Horse-Rental & Hot Springs

2019-07-25Us Standard

[Photos taken 25-31 July 2019, posted online 14 March 2020. Covid-19 is pushing more and more people into self-quarantine, among them three teachers at the local school. Large gatherings forbidden as of Monday, Anna’s school is moving to online-only, and the elementary school is trying to figure out how to partition into 20-kids per non-intermingling groups. ]

Although Anna had spent weeks working at horse-camp, she’d not gotten to ride the horses much, as she spent most of her time walking alongside them. She therefore kindly asked if we could visit a horse-rental close to house #2 while we were there, which we did.

We also visited a nearby powerful hot spring, and a new (for us) swimming pool, before heading back to town, after a week in the country, to see family members that were visiting from New Zealand before they flew back. Then Anna went back to work, and we tried to find things to do during the daytime.

Finnur’s 45th birthday happened on a lovely day, and we went out to dinner to celebrate with friends. (55-ish images total)

Thursday 25 July 2019

Myself and Emma on horseback by a pretty waterfall. Photo by our guide.
After checking out various horse-rentals in the area, we settled on Oddstaðir, the closest one. I predict we’ll be working our way through some more rentals as time goes on.
Saddles, a good sign!
Watching our two guides bring the horses. Finnur had been meaning to join us, but wasn’t feeling well, so it was just the four of us. The fifth horse was all confused to be left behind!
Bjarki with his steed. I can never remember the horses’ names!
Anna and Bjarki would be going further afield with their guide, while Emma and myself would be traveling slower with another guide.
Off we went! Emma began tied to our guide.
The speedy ones beginning to go further ahead, while us slow ones walked behind.
Our turnaround point. As Emma gained confidence, and seemed to be ok on her own, our guide had us trot a bit quicker on the way back, which Emma thoroughly enjoyed.
Before departing we walked around the farm a bit, and found this stallion.
We arrived back at house #2 to a glorious lunch.
Halli kindly invited Bjarki to fish a bit.
I can’t remember why we ended up at the usual cafe, but apparently we did, once we passed this attention-seeking cat!
Back at house #2, I was a few meters short of finishing some walking goal of mine, so I walked about and took this photo.

Friday 26 July 2019

On this day we did a drive-around-the-area, stopping first at Deildartunguhver, “the highest-flow hot spring in Europe.”
Myself attempting to grab Bjarki for a photo-op, but failing spectacularly.
A full-family photo-op!
Up on a small hill from the hot-spring is Krauma, a new-ish hot-tub/spa/sauna place.
Anna found a dog to play with. That’s looking down the hill.
Funky art by Krauma.
No, we’re not getting a dog!
We took a look at the pools, they looked swanky. There’s also a restaurant/cafe but we didn’t stop there.
Bjarki contemplating bubbles and steam.
That pipe pipes piping hot water tens of kilometers to the towns of Borgarnes and Akranes.
Nicely moist.
Emma getting a case of the sillies.
We next drove to Varmaland (WarmLand) where vegetables are grown in green-houses to visit the local swimming pool.
Kids rolling down the slope to the swimming pool entrance. That was the end of photos that day!

Saturday 27 July 2019

Lunchtime greeted us with a lovely rainbow as we began cleaning and packing up after our week in the country.
We rolled back into the capital area pretty much just in time to attend a party with family members visiting from New Zealand. Here two kiddos are with their maternal great-grandmother.
Chatting going on.
Excited to feed the dog of the house.
The dog proved ever-popular.
Dessert-time! These were cake-pops.
Group chat.
Bjarki in his favorite spot.

Sunday 28 July 2019

Bjarki went to visit a friend, and they ended up attending a festival in a near-by park, where a TV news-crew stopped by, and caught Bjarki on ‘film’ (as per this screenshot).
It was back-to-work for Anna the following day, so we went to the store to get food-supplies.

Monday 29 July 2019

Finnur’s birthday was a gorgeous one, so Emma and I headed to the Farm Animal and Family Park.
Excited on the train.
Emma hitching a ride.
We decided to brave the water balloon line.
Always a hoot!
I feel like we’ve been here before…
Being thrown around.
We managed to find a cake for Finnur and some presents.
Opening his 45h birthday loot!
Anna agreed to babysit while we went out to dinner with Adda and Halli.
Red-hair color-comparison post-dinner.

Wednesday 31 July 2019

Dropping Bjarki and his friend off at the University of Reykjavik, where they’d signed up for some four-day long half-day programming camp.
Playing color-jenga with Emma.
With regular life fast approaching, it was time for a haircut.
That evening I drove Anna to a birthday party in the neighboring town of Hafnarfjörður. There is a viking themed hotel down by the sea!
Quite impressive!
So yes, instead of driving her there, and then going home again, I just walked around town for a bit in the nice evening light.
I ended up sitting down at the cafe that’s open the longest in town, and who would show up but the parents of the birthday party girl in question! So we played a few games of rummy to pass the time before they were allowed back home, and I went to pick Anna up. 🙂 Thus ended July of the year 2019!