Thor's Outdoors!: Akureyri - Capital of the Bright North!

Rejoining the ring road

I finally got an early start! Early enough being that I was all packed up and headed out by 11 o'clock! Now that I've rejoined the main highway 1 or the ring-road, my pace is a lot faster and in no time at all I had made it across to Viðidal, a beautiful wide valley with tall mountains to the east. Once I reached those mountains and turned north, the clouds behind me had hit the mountains and the rain started coming down so for a brief while it was wet and extremely windy where I had to get off my bike and wait for a bit so I wouldn´t risk steering myself into the road to compensate for the wind. There was quite a lot of traffic today, with most seemingly making an early start to the weekend. At Blönduós I stopped for lunch and filled up with water, before turning off the main road again to head towards Sauðarkrókur.

Watch for sheep!

Sauðarkrókur

From my first trip to Iceland in 1993 I remembered Sauðarkrókur as this wonderfully beautiful place that was very sunny, and the name of the town somehow always had made me think of frogs… maybe krókur, and the Swedish word for frog ´groda´ sound similar? It was nice being off the main road again, although there was a big rise to go over. It seemed to end too soon though, as the road dropped into another small valley before going up again and then finally down to Skagafjörður where Sauðarkrókur lies. It was great arriving to town at a reasonable hour (before 7pm) and I got to the camp site with enough time to talk to the owner for a bit, and relax for a while before heading to bed. In the morning I spoke to a Canadian woman Wendy who was also on her bike, although she was only traveling around the north. She told me about her tour to New Zealand where it was common for the locals to go on epic walks across the country, and where she had worked at a walnut farm! It´s a great conversation starter traveling by bicycle, most everyone is curious and like to talk. After packing up I made sure to stop a the local tannery, another reason why I had made the small detour to Sauðarkrókur. This is where all the animal skins from Iceland are processed into leather, especially fish skins. It was amazing seeing all the different colours and textures of the fish leather, from salmon, ocean perch and wolffish. They also sold sheep skins and even from skins horses and seals.

Öxnadalsheiði

It was now getting late already and I had about 120km ahead of me. The road south to rejoin the ring road was flat and easy though, and this continued well into the valley where the next mountain pass was. The rise up was so gradual and easy that one hardly noticed the elevation change, but soon I stopped to have lunch at a little spot overlooking a gorge with a fast moving stream. It was only a couple of kilometres from the top and soon the road turned down again into a very long valley. There were tall mountains on either side creating a spectacular ride, even though the wind was mostly against me all the way down. I finally got down to sea level again and turned the bend south where I caught my first glimpse of Akureyri, the capital of the North and Iceland´s largest city outside of the Reykjavík area. I arrived just in time too, because I was set to meet my relatives down in the harbour area for the concert on the Húni ship. The same group of musicians we´d seen in Isafjörður almost a week earlier had now made it to Akureyri as well! It was a fantastic show again, and since the weather was so great and it was their last show of the tour they played some extra songs and jumped into the sea once it was all done. One of their songs which led to a huge sing-a-long was "Ég er kominn heim" which translates to "I´ve come home"! I went home with my fathers cousin to take a shower and have a bite to eat before we went into town again for a night out. Akureyri is a beautiful place with stunning mountains all around, great bars and wonderful people. It was amazing also heading home at 2am with midnight sun still and all so calm and peaceful. I got to spend the night also in the same house and same room where my father stayed about 50 years earlier while he was in Akureyri for high school!

Riding up Öxnadalsheiði with the gorge on the right

Arriving to Akureyri and with a shadow from the sunny day!

The ship Húni with the band playing on board

Rest day in Akureyri

I slept in for a long long time, as it was great to sleep in a bed for a change. There were delicious pancakes for brunch and after a little bit my fathers cousin Árni took me out for a tour of the town. He´s an amazing guy, the first thing I noticed about him was how big and strong he was unlike most other guys in the family who are lankier. We went around town and made it up also to the ski area up the mountainside where there was a beautiful view of the town. With the sun beaming down it was a wonderful sight, and the mountains in Glerárdalur where the main river through town starts, were gorgeous. I spent the afternoon at the house of my grandfathers sister, looking at old photos, trying several different Icelandic foods like Hangkjötssalat and Rúgbrauð, while other relatives stopped in as well. In the evening my fathers cousin Hallgrímur picked me up and we went to see a football match between the local club Þór (same as my name!) and Breiðablík from Kópavogur. It was an entertaining game, although the home team lost 1-2 after missing a penalty kick. Hallgrímur then showed me his workshop in town where he does his painting, and we played a game of pool and I got to meet some other artists with workspaces in the same building. All with a wonderful view of the city centre and the fjord, where apparently you could see whales last year when two whales spent the summer in Eyjarfjörður. I was dropped off later again at Árnis house, where we had supper and a delicious rhubarb pie for dessert. Now just time to pack up and prepare for tomorrows ride to the famous lake Mývatn!