ICELAND 2016 Day 8 Riding tour Galtanes

As is usual the first day of my stay here is 2 riding tours. The programm told me we would pick up the horses and ride them to Gauksmyri in the morning and in the afternoon to the sheep corral where we would start the round up tomorrow. I was already happy that would mean fairly easy riding, no rivers to cross. I though the rivers would be deeper than last year due to all the rain last week, and last year we already crossed a few rivers touching the horses belly and made foals need to swimm.

But programs change, we did the same riding as last year, which means crossing rivers... Ai I am really not so fond on crossing rivers. But that has more to do with my current insecure situation on my life. I loose balance easily :(

Since this year, Steinbjorn who basicly executes this horse round up tour, took over the people who do this tour from Gauksmyri, I and a Finnish girl still booked with Gauksmyri but the other 8 woman stayed with Steinbjorn and Eva Lina in Hvammstangi. So a bit lonely for us two but we didnt have less fun. We met with the group and saw back the one regular who is every year in this program. And went to the horses staying at Galtanes.

I decided to take another horse for this ride. Thorra is very nice but maybe I outgrew her a bit, maybe she played tricks with me I dont know, but it was always a tiring job to keep her going, I had the idea I exhausting her to close death. So now I got a more lightfeet horse, a chocolate paint called Sunna. And I love her :)

We in the morning took the ride without the herd, just to feel comfy with our given horses, and we were all very happy. It was just the ride downstream Viðidalsá river, along the ringroad a bit and then back with crossing the river from the other side than last year. It wasnt so deep now, clearly could see the bottom and the boulders in it. Only the wall was quite steep to go down. But oh are the horses so capable... we all got there without wet feet.

Before lunch we went to Hvammstangi for the ladies to buy some booze at the Vinbuðin, the liquor store as in Iceland this is the only place where you can buy alcohol. I didnt buy anything, I had no money with me, and still I dont feel like making this a crazy beer party. Im too decent.

Lunch was just soup and salad. And after that we moved on to bring the herd from Galtanes to the sheep corral. Today we did cross 4 or 5 rivers, but surprisingly not much water in it this time, no wet feet at all. But Sunna has a magic belly and I had like 2 or 3 times check on her girth and tighten it more. The cold water makes the horses bellies flat out so you risk to have a saddle that slides left or right. And if it does, balance wont help you anymore. Its an weird feeling to experience, like being in a slap stick and the last thing you want is to end up in icecold water that way with a lot of horses on the loose around you. But all well and done, we all made it to the sheep corral, where all the horses would stay for the night awaiting tomorrows round up.

Nothing much happened today, I had skipped dinner in Gauksmyri today, saving some money.
Auroras were out again but with much more clouds than yesterday it only returned photo´s with faint green glows... Too bad... but very early in the morning it was all clear skies again and I watched them from my bed. Nice and comfy, and it was ok this way.