28 - 29 June : Goodbye Iceland - hello Faroes

28 June

Inigo Arrived early but had to be at the Ferry earlier than the rest of us as he was continuing directly to Denmark, not stopping off in the Faroes.  We hung around the Camp for another hour and then about an hour on the Dock before boarding.
Upon checking-in we were, once again, issued a cabin - Whoop!
We secured the bikes and I, as usual, assisted those less adept with this procedure.  We bikers have to stick together and support one-another.
Upon arrival in our cabin, I was greeted with a bottle of wine and box of chocolates - what a nice gesture.
Once we had our gear stowed away, we presented on deck, picked up a 6-pack. Drank with everyone, then headed to the pool for about 1.5 hours. Pool - hot tub - Sauna, a quick nap and back on the top deck for more beers and camaraderie. Was a great evening.
We headed off to bed around 20:00 hours as we had to be up around 0100, out of the cabins by 0200 and depart the boat at 0300.

29 June

Arrival on the Faroe Islands.
we rode directly to the closest campsite as it was early/late and none of wanted to waste time messing about at that time of day. After a few hours of rest, we got up about 10:00. We thought the camp was ok. Although Ollie wanted to go somewhere else, away from the main drag. As we were only a few days there, I didn't want to bugger around with the tents and other gear. We were staying put.
We cooked breakie, and rode North West to the island of Vagar and did some shopping in the morning. We met up with Ollie and Costa at Mithvagar and rode together out to Gasadalur. Took some photos on the way back, where we stopped at the statue of the mythical "Nix"in the lake and back to Torshavn, for a bit of a look around.
In the evening we cooked with Karsten using a single-use grill that we'd got at the shops. Heaps of meat (pork) and a massive sausage.

You find street art in the strangest of places

Welcome on board

Camp in the Faroes

Cultural awareness

The oldest parliament building in the world

Torshavn

26 - 27 June : South along the 1

26 June
Up Early, No Shower. Breakie and started to work on the bikes.
I thought maybe the ABS wasn't working due to a low battery, charged off my bike for about 15-20 minutes, but no Bingo. I then moved onto the ABS sensor at the front of the bike, cleaned it, measured the gap, everything seemed ok. So, I reassembled the bike, repaired the LHS indicator, a least they both match now. With all the messing about, we got going about 1030 hours, along the 35 to Gullfoss, where we had coffee and took plenty of photos. It was quite impressive. Then south along the 30 and stopped in Flüthir.  There was supposed to be a free swimming spot, all we found was a very expensive and over-rated tourist attraction. We had fish and chips for lunch. Then on to Selfoss, where we did some food shopping and stocked up on beers.
Then it was west along the 1 to visit the DC3 on the black beach, along Skögasandur, it was an American aircraft that had crash-landed in WWII. You weren't supposed to drive up to the site, the local farmers had had enough of the tourists leaving the track. So it was walking time, 3.5 km each way. My boots are NOT made for walking. But was well worth it, took us about 1.5 hours.
After visiting what was left of the plane, we continued along the 1 to Vik and re-fueled.
We had planned on staying the night in Vik, but for the lost time near the Glacier, we wanted to keep moving. Vik, as I had learned on my last visit, is one of the wettest places in Iceland with almost guaranteed rain. We decided to continue to Höfn, which was about another 250 kms and we arrived about 2230. The ride along the south coast was well worth it, via glaciers and the infamous glacier lake, just beautiful.
We arrived in Höfn and set up camp, sent Ollie and Inigo a message that we had arrived, after a while Ollie came over and invited us to share his cabin.  We were grateful as our tents were wet and we were cold.
We drank a few beers together, cooked one of the dehydrated meals and went to bed.

27 June
Up early to meet with the others at 0930.  Packed up and were ready, after breakie. We re-fueled and rode together, Inigo, myself, Scott and Ollie. We met up with Karsten in Djupivogur after about 100km and 1.5 hours ride, through tunnels and along the coast road, Absolutely stunning.
We met up at a cafe for coffee and cake, then together we continued the 1. At the intersection of the  939 we stopped and had a bit of a discussion about which road to take, the 1 or the shortcut.
The last time I rode it (2015) it was quite rough, gravel, muddy, wet road, Now it just appeared to be dirt and gravel. I think we just wanted to get to our final destination so we took it. I took the lead and was doing around 80-100 km/h up on the pegs, overtaking cars and vans, It had become an awesome day for riding.  After about 20 kms we rejoined the 1 and asphalt, and onto Seythisfjörthur where we arrived at the camp early around 1400 hours, set-up camp and washed the bikes again.  Then a quick rece around town to check out the vinbuthin, supermarket and pool.
That evening we ate a great feast (seafood), drank together and told tales of our adventures.
The camp wasn't as full as I'd expected, that was a bonus.
Plus we've to get up early in the am for our departure...

