Iceland Bike Tour Day 23: Cycling Arbudir to Reykholt (F35 Divide Route)

This was the last big day cycling along the F35 Divide route in Iceland. I had stayed the night at the Arbudir bunkhouse, and then rode to Reykholt to stay in a campsite there.
This video was filmed on the 13th August 2023.
As always, you can find the day’s route on Komoot along with some extra photos: https://www.komoot.com/tour/1259025778

[Music] hello there it’s the 13th of August 2023 and my bike tour around Iceland continues today I’m leaving from this place which is actually called arader and I’m going to continue along the F35 road all the way down to a place called recky halt which is somewhere around here and there’s got a camp in there it’s about a 70 km day here’s some clips and commentary from the road speaking a bit cheers now take a single TR good morning it is Sunday the 13th of August the time is 10:35 and I am leaving AR I think that’s how you pronounce it and I’m heading towards the um gazer area although I’m aiming to stay in a campsite called wcky halt as it looks to have better facilities about a 74 uh kilometer day on the cards it was very windy earlier on this morning it’s died down a bit now I think it’s still in my direction atic is turned K’s going to be doing this K’s going to be doing that all day behind because it didn’t want to send me on the F35 it wanted to send me on some random single tracks which is useful so yeah I think the road is going to get progressively better I hope cuz yesterday was quite tough in the end and yeah this place was beautiful woke up this morning it’s a really clear sky you can see the mountains with the the snow caps well mountains I guess the hills really you got glaciers over on the right hand side let me swing you around if you can see that I’m going to try and put in some um film from my phone if I remember and yeah here we go really nothing else to say it looks like the road is if it stays like this this is very nice so it should be a very pleasant day in a saddle he says here we go look at that mountain ahead of us look at it they beautiful yeah so this road quality is like so much better than the other one and it’s only well just separated by a few meters Maybe it’s looked after by different Road authorities or something anyway the guys that look the guys that look after this road should go and look after the other bit of road so what we got in front of us I’ve got this little Hill with the snow on to the right there’s like a lake I think it’s a glacial Lake got some green on my right and then there kind of Baron on my left saw a few sheep this morning there’s already been a few cars making their way North and South that I’ve seen yesterday that seemed to pick up at around midday I’m surprised that there weren’t more people staying at this place actually maybe only cyclists know about it cuz it’s got no real facilities if you got to Camp that or well actually you can out there there you go it’s my first car of the [Music] day [Music] another cyclist so this cyclist had wild camped just down here somewhere there was some like sheep shelters or something probably going to see it as I pass by yeah so he’s been cycling in Iceland for 5 weeks so there there’s quite a mix of people I think uh people on shorter trips tend to stick to the Ring Road and then people who are here for longer like a month or longer uh well at some point you have to go on these roads otherwise you run out of places to cycle but yeah they seem to be more or less what I’m doing which is like West F in and and this one he’d also done the f26 he said there was quite some temperature differences during the day like sometimes it could be 20 and sometimes it could be five or within the same like hour almost so that would have been kind of interesting yeah so he’s on his way maybe he’ll meet up with the cyclist that was staying at the cafe as well so it sounds like I’ve got a small uphill section which goes don’t know if you can see the mountains in front of me won’t call them mountains or any Hills really but it looks like the road goes between them so that’s my uphill for the day and then it goes downhill and starts to become paved at some point [Music] this really is a beautiful day to be riding through this part of Iceland I got the red grass on the right how do you get red grass I have no idea is it grass I have no idea so while I would say the West fi to the overall highlight of my tour so far this is probably the single most stunning area My Cycles through yeah yeah big good think I can see the building on the right that the other cyclist said he camped behind last night you probably can’t see it on here though it’s very difficult to know what the GoPro is picking up or not obviously I’m bouncing up and down on this dirt road and what it has got a screen on the back I can’t really see it properly from the angle I am I could have been doing a lot of recording and it’s all blurred and Dusty which wouldn’t surprise me I have got a drone with me and I’ve not used it once and this would be a good area to use it but I don’t know I think uh I think I should have just not brought it in the end I don’t know what the Drone photos are going to achieve for me cuz most of this is the experience and yeah and probably no one’s going to watch this video but me anyway this water is an interesting color I’m not sure if that’s my sunglasses making it seems strange or if you can see that it’s a bit strange [Music] guess it’s what they call glacial melt he says being an expert on everything Iceland right [Music] now just over an hour of cycling and I’ve done 120 M of ascent at the minute and my current altitude is 450 M isn’t that interesting and what’s my distance 13.1 km so I think this climb goes on a little bit further and then it’s downhill uh yeah it’s uh the road’s a bit rougher at the minute because it’s it’s uphill so the cars and trucks or whatever have created corrugations but not as bad as yesterday and it’s starting to get quite warm so yeah I’ve got a little bit more of this uphill to go and then I should be gliding from then to my destination don’t know if you can make out the head looks like there was a tow truck and he’s had to sort a car out does look they both look to be four-wheel drives my guesses I love guessing it’s great one broke down so the company