Bye bye bike… Reykjavík, Iceland

Reykjavík, Iceland Day 26. 17/July/2014 Bye bye bike… Day score 6. Woke at 6am to the sound of rain hitting the window. Went back to sleep, I’d only had two hours sleep anyway and when everyone else arrived at the club I had a pounding head ache. I had looked at the weather, it was possible to attempt to fly around the coast, but it would have been a pretty horrible flight anyway with a pounding headache and trying not to fall asleep in the air. I would have gone, knowing the views and the adrenaline would have got me round in one piece. To come to Iceland with the intent on this flight and not to be able to even attempt the flight due to the weather would be so sad. It’s the 50th anniversary of the competition and if I could get around Iceland it would be difficult to beat. I desperately needed more sleep, but where? The only place I could think of was back in the plane, so I jumped back, pulled the white cover over everything and got a few more hours. A couple of days ago I wrote an email to all the people of the KR2 club in America. I wanted to see if one of them would be prepared to look after my bike. I would post on to them and pick up and swap it with the extra tank on the way past. About 10 people offered to do this and more. Some offered to fly the bike to Oshkosh in their bigger planes and I could pick it up there. Stupidly though I realised that, I could just post the bike to myself. There was a major USPS post office just outside the airport. I phoned them up, they said just to put “General Delivery” in the address and it would be held there at the Oshkoshpost office for me. With this done, I finished taping up the parcel, addressed it to myself and Gummy drove me to the post office. 22 kilos of bike, tools and paperwork. £110 to ship by sea, which could take two to six weeks, or £150 to airfreight it, which would take four to six days. Knowing my luck, if I posted it by sea it would take the six weeks. But at this rate of my progress, it might still beat me to Oshkosh… On a sad note, world war 3 started today when the Malaysian 777 got shot down over the Ukraine. But on a good note, entertainment was laid on as Gummy and four of the other pilots had formed a band and practised to be the entertainment at a fly-in at the end of the month. I finished the day sorting out photos and publishing them on flickr and trying to get this diary up to date.

]]>