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The melt waters – again coming from the Eyjafjallajökull glacier – run through the upper grass lands in a barely visible stream and just before the cliff edge fall into a deep core from where they have caved a tunnel and reappear at the base of the cliff. It is a tricky steep and slippery climb to get up to a point where another hole in the cliff allows a view into the core.
But this little exercise wasn´t even a warmup for what I was up to today. I wanted to visit the Þórsmörk valley and knowing that the gravel road leading to this place was not suited for my van, I wanted to get there by bicycle. According to the map it was about 30 kilometres of gravel road running along the river without any significant ascents.
That seemed makeable. So, I drove my van the remaining short distance on paved road until the gravel road began and continued on this very rough track until I reached the first ford. I might have passed this one with my van, but the combination of river crossings and rough road seemed a bit too harsh for my trusty van. I had another month on the island and didn´t want to overstrain the van too early.
I returned to the closest parking possibility hopped on my bike. And pedalled along the even foot path running along the road until I reached the ford again. Not knowing how deep the water was at the crossing I walked up a few meters to some gravel bars and jumped across the narrower streams here.
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