A jumbled mix of experiences today. Firstly we had a relaxing start as we went to investigate the town. After perving at a wooden Viking ship in the port we walked to the top of thebasalt cliffs to look out over town. Our next attempts to find the oldest building in town lead us to what we thought might be a library but turned out to be an artists piece of work.The oldest building was shut but our attempts to get going were held back by the fact that the supermarket also did not open until 12. We took the opportunity to grab some food and caffeine at a cafe and played a bit of poker and wrote postcards in the sunshine.We also had first contact with Duncan's love balls but the less said the better.
Once we had stocked up on food and picked up the washing flapping in the wind at the campsite we set off into increasingly foul weather. We were biking around the Snaefellsnes peninsula in horrid weather, only to be teased by bright sunshine off the coast to our right.We tried to brighten ourselves up and stopped at a luxury tea shop for some fantastic coconut and chocolate cake and watched the rain pouring down outside.
After setting off again the weather held off a bit much to our relief. We passed over a couple of causeways which had a lethal stream flowing under the connecting bridge, as Steve commented there was little point playing poo sticks. We lunched on a small jetty at one of the tiny villages we had been passing through. While the weather had picked upit was still cold and given our proximity to the Arctic circle it made the sight of two young lads splashing around in the sea all the more impressive. Perhaps we're getting old but had we tried the same venture I'm sure we'd be requiring serious medical attention shortly afterwards. Towards the end of the peninsula we were faced with a stark choice, stop at the last village for the night or push hard and try to get all the way round the headland. Any compromise solutionfell foul of the fact that we were faced with lava fields for many kilometres, which are not great place to camp or indeed find water. We opted to set up camp early. With dry weather and even a bit of sunshine we set up the tents and found a small mooring buoy which provided us with an object for fun and games. We soon had set up the shot put competition followed by the hammer and the shorter lived bowling challenge. This didn't seem to amuse our fellow campers when they pulled up just after Colin had hit his straps with the hammer throwing and they were greeted with a nutter hurling a mooring buoy rather too close to their car for comfort in the suddenly space limited campsite.
The competition over we turned to food. Steve and I headed out to buy some beer and got back in time to decide that the meat that Hugh had chosen in the morning had certainly been cheap for a good reason so headed back out to findsome protein. We did spy a hotel bar on our travels and after eating headed over to see what the only bar in town had to offer. At first it didn't even have any bar staff until we rang the bell but we soon had beer in hands and poker on the table. Once Steve had wiped the floor we entertained our fellow drinkers with some vigorous debate about the inevitability of a culture of litigation.