Day 05: Borgarfjörður – Valpjofsstaðir

In the morning I start the day with a breakfast porridge and an self brewed espresso. A good breakfast makes my day.

Unfortunately I don't take down the tent early, so that it gets wet from the upcoming rain and has to be packed wet.

We waste a lot of time in the morning and don't start heading south until around 11 a.m. The four of us (Markus joins us) want to ride towards Askja. First that leads us back to Egilsstaðir. After a while I see an alternative route along a reservoir that I spontaneously decide to take. I arrive at about the same time with the others in Egilsstaðir, where we have lunch again in the diner, which we visited the day before.

Markus has a problem with his BMW F800GS. The battery is not charging anymore and he is on the road with several batteries. Obviously the stator is broken, a common problem with the F800GS.

After lunch we head further south, where I first take an alternative route that is partly gravel and the others stay on the main route on asphalt. We meet again south of Lake Lagarfljót. There we take the road up to the highlands. We ride north of the Vatnajökull nature reserve on an asphalt road until we reach the Kárahnjúkur dam, one of the largest hydroelectric power stations in Europe.

From there we take a difficult, very stony dirt road interspersed with small sand holes. Marek and Melanie get along very well with this road, but Markus runs into problems. He has two drop downs and is therefore getting somehow insecure. In addition, his battery is going low again and has to be replaced. So we decide to turn back to a nearby campsite, which is shown on the map, but which we cannot find. So we decide to ride back to the southern end of Lagarfljót, where we saw signs for a campsite nearby.

Unfortunately Markus' last battery is going low on the way back, so Marek and I ride ahead to the campsite and remove the battery from Marek's motorcycle. I return to the place, where the other two are waiting for me. We send Melanie off right away and I accompany Markus to the campsite.

It turned out to be a long and exhausting day. We improvise dinner and then soon fall into bed quite exhausted.