Horses, Cows, Water and Food.
After such a lazy Sunday, we felt energized to actually do something the following Monday. We opted to have the kids ride horses, visit a coffee house with a view over a fully automated milk farm, go swimming in Akureyri, eat dinner and then head back to home base.
Kids playing nicely together in the morning.
Shortly after lunch we called up the horse rental place (Hestaleigan Kátur) and made an appointment for 13:45. On our way there, we met our friend Kata out on a run, but we couldn’t stop for long because we were late!
Bjarki getting outfitted with safety gear.
Fully geared up!
Four horses for four kids.
Setting out. Basically, the kids were led around by walkers and the horses appeared very calm so we weren’t worried.
The first stop was a large field. They looped around it twice (once in each direction) and then did a few more smaller things to get the kids used to being on horseback.
Hildur Sif was a pretty apprehensive in the beginning, but was happy as a clam by the end.
Bjarki being led around.
Icelandic horses are very small, almost ponies, but not quite.
Anna looking pretty happy. 🙂 I think her horse was called Neptune.
Sif on horseback and smiling.
Arnar looking pretty happy. 🙂
Time to do tricks. Each child got to lean to the side in the saddle to pick up a bottle from that blue barrel, and then replace it. Bjarki’s horse put up a little fuss, but all went well.
Anna doing her leaning bit.
Almost looking like pros! 🙂
Close-up of Anna as the kids rode past us to go on a pretty long amble down the road.
Off they went!
There was apparently a large group arriving at 15:00 so there were a large number of horses waiting patiently by the sheds. It was hard to take a picture of all of them with my uber-zoom lens on though…
Halli doing a little dance for the camera. 🙂
Parents standing uselessly around while the kids have all the fun.
… and they kept on walking!
One of the horses trying to nibble on some grass outside the holding fence.
At long last, the kids returned, and in good spirits. 🙂
Dismounted and stripped of safety gear, but pretty happy. 🙂
The four horses and their friends in the holding pen.
The kids even got to comb the horses (Adda was clever enough to ask, I don’t think that always happens).
Soon it was time to leave for our next destination. This was the view south-ish. Note the rain-cloud at the bottom of the fjord (image center), pretty much exactly on top of our summer house.
Kaffi Kú (Coffee Cow), here we come! 🙂
View from the coffee house steps.
The coffee house overlooks a fully automated milk-farm. The glass enclosure keeps most of the smell out, but there was a definite farm-smell in the air, and on our clothes afterwards.
Anna taking it all in.
The automated feeder carriage dropping hay on the floor for the young (non-milking) cows who live on the far side seen from the cafe.
This is actually the front-bit of the cafe, i.e. what you see when you enter the door. The overview-room is in the back.
On the monitor is a live-feed from one of the milking robots (there are two) that is located under the over-view room. The cows are free to enter the robot at any time, but the computer may refuse to milk it if too short a time has passed since last milking (per cow), and let it right out again.
Bjarki eating people food, while the cows eat cow food in the background.
By the time we left the robot had dropped hay for the milking cows to the left of the over-view room, and they’d (almost all) made their way over to eat.
Our next stop was the swimming pool in Akureyri. It’s a pretty nice pool except it’s got so many parts to it that it’s easy to lose sight of the kids.
We had a good time in the pool, but emerged hungry. We therefore visited Greifinn, which is a step above a road-stop, but not much more. They were quick to feed the kids, but the food-quality could have been better. After dinner, Adda and Halli volunteered to get some food (the kids go through milk like crazy!) while we drove on ahead to try and get Bjarki to bed at a reasonable time.
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