Iceland - Day 4

For our last day in Iceland, we headed to Hafnarfjordur where I went horse riding! Icelandic horses are more stocky than other horse breeds, and are famed for their smooth gait and warm personalities. Most guidebooks say that they are friendly and willing. But I think the Insight Guides was most accurate, "surefooted, intelligent, affectionate, home-loving and sometimes headstrong". Yep..it can be headstrong too as I discovered!

My horse, Sqwisa, was certainly not willing. He refused to walk faster even when kicked! He'd walk slowly, resulting in a large gap between myself and the person in front. Initially I was in the middle of the pack, so one of the guides rode up to me and urged my horse on. It seems Sqwisa only responds when under peer pressure. Cos even when the guide gave me a riding crop to use, and asked me to kick my horse more, Sqwisa refused to move faster. Only when the guide rode alongside did he oblige to trot a little, but otherwise he ambled along at his own pace. So when the group turned to head back to the stable, all the other horses walked ahead and I ended up right at the back. After a while I was 20-30 metres behind everyone else!

Near the end of the ride there was a snow plow behind, and the guide asked everyone to kick their horse and trot forward to the stable. But I kicked, and kicked, and hit with the crop..and thought that maybe I'm hurting Sqwisa so tried stroking, I tried talking to him, then tried kicking again, but all to no avail. He just walked on while everyone else galloped away.

Later on when I was changing out of the riding gear, one of the other riders asked if I enjoyed my ride. I said yes, but that my horse was really slow. She said that I should have used a riding crop. When she used it her horse moved faster. But I told her I had kicked and hit no end, but he still went slowly. Then she asked, "were you the last one?" And when I said yes, she and the others all burst out laughing..... TSK! Great.

Anyway, it seems there's this love-hate relationship. Because at one point before our ride, Sqwisa was nuzzling his snout against me in an affectionate way. I thought that was sweet. But then he turned out to be quite stubborn. Hiya. So much for the willing, good-natured Icelandic horse :) I guess even they have a range of personalities :)

But I do love how Icelandic horses look so cute with their thick fringes that hang over their eyes :) And you get all sorts of colour combinations. Brown horses with blonde hair, white horses with brown hair, black horses with brown hair, etc.

They also display some interesting behaviour. When they first come out of the stable, and also after we dismount from the horses and remove the staddles, the horses start rolling around in the snow on their backs as if to cool it or scratch it! I've never seen horses do that! They'll prance around, lie down, then roll to and fro until they are satisfied. A fascinating sight :)

Anyway cos my Sqwisa was rather stubborn, plus the riding path was much less adventurous than the brochure made it out to be (just walk out then turn and walk back), I was a little disappointed with the experience, though I still love the horses and being around them.

Jon and I then drove to The Pearl back in Reykjavik to get some panoramic views over the capital. The Pearl is a revolving restaurant that sits on top of hot water tanks, and has an outdoor platform that you can walk on and look out in all directions. It was a bright and clear day, so we were even able to make out the glacier Snaefellsjokull on the Snaefellsnes peninsular in the distance, almost 80 miles away as the crow flies!

We then made our way to Garður, a small fishing town near the airport. It was very small and the port really smelt heavily of fish, which was fine with me :)

Time was catching up with us so we had to make for the airport to catch the flight...the end of our trip! Again it was a day flight, and this time we sat on the correct side of the plane and managed to see beautiful views of the Reykjanes Peninsular - the roads we drove on, Reykjavik in the distance, bird cliffs in the South that we didn't have a chance to go to; and as a bonus we also saw Heimaey and Surtsey! It brought the trip full circle, ending with the islands we got to know through the volcano show on the first day in Iceland. I felt really privileged to see Surtsey, the tiny island that didn't exist not long ago in geological terms.

Anyway, as we got higher into the clouds, we settled in for the short flight back home to London :)