Day 8 - Bus from Myvatn to Hofn, Cycling through the night part 1

My body clock woke me up at 7, and I lay there until about 7.45. I had bought a coach ticket yesterday evening from the campsite reception that was leaving at 10am and would take me around the East-Fjords ending up at Hofn. This meant that when I did collect my laundry at 9 I had to work pretty quickly to pack everything up and sort out my clothes before making my way to the coach stop (thankfully this was located by the supermarket/tourist information centre across the road). I got to the coach stop about 10 minutes early. I was told yesterday that with this coach company I would have to pay the driver extra for the bike. The ticket was very expensive and I didn't want to have to fork out any more for the bike. Thankfully the driver was really nice and didn't ask for any more money. We departed Reykjahlio about 5 minutes late. It was a long old ride, and I would be on the coach until about 5pm. I used this as an opportunity to catch up on some blog notes. After a few hours we stopped at the town of Egilsstadir for about 30 minutes - I was out of the coach and walking around the town/by a lake close by trying to see as much as I could of the place in the very limited timeframe I had. There was one moment of panic when I'd lost my camera - I had been taking photos of some butterflies and gone for a pee, and about 20 metres along the path I noticed my camera wasn't in the bumbag where it normally was. Thankfully after 5 minutes of scouring the floor I managed to find it hiding in the grass. Massive relief. This delay meant that I had to run back to the coach and take a shortcut across a field/jump over a stream. I boarded the coach and we made our way around the East-Fjords. The East-Fjords were absolutely stunning, and I was resenting the fact that I was seeing them fly by at 60km per hour through the window of the coach rather than having time to take it all in at 15-20km per hour from the saddle of my bike. Seeing the East-Fjords, along with Pauline recommending night cycling a few days ago inspired me to cycle tonight. I got my map out and looked at the road heading West after Hofn. There was a big desolate-looking area around Skaftafell that I remember Ivar recommending. This looked achieveable, so I decided that I'd find the tourist information centre when I got to Hofn, and work out distances/see bus schedules back to Reykjavik. There was one more stop before we got back to Hofn. I was wearing one of my Ironman t-shirts at the time, and the driver asked about this. This led to a conversation about cycling, and him talking about skiing in his home town of Akureyri - he used to be a very fast downhill skier, but had got injured so was unable to do it anymore. Apparently the snow isn't as consistent now as what it was when he was younger, and December/January were the best times to go for decent powder. After the scheduled break was over we boarded the coach and made our way the remaining distance to Hofn. We pulled up by a a petrol station, and after getting the bike/pannier bags off the coach and leaving them outside I went in to use the toilet/ask where the tourist information centre was. Whilst waiting for the toilet the driver came in and jokingly said 'I appreciate tips but this is too much' before handing me my iphone that I had left where I was sitting. I thanked him before he went back out to the coach. The guy working at the petrol station explained how to get to the tourist information centre - it was about 2 kilometres away. I didn't have long until it was likely to close, so I left my pannier bags outside the petrol station and jumped on the unloaded bike and made my way there. It turned out that it was open until 7pm - not 6pm like I thought, so I didn't have to rush planning the ride and looking at bus times. The girls working there were very helpful with showing and explaining the bus times/various options. I eventually decided that I'd cycle the 130km through the night between Hofn and Skaftafell National Park. There was a bus leaving Skaftafell at 9.30am towards Reynisfjara that I was aiming to get, so it gave me plenty of time to enjoy the ride. After about an hour I made my way back to the petrol station and bought myself a fast-food burger/chips meal along with snacks that I could take with me. After a good feed I set off at about 8.30pm. The road was generally quiet and there wasn't much other than horses, sheep and ducks to keep me company. It was cold and I had to keep the momentum going to stay warm enough - anything more than a 10-minute break would make me too cold. There were some spectacular early sections of this road, and I took a lot of photos. At one point I saw this black animal and looked like a fox. It ran behind some trees as I approached so wasn't able to get a good look, but think it must have been an Arctic Fox. There was some drizzle as midnight approached - thankfully it wasn't too heavy and the cloudy sky helped to keep the temperature from being too cold. At about midnight I stopped for a 10 minute snack break sitting on a sheltered rock by a river next to the roadside.