Wandering Sebastabator: 15 June : Icelandia

15 June:
The temperature overnight dropped to about (felt lower) 0 degrees. It was Bloody cold, but not unexpected. Möthrudalur was in a valley, but the valley was so wide that it seemed more like a plateau. A plateau that the wind ripped through and dropped the temperature by several degrees due to the wind-chill.
We were up early and found a light dusting of snow. We cooked breakie in the "underground" kitchen. When I say underground, it was definitely sunken, the upper half and roof were in-fact above ground. But it was somewhat warmer than being outside. Here we met snowflake, the resident cat. Who I'm sure was only there for the warmth and left-overs, not for our companionship. I also came upon a baby goat who befriended me on my way to the kitchen, he was after one thing an done thing only - the rubbish. I quickly had to shoo him (her?) away from the rubbish and out of the kitchen. Nice try goat.
We cooked porridge and packed away our gear. Our wet clothes that we had hung in the Laundry the evening before were mostly dry and that cheered us up.
Hitting the road around 0900 hours we took the 1 west to the 85. According to all the information we had at hand, we fully expected the 85 to be a gravel road. In recent years many of the roads in Iceland have been upgraded and it was now asphalt, awesome! We made good time and arrived at Vopnafjörthur by about 1030 hours and began our wait for Inigo and Ollie. They had planned to take the 917, gravel, but were blocked by gale-force winds and about 20cm snow at the pass (less 40 km away). They had to turn around, make their way back to the 1 and up the 85. They arrived around 1330 hours. The cafe in Vopnafjörthur only opened at 1100 hours but we were lucky enough to have a supermarket next door to wait in, with free coffee (good for me, no tea for Scott). After 1100 hours we made our way over to the Cafe, had tea and coffee, made good use of the Pizza buffet and watched football till the others arrived. After their arrival and a joyous re-union we ate, drank and hit the road after re-fueling.
On to Thorshöfn. Ollie, Scott and I stopped at the campsite and Inigo continued onto his hotel in Langanes and visited the Lighthouse at Fontur. In the evening, Ollie cooked for us, we drank together, talked and listened to music together till late.
16 June:
Next morning, we had agreed to meet up at 0900 hours and hit the road around 0930 hours after breakie with Ollie. We met a french backpacker (hitchhiker - Serge) the previous night at the campsite and Ollie invited him to join us. Now we were 5. We hit the road and headed in the direction of Raufarhöfn via the 874. When we arrived we had a coffee at the Cafe, then headed up to the Lighthouse and across to a (modern) monument. Then onto Kopasker. Here we tried to re-fuel but discovered the system was down, so we headed south onto Asbyrgi where we fuelled up and checked out the horse-shoe shaped depression/canyon near the campsite where Ollie and Serge were to spend the night. Given the canyon’s horseshoe shape, legend has it that Odin’s eight-legged steed, Sleipnir, placed one of his feet on the ground here, leaving a deep imprint on the earth, as it sprinted across the sky.
Here we left Ollie and Serge and the three bikes continues South along the F862 to Dettifoss and Selfoss. The road was mostly gravel but in good condition, single track which made passing cars in the opposite direction challenging, at one stage I hit the bank at the side of the track, no damage, no falls. Although, I was starting to question our wisdom when the rains came. It took us about an hour to reach Dettifoss, a distance of around 36 km.
I'd been here previously but was just as impressive as I'd remembered.
From the falls we continued South (on Asphalt) to the 1 and west to Myvatn. We stopped briefly at the hot pots (Namafjall) where we will meet with Ollie & Inigo tomorrow at 1100 hours. Scott and I continued up the 87 (North from Myvatn) to our campsite which is approx. 20 km South of Husavik. Inigo continued onto his hotel in Laugar. The camp was in Heitharbaer, in a valley, not overly-exposed, green, sunny with a pool and hot tub. We set-up camp, headed into the restaurant and had a burger/sub reindeer (of course) and a couple of beers. While the football was on the beers were cheap(er) so we had a few. Then we hit the pool and hot tub, did our washing. Coincidentally, we met a german (Saarbrücken) couple from the ferry along with Herman (Dr.). It is indeed a small island.