towns along the way until we come out at the south end near Geysir.

The Kjölur option will probably involve a bus ride part of the way as the weather forecast is too nasty for cycling that way and would eat up a lot of our time which instead we could spend hiking in Kerlingarfjoll, an area we passed by when we cycled the Kjölur three years ago. You can see pictures from our last Iceland trip here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulvanpeenen/sets/72157625117484311/

What to do?