Photos of the first crossing of the centre of Iceland by bicycle

My friend Dick Phillips, owner of Fljotsdal youth hostel, set off in the late 1950s with 3 friends to be the first to cross the centre of Iceland by bicycle. What he didn't realise at the time was he was 25 years too late. Horace Dall did it in 1933. The main differences between Dick's and Horace's crossings are that (a) Dick carried his own rubber dinghy to cross the Tungnaa, whereas Horace got someone with a truck to take a boat there. (b) Dick had a somewhat better idea of the route and the terrain.

In fact Horace almost bit off more than he could chew: he thought he would find it a lot easier than he did. I have heard he under-provisioned and ended up surviving on 100g of chocolate a day. It is actually quite amazing he got across as fast as he did without a road, and not really knowing very much about the details of the terrain. Anyone who has taken a bicycle into the interior of Iceland is probably aware that usually you can't ride literally off-road, the ground is usually too poorly compacted.

Anyway, to my amazement, someone has found Horace's photos and notes and arranged them beautifully on a website. I ran across these thanks to a link on Michiel Erens' wonderful website about bicycle travels in Iceland.

Here they are. http://s272714720.websitehome.co.uk/page17/page15/page15.html

Edited by: iviehoff

Cool! Thanks for posting this.