After a night at sea on the ferry from the Faroe Islands, a jagged, stormy Iceland appears. With much of Europe in a heatwave, it’s a shock to see snow on the skyline. The ferry noses up a long fjord, docking at the small east-coast town of Seyðisfjörður.
The weatherboarded town is lovely and busy with tourists. I collect my mountain bike and set off, cutting along the north shore of the fjord and soon leaving the tarmac behind. Iceland has seen a boom in tourism in the past decade, fuelled by Game of Thrones and Instagram. One effect is that hotspots are now red hot. A waterfall or viewpoint deemed special is inundated. But the rest are ignored.
By an abandoned farmhouse I leave the bike and walk uphill to an idyllic waterfall. The ground is thick with orchids, crowberries and tiny birch trees that have taken years to achieve ankle height. The water flutes over deep, spongy beds of lurid green moss. Bees and butterflies swarm on patches of wild angelica. I lie down.
I had been warned about the Víknaslóðir path north: how it might be hard for cyclists. That day I discover an important truth: if Icelanders say something is hard, it is. Just as the landscape itself is unadorned with trees, the people’s words are not dressed up. I cannot carry my bike and kit north. I turn back. I will have to start from the other end of this multi-day ride, a 57-mile road trip north at Borgarfjörður Eystri.
When I finally get there, I find a little town on a beach backed by rose-tinted mountains. It may not have the quaint vintage looks of Sejðisfjørður, but Borgarfjörður has been shaken back to life by its young people who, in recent years, have opened a shop, a very cool bar and several restaurants. When campsite manager Arni and his wife had a baby in 2020, it was the first child born here in years and the entire town of 150 celebrated. The eider duck farm sent a duvet.
Arni is excited by my plan. We study the map. “You will have to push the bike here and here. This river must be waded.” I note it all down. “You will buy food in the store here – there is nothing where you are going. Instead of pushing through to Seyðisfjörður, which, as you discovered, is too hard…” he grins wryly, “you can loop back this way.”
I buy food and spend the rest of the day watching puffins at the end of the bay. This is definitely a tourist honeypot, but that might not be a bad thing. The humans inadvertently keep the predators away while the puffins nest under the boardwalk and pose for photographs. A German visitor says to me: “I keep coming back because puffins make me happy.”
Next morning, in a light cold rain, I start the long, gnarly climb south. I get a last lovely view of the bay, then I’m in cloud. The mountain pass is grim with gritty gusts and sleet but the descent is an exhilarating blast of speed and splatter. Then the valley opens up below and I see Breiðavík mountain hut, a little oasis in a vast, treeless wilderness. I arrive late afternoon to find two bunk rooms and a large kitchen-living area with a log burner. I light the log burner, warm up, and read a bit: I may have forgotten to bring any trousers with me, but at least I have War and Peace. If the logs run out, it’ll keep me warm.
Later I cycle along a thin trail to a black beach where a whale skeleton is scattered and watch Arctic terns dancing along the breakers. When I get back, a large group of Icelandic hikers are cooking fish outside in a rising storm which they don’t appear to notice. I am quickly adopted and eat a convivial dinner with them.
Next morning I pedal out into a ferocious wind bearing sheets of icy rain. I’ve lost track of which river I must wade because there are dozens of new ones. When the storm rips a hole in the cloud, I see peaks covered in snow. I cross one high pass and descend to another deserted beach at Húsavík. My map shows when each settlement was abandoned along this coast, most giving up by the 1940s, but here they lasted into the 1970s. There’s a small church and a rich meadowland where a tiny scrap of graveyard is being eaten away by the relentless sea, just two rusting iron crosses remaining.
I push on through a flurry of snow over the next mountain pass, loving the wild isolation and the thrilling unmasking, through torn clouds, of vast mossy dales and sepulchral silent fjords far below.
Finally, I reach Lóðmundarfjörður mountain hut, the climax of my no-fly bike odyssey. Tomorrow I will ride back to Borgarfjörður, warm up in Vök hot pools, then catch the three-day ferry back to Denmark, a long, slow return that will be a welcome change to the usual abrupt wrench of airports. Almost all of my journey has been achieved at speeds below 20mph and, to my own surprise, I am happy to keep it that way.
Borgarfjörður bike hire from £37 per day. Smyril Line sails from Iceland to Denmark once a week, all year round, passenger with bicycle from £152 DFDS Amsterdam-Newcastle service: £78 each for two cyclists sharing an inside cabin. Hotel Aldan in Seyðisfjörður, doubles from £118. Alfheimar Guesthouse in Borgarfjörður, doubles from £98. Breiðavík and Loðmundarfjörður huts are £50 per night or £17 for camping. Visit Austurland, Visit Borgarfjörður
