My Holiday in Iceland :)

This is my favourite picture from my holiday.  She is also my favourite horse, Djasn which means 'Precious'.  This was taken on our last day just off the beach and although I have quite a lot of clothes on it was a fairly good weather day!

I spent 6 days riding around part of the Snafellsnes peninusla in Iceland and it was fantastic.  In those few days we covered about 200km and I rode 10 different horses.  I was lucky enough to ride Djasn 3 times :)

The first few days were spent riding around the lava fields and mountains but we also saw some beautiful grassland and rivers.  As you can see from the picture below we rode with almost 100 loose horses (many more than I was expecting).  There were a number of guides/herders who were responsible for the herd and keeping them travelling in the right direction.

It was an amazing experience as you can imagine - the last half was spent riding on the beach and around the coast.

We rode through several rivers which were quite deep and crossed sand when the tide was low which meant riding through shallow pools - great fun.  The tölt is amazing, some of the Icelandic horses will tölt automatically but some take a bit more work.  I did manage to get them all to tölt though which I was really pleased about as this was the first time I have ridden an Icelandic horse.

The horses are all around  14hh but are always called horses and not ponies!  It was a bit odd riding something so small but it was very easy to get on and off :)  The saddles are placed much further back than in the UK - there has to be a handspan between the girth and the elbow - which took some getting used to as it means the girth sits around a fatter part of the horse than I am used to.  Each horse also had a crupper to keep the saddle back and drop nosebands.  

We had saddle bags to carry our lunch, water and any spare waterproof clothes - although I wore them all after the first 2 days.  The picture above is from Day 2 when it was lovely and warm and sunny.  The next day it rained all day - and was so cold!!!

During the trip we saw an Arctic fox (in it's summer coat) a couple of Sea eagles and some seals at a distance.  There were a lot of Arctic terns by the coast too and lots of other birds which I don't know the names of. 
I would totally recommend this trip - I am hoping to go again!

Have you seen my last video on my You Tube channel?   Horse Life and Love
Please check it out and SUBSCRIBE.

You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for updates on Chesney, Basil, Tommy and Daisy.

Until next time!

Jo