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21.07.2011 22:19

Ridingtour

Finally, after planning for a long time, we managed to get our friends together to take a small, private ridingtour in the area. We used the quiet afternoons and evenings to ride in wonderful weather in one of the most beautiful areas Iceland has to offer.

We started on Monday evening from Húsavík and rode all the way up to Viðiholt in Reykjahverfi. We that were: Svanhildur and her daughters Thelma and Sigrún, Laufey and Dagny Anna, Bjössi with Vignir and Berta and of course the two of us. A whole bunch of horses followed as you can imagine. We took Magnús, Negla, Ögn, Amor, List and Kátína, who went on her first longer trip as a handhorse, with us. The weather was good, the air clear and fresh, good horses, good riding tracks, nothing to complain. Ingólfur had a good laugh when Kátína tried to ride Amor over the first small river. He was not on the same page about that and so she had to walk herself through the water.

After a good rest we took the way over Hvammsheiði to Helluland on Tuesday afternoon. Laufey couldn't join us, but Rakel came instead. The kids were great, showing how well they already can ride even with one or two handhorses. It was a pleasure to see all of them having the stamina to go for longer rides and having good fun doing that. The highlight of the day was for sure crossing river Laxá close to Helluland. Kiddi and his dog Sparði met us on the way, Sparði swimming over Laxá right in front of me. It looked like Kátína had learned something the day before and she didn't try again to mount Amor to not wet her own feet.

Yesterday we took a circle up Þeygjandadalur over a small pass down to Laxárdalur and Halldórsstaðir. Kátína was left behind to take a restingday. It was quite warm when we started, the sun burning down from the clear sky so we went rather slow not to tire the horses too soon. There were some small brooks we had to cross and one or the other horse thought it was a crack in the ground and safer to take a huge jump over it...

After taking a wonderful break in the valley, herding some sheep, seeing two blue lambs and fighting some flies, we arrived in Halldórsstaðir around 8 o'clock in the evening. The sun was still shining from an amazingly blue sky and everybody in Halldórsstaðir waiting for the barnconcert at 9. We took a good break there, had some cookies and something to drink, a nice chat with the former headmaster and started our way back refreshed on fresh horses.
We met Kiddi at the bridge over Laxá and gave Sparði, the dog, which had followed us the whole time, back to its owners. Sparði is getting a bit old and it's not the best for him to run long ridingtours eventhough he loves it.

Now we entered the dreamland for riders! Perfect soft tracks on the riverbanks, untouched nature, no flies and just the thundering hoofbeat on the ground. This part of the day was far too short!

We made our way back to Helluland and arrived around 11 o'clock there. Still sunshine!

Today our ways seperated. Bjössi and the kids went to Reykjahverfi, Kiddi, Sigurjóna, Hrund and we went all the way to Húsavík. We were riding along river Laxá on soft tracks (where they were not spoiled yet by putting stones and sand on them for the cars of the fishermen), watching a lot of waterbirds with their young ones, were nearly run over by a truck (the driver didn't slow down at all when he saw us coming on the gravelroad! I swore quite much at him), meet some loose horses in a fence, crossed 2 bridges and speeded home to our fence. The sun was shining all the time and I think we all got quite some tan today. Thanks to all the participants, it was great riding with you!