Yes the title of this post is a reference to my gaming habits: World of Warcraft achievements and mounts. I collect mounts in-game (one of my favourite things to do) and am currently sitting at 353. The next achievement comes at 400, so I’ve got some work to do!!
My final excursion in Iceland was a horseback riding lava tour. It was located in Hafnarfjörður which is a town south of Reykjavik. The facility (Íshestar) is maybe a 20 minute drive from Reykjavik.
In this picture (below) is Febrúar, an Icelandic horse. I was advised on a few of my previous tours to never use the ‘P’ word around an Icelandic horse, so I definitely did not on this day! I was actually relieved that he was shorter than the last horse I tried to get on probably more than 20 years ago in Alberta. It was a lot easier to boost myself up! I think my biggest fear of this whole horseback riding excursion (if I had any fear at all), was that I would not be able to get on my horse. So with that out of the way at the beginning, it was clear sailing from then on out!
We went riding from the horse farm to a volcano that is 30,000 years old. Well not right to it, it was still off in the distance, but managed to snap a picture of it (that little hump above the horses is the volcano, see below). And I didn’t catch it’s name, sigh! The ground around us was black and barren from volcanic eruptions that took place eons ago, although the black was covered in snow. The hilly and bushy views were beautiful though. As much as I love the snowy scenes, this is another one of those places that I’d be curious to see in the summer months.
I had my Fitbit on during this ride and meant to track the journey as a walk only so I could have a record of the area we traveled. I had it all set up and ready to go, just had to press ‘Play’ when we started, and of course I forgot!!! So I’m really annoyed that I didn’t get a map of my trek. Fitbit did however, recognize this trip as exercise and gave me over 7,500 steps and 420 calories burned for the effort, 100% fat burn zone, haha! For an hour and a half, which was the actual duration of the tour. And it was an effort! I had to lean forward or backward depending on what terrain we were on, and had to sit in such a way so my back and butt wouldn’t start hurting. Oh to be in better shape. So it totally counts!! I got over 21,000 steps that day. Doing the Reykjavik walking tour that same afternoon helped with that number.
