The Sprengisandur !

It had taken me almost 5 days to be able to pronounce the word Sprengisandur. I had seen it on the maps we were looking at and heard others mention it, but it took me like forever to be able to say it properly. The Sprengisandur according to google is the longest of all the Icelandic highland roads/trails, spreading itself over 200km running diagonally north to south/south to north.   The name Sprengisandur came from the black sand and sprengja which means ……. “to ride a horse to death, to be on the point of bursting after running for too long”. (thanks Tim )

My understanding was that this was earmarked for a two day trip, that in itself told the story of it’s possible length and issues. Up fresh after our rest day we headed out on to the road for approx. 30 miles or so till we came to a filling station and another eatery. This place seemed affy busy with touristy types, not that we were tourists you understand  we’re proper adventurers  but a quick look round the side of the building and we could see why it was busy, we were at another set of falls, Godafoss this time  We didn’t go over this time but even from where we were it was yet another stunning area..

From there we immediately headed on to a gravel road that ran down parallel to the river, this time, briefly I wasn’t at the back  not that it mattered, we were kicking up huge dust clouds and you just couldn’t ride too fast or too close to anyone as you couldn’t see feck all. Then we came upon a bridge, over we went and carried on down the other side, then shortly after we seemed to turn off the main track and found ourselves in a car park area. Off the bikes, and away we walked down to, what I think most would say was the most spectacular of all the falls we visited in our time there. They went by the name of   Aldeyjarfoss, no I canny pronounce it either  but feck me what a place, usual story, pictures will never do justice to this, it was spectabulous 

After the falls I assumed the usual spot in the pack  bringing up the rear, and despite still not having a back marker, I had got used to the fact that 6 days in, that wasn’t going to change sadly though, from this point on scenery was at an absolute premium in my opinion as we rocked and rolled over the blandness most desolate huge skelp of land I’ve ever ridden over.  Don’t get me wrong, it was far from boring but there wasn’t much to look at, not that I had any time to look at anything mind as I was hanging on to the coat tails of the rest.

 

This route had lots of small river crossing, dips, rises, shitty sand tracks (which some went down on, when I say went down on, you know what I mean…ooh err missus ) and so it continued, on and on and on, thankfully for us, the weather was still good but you had no sense of distance you were travelling, as it all just seemed the same.

Eventually we reached what we were lead to believe was to be the biggest and toughest river crossing of the whole trip  tbh, I think they were taking the piss, there was fuck all, couple of crossing together but that was it, but the lass at the hut there did say the water levels were very low..

We’d arrived there much quicker than was anticipated, around 3pm, and the brief discussion was had about weather we camp here or crack on, well when I say a discussion, others decided this, I was never asked my opinion on fuck all, all trip  not that it mattered, I was keen to crack on, though little did I know how far we still had to go to meet civilisation, it felt like forever, anyway, we got going again and cracked on. We continued on and again met more river crossing…

We eventually hit what was like a main road, well, when I say I main road, it was straight, it was flat and it was clearly built for purpose but fuck me, back on the marbles again, it was horrible to ride on.  Dear old Bob was behind me on this stretch accompanied by Mark, so things didn’t feel so bad being at the back. This road, much like the rest seemed to go on forever, and I noticed a bike gaining on me,Mark fired past  leaving Bob well back  we carried on a fair bit….then up ahead, Graham, Sean and Phil had stopped (Mark had fired past them also) apparently Phil had a front tyre puncture… but Graham asked me to fire on a notify the rest ahead, and this got me thinking again, why the fuck isn’t there a back marker ?? I thought, what if that had been Bob that had it ?? On his own a good bit back, can’t say I was overly impressed by this  another of these…what ifs !!!

Finally, we made it to proper tarmac…

Eventually we make it to our campsite for the night, although it must’ve still been 50ish miles from where Phil had his flat. Another epic day was over and we set up on the far end of the campsite for the night and our day was done, another day ticked off, with just one more full day to go, which would have a very bizarre start to it for the first hour or so for me, but more of that later.

 

 

 

NB: Thanks to Tim for some of the photos, hope he doesn’t mind me sharing a few of his.