Akureyri

Day 6: Kinnafjall to Akureyri

| gloriakidsfirst

Woke up to another beautiful day, Julien treated himself to a bit of a lie in. It was still cold but bright always helps.  Broke the tent down.   Set off and headed 55km down the hill towards Angelique’s location.  The head winds were at it again and even though the cycling was downhill it was only possible to reach 8mph, cycling into the winds is heartbreaking and always a challenge .  It was an unrelenting 4 hours. When we met up with Angelique she deduced that Julien needed to lose some kit to make the head winds easier so we had a bit of a turn out and Angelique will be taking 10 kilo’s of stuff and leaving it at the airport on her way out tomorrow.

Currently Julien’s leg muscles look like I imagine Popeye’s would.  Now having a nice meal and preparing to wave Angelique off in the morning. Dave is on his way and is flying out tomorrow although Julien will be heading to Akureyri in the middle of nowhere so it will take a few days to meet up.

020 7841 8955
events@kidsfirsttrust.org

Day 5: Blonduos to Kinnafjall

| gloriakidsfirst

This morning was a beautiful one to wake up to. Sunny and bright, not words we would have associated with Iceland so far.  The road out of Blonduos was calm and tranquil and we covered about 35-40kms without seeing any traffic. However, this was clearly too good to be true. As we turned a corner we could see a rising valley ahead of us.  Shit! came to mind. It is difficult to put this into words but we could see tiny cars up ahead of us climbing very very slowly. This did not bode well for us lowly cyclists.

We climbed 500 metres higher and higher up the hill. It was grueling and exceptionally tough. As we reached a plateau at the top of the mountain it was still fairly sunny and warm and the scenery was awesome.

As we began to head down towards Varmahlio (a small town housing 120 residents) we could see the massive drop ahead of us and it was a long long long  ride down. The weather was  beautiful and  really warm. We safely reached the bottom and after an amazing lunch  thought ‘life is great’.

Over lunch we looked at the map and saw that we could get 45 km towards our next destination.  Unfortunately our luck was out and the stand on Julien’s bike broke. No stand on a touring bike fully loaded is frankly a pain in the arse as you can’t just stop for a drink. You have to find something to lean it on. This put Julien in a grumpy mood. Then the weather clouded over and it got cold. Our non-stop uphill climbing of only  15km took us a whole  4 hours! We were so high up that we got to the point where there was snow all around us. We were yet again battling strong head winds  and we were freezing cold. Finally we reached the path at the top. We had drunk a lot of water and were very thirsty. The wind chill made it below zero. Julien had full weather gear but Angelique’s full weather kit had one missing in transit so we hailed her a lift down the mountain. Julien camped alone at the top of the mountain and experienced -2 degrees in the tent.  That said it was a beautiful evening with clear skies and the now familiar light nights.

Please support Kids First Trust by sponsoring Julien on his Just Giving Page

Events Team
Kids First Trust

020 7841 8955
events@kidsfirsttrust.org