Icelandic Adventure: 07/30/07

We woke up feeling good after an alcohol free night and about 11 hours sleep. I woke Anna from her slumber at 7 because our laptop said it was 8, whoops! So I finished watching the Fellowship of the ring (with commentary!) while she got an extra few minutes doze before our very nice breakfast at 8. I asked reception on the off chance about internet access as I’d noticed a full strength wireless signal on our laptop earlier. I had struck gold, the hotel has free wireless internet access!! I asked the receptionist if all Edda hotels had free access – she said no only the ones with good Managers. I assumed she was the manager and I promptly scuttled back to our laptop, then back to reception again as I lost the password already – I have no idea how but she thought it was amusing anyway and wrote it down again for me. Now we could send emails to our Mummys (aren’t we good!) and plan our day using the net, plus waste some time visiting the web sites we always do when we are at home.

We decided we wanted to do some horse riding today, so after a bit of research in the guide books \ internet and a couple of phone calls we found a farm called Lytingsstadir which could fit us in. We wanted to do a couple of hours but I thought I better ask about weight restrictions as I am not that small and the Icelandic horses are not that big (about 13 hands) so the horsey person said we could probably only do 1 hour. So after packing up and having a brief stroll towards the river and back we set off to go horse riding.

When we found the farm after negotiating our first “dust road” we parked up and watched about 20 – 30 horse’s being herded up the valley by a couple of riders - for exercise I guess. Nicole would be our guide for the hour, so we got suited and booted and climbed onto our horses. I have to say Anna and I did feel sorry for my horse:

After about 10 seconds instruction on how to ride a horse we set off!! We were going along quite nicely taking in the scenery until that herd of 30 or so horses came back from their excercise trip galloping in the opposite direction to us which was great until my horse decided to join them!!!! I had no idea what I was doing except I did know I was hanging tight and trying to recall my 10 seconds of training which wasn’t being effective! luckily I heard Anna shouting instructions to me and a couple of the passing instructors helped and I eventually got the beast under control (I believed Anna shouted "show her your rains" (I actually shouted shorten your rains! - A) like Obi Wan said "use the force" to Luke Skywalker but later found out this was just my imagination ).

I thought the poor thing might have had enough of my bulk and wanted to go home but on we missioned regardless over a bridge then through a stream. Look at these loverly photos!:

Nicola explained to us that the farm had about 100 horses and it was common for rural Icelandics to own 5 - 6 horses each!

On the way back to the farm we did have a go at the Icelandic trot (tolt – much smoother than normal trot -A) which apparently only the Icelandic horse can do. Well I watched Anna and Nicole disappear into the distance and leave me in their dust anyway, but really I was quite happy to take easy, and so was my horse is seemed.

In hindsight the one hour restriction probably wasn’t for my horse, it was for me as a beginner, one hour was more than enough.

After the horse riding we popped into the nearby petrol station which doubled up as the local mall for the locals (they sold everything there from shampoo to horse shoes and nails - A). As a old local gentleman got out of his car parked next to ours he pointed to our tyre smiled and said "loft". I looked at the tyre and it was clear it was abit low on "air". Fortunatley the garage had an air pump but unfortunatly it didn't have a presure gauge on it. As the tyre wasn't deperatley low we decided it was safer to take it to the car rental office located at Akureyi later on.

From the petrol station we visted Glaumber which was a small collection of some original Icelandic houses from the 18th century which were made of wood and mud with grass on top.

It all looked a bit like Bag End from The Shire, I thought it was funny as Anna looked at home:

We continued on our journey through a stunningly beautiful valley to eventually end up at our new Edda hotel at Akureyri. We would be staying here for 4 nights.

Some other photos from the day...

Panoramic of "Bag End"