I think we're having fun?

Well, if you're going to get into cycle touring, I guess you might as well start at the deep end.

After an easy first day to Þingvellir, things got interesting. The second day was 60km of gravel. Where it wasn't loose enough to send your front tire flying out from under you, it was generally a washboard. Still, at least it only rained on us for a small part of it, and we made it through unscathed. (Mostly. Having been proud of no falls despite total clipless pedal newbie status, the gravel put me in my place once or twice. Luckily at low speeds and no lasting damage.)

A topsoil erosion problem you say? Zack waits for me at the curve. Zack is going to have to get used to doing that a lot.

If bags of manure are the only place to eat lunch out of the howling wind, you eat lunch behind the bags of manure.

The next few days educated me in just what a hardcore cycle tourist I am: entirely squishy and naive. Still, 50km headwinds while climbing a mountain pass on a road with no shoulders and frequent truck traffic isn't a  Sunday ride through the park, so I think I can live with it. Much gratitude to Zack, who's combination Trip Dad (somebody ought to know what they're doing), Mother Hen ("Are you hungry?", "No.", "Tired?", "Yes.", "Then eat!"), and generally awesome cycling companion (Emergency peanut butter sandwiches! Drafting!) got me through a couple of panicky spots.

Zack fears no puny 50km/h headwind.

Victory! Only 400m up, and ~50km in, but an Icelandic meter is worth many of your mortal meters.

So it's been brutal, but, yes, we're having fun. The ever beautiful views help, nothing tastes better than the beer at the end of the hardest-earned kilometres, and a hot tub overlooking the fjörd is one of the best possible rewards.

Hard to imagine a better reward.

A little uncertain as to what the next few days holds - the aforementioned headwinds and climbing left me, if not quite a quivering wreck, a little worse for wear to say the least. An extra day of rest in Akureyri has abated the exhaustion, but the knees are feeling abused. Will I cycle through the great gravel desert? Or have to catch a bus through to the other side? We'll see!