9/10/2025
This morning we met Sabrina with Eyjardalsa for a horse ride. Sabrina came from Germany 4yrs ago and fell in love with the area. She is finishing up her college degree in tourism, specializing in horse training. Sabrina said it took her six months to understand the Icelandic language and then another year and a half to be fluent in speaking/reading/writing. She is not sure what is next after she finishes her degree, though she plans to stay in Iceland.
The horse ride was through a beautiful valley with a couple waterfalls, rivers, and one river crossing. We also saw lots of wild blueberries that we did not have time to pick. One of the sheep dogs joined us for the ride. Sabrina said it has been amazing watching the sheep dogs learn. She can speak to them and they will go get the sheep and turn them to the right or left. The dogs can bring them to her and take them wherever she tells them to go. It is the time of year when they bring in all the sheep from free grazing in the highlands for the winter. The farmers do a special cut in the sheep so they all know whose sheep belong to whom. The dogs were fun, and I did get to play fetch with them using hand sized rocks that they chew on. The horses were very easy to ride as well. Mercy had only been on a horse once and had no issues. The Icelandic horses are kept pure by never allowing any other horses to come to Iceland. They also have a special gait, so when they are trotting or running they are not bouncing up and down but very smooth.
After our awesome horse ride, we went to Godafoss waterfall. This waterfall was the perfect size to kayak off of the right/center/left. If I am ever in Iceland again and we have a kayak, it will be a must do stop. We also got to take a picture with a light house today. They paint them bright orange and they are pretty small, but there many around. I’m guessing they are small so they do not get as much wind against them when it storms? Another stop was the Christmas House where it is Christmas 365 days a year. It was definitely a quirky stop, but if you are driving past it’s something cute to do. After those we walked through the town of Akureyri a bit before heading to our house for the night, which was what looked like a shipping container made into a nice little house in the middle of a farmers field.
Mercy’s Take (10/10) – I woke up at 6:35a. But we didn’t have to leave until 9:35a. We went to Eyjardalsa to ride horses and had a blast on the two hour tour. Then we went to a Godafoss waterfall. It was nice. We went to a light house and took a photo, then headed to the Christmas House where it is Christmas 365 days a year. We went to a place to eat (Spettur Inn) and had a pizza. In the same parking lot was a grocery store, where we got groceries. Then we headed to Fornhagi 2, our hotel. We called the kiddos. I went to bed at 9:35p