brought out another one for them to drive drive again just making that up they do tell you not to drive on here with rental cars rental four-wheel drives are allowed obviously if it goes wrong in the really bad sections it’s going to be expensive tow or whatever I’m not sure Insurance fully covers you that things like that let’s have a look as we go past hey yeah I’d say that’s what happened probably broke down and then they brought out another car anyway that’s the story I’m going to say so if you’re thinking of driving the F35 yeah if you’ve got a rental vehicle you want to make sure that the insurance is going to cover you for sure and if you brought your own vehicle over from Mainland Europe not quite sure what you do get your credit card ready I suppose let’s do a quick update I just met a couple of Spanish cyclists going in Spanish don’t know why I said Spanish Italian cyclists going in the opposite direction and I had a a bit of a steep uphill and then I back to all this corrugation again hence the bumping up and down on the video there’s just no smooth bit to get to right and when you get a stretcher smooth bit it just disappears again and you’re left with the corrugations 2 hours cycling uh 24 km traveled which is actually pretty good I think given the the road condition led to believe that the Asal might start in about 10 km so let’s say that’s another hour and after that I’m going to pick up the speed quite quickly I’ll probably just be gliding along thinking it’s like nothing I hope you’re appreciating all these bumps as much as I am by the way I’m just trying to get some more stats for you yeah got about 50 km to go which could [Music] be probably 3 hours I guess get this bit out the way and then get a bit of speed up on the asphal and I’ve done 280 M of ascent and I’m at 400 m elevation and I’m basically what I keep saying I’m basically going downhill but every time I say that I seem to be filming myself going uphill a little bit anyway that’s the up date don’t want to give myself false hope in case it’s a mirage but is that as Bel up her head OMG oh you can see the smile on my face now obviously one final crappy bit of road to get through and then as felt oh I’m so happy there we go so this should make the going in a little bit quicker now I’m bumping up and down probably make this video a little bit uh easier to watch as well probably won’t make it quite so seasick so not too sure how far I’ve got to go maybe 43 km now so let’s uh let’s assume that that’s a couple of hours I should be there by 4:00 to the campground unless there’s a restaurant or something on the way in which case I might stop for something to eat so I’m just cycling towards the Gul po waterfalls you might be able to pick up on the camera if not now in a minute two little clouds of steam kind of on the gra well it appear like it’s at ground level I’m guessing that’s the waterfalls where the river is I’m rather hoping that being on a bicycle I can see it from the side of the road without having to go into the car park don’t know how realistic that is probably not very realistic there is a car park there where I guess I could leave the bike and then walk towards the the viewing area all seems relatively flat so can have a little circle around and have a look yeah no way to see it from the road so see if I can get close without Happ to leave the bike which I’m a little bit reluctant to do I’ve got all the important stuff in The Handlebar bag I can always take that with me look how many cars there are in that car Park yeah I decided not to bother I’ve seen um the D Jandy waterfalls I’m sure this is very spectacular but that amount of people ain’t my cup of tea at all and there’s also a chance that I’ll come back to Iceland with Vanessa at some point and I’m pretty sure that this will be on one of the trips we do [Music] yeah so the question is does Bicycle Tour room make your antisocial yes and no it’s always good to talk to other cyclists and other Travelers but big clumps of people like that following a tourist Trail yeah so not really my thing when you consider what I’ve just been cycling through I mean that’s the experience I want not just wandering off to a waterfall taking a photo whereas if I was here on a like a long weekend with the misses and we hired a car or did a day trip yeah for sure this will be on our little uh list of things to do wow there’s even like a queer cars here incredible I wonder if there’s a spot here where you can look at no idea what those idiots are doing far too far too much traffic my liking you’re pretty much the same at Geer I [Applause] think so yeah I mean I’m not being I’m not being snobby about it honestly I just think that uh I’m having a different experience and I’ll come back and have that sightseeing experience at another point in the future maybe and if I don’t I don’t think my life will be any poorer for it yeah back to traffic again oh well never mind I’ve got about what does it say now 25 km remaining according to this uh potentially hour and a half little bit less up ahead there was two little spouts of steam and it was a much bigger spout earlier so I’m assuming that the Gea just went off wow this area is so busy there is a camping on the right here I did debate whether to stay there cuz what I could have done is see the Geer at night with fewer visitors but I think I’m going to carry on to this wrecky halt cuz it’s got better facilities than this one apparently this one’s got no kitchen or common area so I’m just going to carry on like I said I can always come back to Iceland at some point see this with the misses so the 35 turns off to the left here in a bit and I’m hoping that means uh less traffic cuz this this other route if I can get my words out is a road that would take you to uh reic I think so anyway we’ll find out at least it’s a semi shoulder here so you can see the sign says going to cell boss but I’m going to wrecky holes underneath it and that should have a camping with a kitchen and showers hopefully the [Music] next so it’s about 14 excuse me kilometers to go now should be flat for most of the way speaking to another cyclist I bumped into suggested that the weather in the south is uh bad and has been for a while uh which could explain why so many people were taking their vacations up in the Westfield of course