One more note about last night before writing about today. Quite late we decided to go see the waterfalls that were literally across the road from our guesthouse at Godafoss. They are spectacular! They really are like a mini Niagara Falls. Beautiful.
Today we rode into Akureyri today. It was only 32 miles, but two miles in the middle made us pay! We pushed our bike up a 6-8 percent grade for about an hour. It is possible we could have tried to ride up it, but by pushing our bike we were a little more safe. Trying to balance this bike while fully exerting ourselves with zero shoulder (literally no shoulder) inevitably means we swerve. By pushing we were able to maintain a straight line. We were still run off the road once by a car coming towards us passing another car. Our definite least favorite thing about this trip has been the traffic.
The weather was good. Sunny and blue skies! Tailwind for the first half of our ride, headwind for the second half. Seems fair.
We checked into our Airbnb for the next 3 nights and went shopping. Dinner tonight was amazing. Salad, hummus, pasta with marinara sauce, and falafel. When we have the chance to cook in a kitchen we enjoy it.
Currently we are on a whale watching tour. It is about 2 hours by boat to where the whales are. We will likely get back to our Airbnb after midnight. We hope we get to see some! We’ll report next post. Bouncing across the waves makes us think of our fisherman friends in Höfn – Siggi and Hannes. It would be an amazing life to spend big chunks of time at sea.
Tomorrow we will hit the pool and then relax around town and see what else there is to do. We are also going to take Sunday off and attend a local worship service and then in the evening we plan on attending a concert at a local Lutheran Church.
Note after the whale watching: It has been beautiful! Being on a small ship in a fjord in the northern Atlantic is not something we do every day. We did see several humpback whales surface briefly and then dive gracefully. It is especially cool to hear them as they blow, or whatever it’s called. We also saw lots of dolphins skimming along and jumping. They look like they are just having so much fun! It was also beautiful to see the midnight sun not quite setting on the horizon of the sea. Our tour guide did a good job explaining about the sights along the way, as well as about the whales and dolphins. We won’t get back until half past midnight, but it was a great way to spend our evening.