The owner woke me up at 10am and on invited me in for coffee. I drank it to be polite, and sat in silence with her, her husband and their friend, all smoking in a small stuffy kitchen. After enough awkward silence to last a lifetime I finished my coffee, thanked them and went on my way. The wind had subsided somewhat, so the going was hard but safe. On the other side of the peninsula I started to hear an eerie chatter fill the air. I couldn’t see any birds nearby, but the more I cycled the louder this chatter became. Eventually I came across a car park filled with cars and it became clear that I had just cycled across the lip of a large bird cliff. I had a quick look but the strong wind dissuaded me from getting too close to cliffs.
Beyond the bird cliffs was a steep descent into a river floodplain so wide it seemed to rain up to the mountains far on the horizon.
After a tense descent I had 20km of empty nothing to look forward to until I arrived at Asbyrgi canyon. The canyon is unique due to it having the shape of a giant horseshoe, and was said to have been created by the hoof of Odins eight legged horse touching down on earth.
The best way to view the canyon is by hiking up to the top, but the weather was still a bit grim so instead I planned to camp a little further down, see the waterfall Dettifoss tomorrow, then hike Asburgi on the ride back.
I set camp down inside a steep canyon south of Asbyrgi and had an early night.
Stunning photo Andrew 🙂