Feeding frenzy

Landmannahellir -> Klettur

After having slept for appr three hours, it was time to get up and get ready for the longest part of our tour: around 55 km on horseback. Some people might have been a wee bit tired this morning, but after breakfast and some wake-up singing, we got ready to leave. I started on another new horse for me: Stjarni (the male form of the name Stjarna, meaning star). As it turned out, this was not the horse on which you should go riding downhill on steep mountainsides, at least not if you hadn't tightened the saddle properly... Soon I found myself standing in the stirrups in a very steep part of a descent, looking at the small part of Stjarni I could still see in front of my saddle, which at this point was only his head, since my saddle had moved far down his neck... I quickly slid off (not an easy thing in this position I tell you!) and led him the rest of the way down, where I could tighten the saddle (this time with the able help of Maggi, our guide) and get up again. I spent the rest of my ride on Stjarni slightly nervous every time we were going downhill (and there was a lot of that going on!) but it worked out great from there on.

We had our lunch in a lava field in the wind and bright sunshine. Once out of the wind behind the herd, it got really hot, and we later heard that Reykjavik had had 30°C that same day. No wonder! I once again applied lots of spf, which after a ride in the dust was a proper face peeling experience :)

The next horse for me was one of Maggi's own: Leikur. He had quite a sensitive mouth, but a comfortable tölt and after I had learnt how best to handle him, we got along well. This second leg of three this day, was the longest one. We started by going further down, and then tölted under huge powerlines for quite a while. The view going down was magnificent, and this was the day that I most regretted that I couldn't wear my camera around my neck while riding (not very comfortable that). After having crossed the Þjorsa river on a wooden bridge (imagine the wonderful sound of 70-ish horses in tölt over a wooden bridge... ahhh... :)) we rode on slightly softer ground towards Hólaskógur where we slept the first night of the tour, but where we now would only rest for a bit and change horses.

On the last leg of today's three, I once again got to ride Fóstri. This was the fastest leg, and soon we were speeding over what Maggi described as "deserts" - plains filled with round gravel, sand and ash - right behind the herd.

In our new mountain hut, Klettur, we had dinner after which I fell asleep at nine o'clock, dead tired from the night before. The wonderful thing was that I hadn't felt tired at any point during the ride, despite my few hours of sleep the night before.