August 6, 2000
All Fine On F910
A cold windy morning as I turn left off the Ring Road, which ahead climbs the hillside while the way I take going south to Bru continues up Jokuldalur valley with its large glacier river below on the left. The wind was now blowing from behind, but around midday, it calmed. In early afternoon the cloud has all but melted away and it is quite a sunny Sunday as I pass a farm where hay is being baled. I thought this could be the last pasture and farm fields indeed civilisation I will see for maybe two weeks.
Around 3 I reach a fork in the valley and the road with F910 coming from the left, down the valley from Snaefell (Snow Mountain). I go right and climb up out of the valley around a series of steep hairpin bends to a world of dunes. Up here it was like a crisp winter's day. Sunny but cold on reaching a crossroads where I stop to take my photo by the roadsign with Kverkfoll 104 (a location on the edge of Vatnajokull icecap) with hut symbol indicating that there is shelter in the form of a mountain hut. And a bit further is a sign for Askja 89 km.
The next part was to continue upwards with more steep hairpin bends and reaching the top the mountain grass petered out and rusted fence came to an end as the landscape ahead opened up in a vast expands of sandy dunes with distance mountains, the highest being the snowy dome of Snaefell off to the left. Ahead stood a small mountain, beyond which could be seen the steep slopes and cake like tabular top of Mount Heidubreid. Iceland's queen of mountains.
The track onwards undulated up and down, occasionally dropping into a hollow and fording a stream with rare greenery and blankets of purple flowers all along the river bank. The only colour in this place of black sand scatter with stones and boulders. Further, the track is shown skirting a lake on the map, but the lake is reduced to a small pond quite a distance from the track.
In the coarse of the few remaining hours of the day the sky was cloudless, still and pleasantly warm. I reach a river by sunset, which I ford; then, scouting along the riverbank for a place to camp see a good level place on the opposite bank from whence I had come, so had to recross the river in which I lost my balance and got my feet wet having to push the bike the rest of the way across; leaving me with wet feet for the night when there was no need to.
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