Feast of champions

25 June : Leaving Reykjavik

25/06 Monday
Up early today, about 0600 and off to the pool, 0630.  Many more people than I'd expected.  Loads of people exercising before work. We spent about an hour there. The rain continued on/off.  We returned to the camp, cooked in the kitchen, planned our intended route and packed up our tents (wet).
Whilst breaking camp, we met an Alaskan who we'd seem at the festival. Apparently his job is training US marines survival skills (or something). He was also leaving and had some dehydrated meals that he offered us, can't beat free food!
Then we hit the road and were met with rain+++.
We had decided to ride North and visit the Geitland nature reserve, near the Eiriksjökull glacier.  To get there we took the 36 out of Reykjavik, then onto the 550 and 551. roughly 24 km of Dirt and 6 into the Nature reserve. It was Awesome and well worth the ride, desolate, cold, snowy, elevation was about 800m. We couldn't actually ride onto the glacier but were excited to be there. We grabbed a drink (coffee for me) in the station/meeting point/cafe. Then after a bit of a break and a chat with those who were interested, we decided to head off. 6 km of dirt back to the 550, then we decided to head north to the 518, we figured that the road couldn't be any worse. We figured wrong. With about 2 km to go till we reached the 518 we hit a wet, muddy, slippery, sludgy patch in the road. I almost came off but somehow managed to safe it.  Scott, however, didn't.
I saw in my mirror something that looked like him falling and pulled over as soon as I could, about 1 km along the road. He had come off. His bike lay in the middle of the road and he appeared to be ok. I spied a truck coming from behind, I was running toward him, waving my arms as a warning. Eventually, he understood and did the same. Lucky for us, the truck stopped and helped Scott right the bike and get it out of the middle of the road. It couldn't have gotten through otherwise.
By the time I had arrived, the truck had continued on its way.  We removed the gear and panniers from the bike and once we managed to get it into Neutral we got it off the road and to a safe place.  I then retrieved my bike, almost coming off in the process.
Upon inspection: he had smashed the other indicator (L), mirror back, dented the tank, but worse than that, the Switch/lever assembly had twisted in the fall and I had to dismantle the unit to repair this.  I discovered that as it had twisted the wiring loom had been partially cut through, 3 wires were cut. To add to this, there was no clutch...Bugger!
Things did not look too good and I wondered what we would do and how we would recover the bike. After disassembly, I discovered that the banjo union near the hydraulic reservoir had loosened and was leaking. Once I tightened this we, once again, had a clutch.
I spent about 3 hours the cold (freezing), and rain repairing the bike, but it was rideable BUT no Left indicator, horn and unfortunately no ABS.
Finally, done with the rain and cold, we continued along the 550 to the 518/519, 52 to Thingvellir and then the 37 to the great Geysir.  We camped here, at the wrong camp (4 km out) but were too exhausted to change, we arrived at 2145.  We set up camp then went looking for something to eat, we had to ride to the other camp where they had a restaurant/bar. We feasted on pizza and beer. We took a couple of "carry-out's" to the tent and slept very well.

Glacier Man

My workshop

Perfect Icelandic road

ready to roll

dinner stop

camp after a long day

22 - 24 June : Summer solstice X

22 June
We slept till about mid-day, needed to recover from the massive consumption of Beer, Korn and chips for last night's dinner. A swim was on the cards and headed over to the pool next to the camp. Definitely one of my favourites; 5 hot tubs, one of them Saline pumped up from the sea and heated to around 85 degrees, an olympic length pool, a cold bath (5 degrees), steam room, water slide etc. It was a great way to rejuvenate. Then we popped our washing on at the hostel and walked into town for some food. The first place we found, Black Box, was perfect, pizza and beer. We caught the second half of the Iceland vs Nigeria game 0:2, a devastating result for all there. Then we headed to the "10to11" for some supplies; namely Beer, dried fish and skyr. (Definitely our staple) After our shopping we headed back to the festival.
More stages had opened up with loads of electronic music/DJ's hailing from IS/UK and the US.  We caught some Awesome Industrial Techno - Mushy and then some Dubfire (Whoop!) and finished the night off with Dream Wife (IS/UK). As Scott put it "Angry girl band" They were angry and all girls!

23/06
Up early(-ish) today.  Breaky then the pool for about 1.5 hours and then we picked up our washing. For lunch Scott cooked his specialty, fish soup. As it was raining we decided to do a bit of route planning for the next few days and plotted our route up to this point on the maps.
We walked the other direction today to "Bonus" to do some shopping, on the way we met a couple of guys from the UK. But no beer :-(
Today was to be service day. So, we took the bikes down to the petrol station, re-fuelled and washed them.  On return to camp, I worked on Scott's indicator. I managed to construct something half decent from the pieces we were able to salvage and 1/2 a beer can.  Then we topped up the oil in both, about 0.5L in Scott's a little more in mine.
Back to the festival. In the evening we caught Slayer (apparent they are not yet dead and this was to be their final tour?)
They were last on but the rain was so heavy, despite the beers (which we had gotten much better at getting in, the security no longer checked us and just waved us on as they recognised us)
Earlier that day, we'D met some Slayer fans in the hot tubs.  All that way for a band who I'd thought were no longer with us.

24/06 (Sunday)
Up early today, had breakie, headed to the pool. I guess there was some sort of discount for the elderly this day as we must have been the youngest people there. We spent about 1.5 hours there then back to the camp for lunch. After lunch, the festival. The highlights for me that day were George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. Freakin' awesome!  Then Maxi sound system.
As it'd been raining all night and getting heavier, we decided to call it a night around ten and have an early one.

Shiny bikes

GEORGE!

Like a bought one, no one will notice