DAY SIX

In the morning I was on the road for 6.30am and again with no wind and the sun blazing made good time on a flat and "compass bearing" straight road. The first 29km cuts directly across the enormous and ever increasing Skeidararsandur moraine made famous by the 1996 Loki eruption that caused a massive melt and consequent flood or jokulhaup that destroyed the three bridges.

Just before one of the bridges there is a huge mangled and rusting girder which is a piece of the original bridge. Apparently it was swept out to sea by the torrent of mud and ice but dragged back by some Icelanders to serve as a reminder of the enormous and often cataclysmic forces at work in Iceland.

This sandur is a strange place to visit the only interruption to the flat grey and silent expanse is the odd erratic which appears out of nowhere and occasionally a tuft of reeds or grass can be seen.
29km ahead the rocky prominence that is Lomagnupur juts out into the flatness at over 700m. It stands as a marker for the traveller and as I rode by an Icelandic couple passed me in a 4x4 and pulled over, they got out and waved me over to the roadside. The man wanted to take my picture and shake my hand, which he did as we talked about the local area. 
He told me that the Lomagnupur is actually part of Icelandic ancient history and like many other prominent features in Iceland it has a spirit. This spirit gives its name to the feature and stands as a sort of sentry over the area and keeps an eye on travellers in these parts.
I stopped for lunch and a brew at the foot of Lomagnupur and then rode on encountering a few hills and the by now customary afternoon wind. This whole area along the south coast is largely given over to farming but its also on the tourist trail and is peppered with some of Iceland's wonders with waterfalls and geological features around every turn. Eventually I reached my campsite for the night it was 6.30 pm and as I rode into Kirkjubaejarklaustur I was acutely aware of how busy it was. The main petrol station as you enter the town looked like a busy service station on the M6.
I headed straight for the campsite, which was up the hill to the rear of the town and found myself a pitch. Just across from my pitch I could see a toilet door with a disabled sign on it "WOW"! The first one I had come across since setting out from London. The campsite warden came over and I tentatively asked if there was a shower that was accessible to me in my wheelchair chair. He looked a little embarrassed and told me that the toilet I could see was supposed to have a shower in it but they had not got around to finishing the job, "maybe next year", he said with a sheepish smile. Nevermind at this point I had gone 6 days without a shower (not a pretty sight or smell) unfortunately Iceland is a bit behind on facilities for people with disabilities but they are making progress and in Reykjavik things are a little better.

As I was making my dinner a German called Helge and his young daughter approach me and asked if he could take a picture of the trike and me. He explained that he was a bike builder in Hanover and he was very interested in how I was getting on with the trike. He invited me down to his caravan where I met his other 2yr old daughter Hedda and his wife Kirsten. Later his father, Hans, who lives in Iceland 6 months of the year came along and we chatted well into the night. Helge said he would look at my gears for me as they were slipping a little in the mid range he did the job but told me to watch out for them as at some point they had taken a knock and were damaged slightly.