RIDING THE GAESAVATNALEIÐ
“So on we went along that bastard of a track, round and round, up and down, but mostly up, until we had climbed right to the edge of the Vatnajökull, next to the ice.” From Running Blind by Desmond Bagley, a 1970 espionage thriller in which the MI6 hero evades his KGB pursuers by crossing the Gaesavatn.
We were somewhere on the Gæsavatn, west of Kistufell, just north of the Vatnajökull Glacier, crossing a large, bleak lava field. It was windy, intermittently snowing, very cold, and a long, long way from anywhere. I had just made an interesting discovery and was hoping to draw on Sue’s medical know-how. “What does it mean when you have blood in your urine?” I asked. “Well, hematuria is quite common with endurance athletes, especially with weight loss. I think you should be all right, just keep an eye on it.” Having been on our bikes for seven days—five of those on boneshaking highland roads and tracks—I could vouch for the endurance part, and for the weight loss too. Trying to fit two weeks’ food on our bikes was a logistics exercise worthy of Houdini, and meant light rations. It had been a challenging trip so far, and my body was confirming this.
The F910-Gæsavatnaleið (or Gæsavatn route) is located in the centre of the highlands of Iceland, just north of the Vatnajökull Glacier, Iceland’s largest ice cap.
