Ride three, hike two

After a wonderful but entirely too short ride through the Icelandic highlands, we loaded our horses into the trailer and prepared to go back to Eldhestar.

Jo on Gnótt, Karen on Grettir, Hedwig on Hreggur, Hanna on Vaskur

Except instead of turning right, we went left.

"Didn't we come from the other direction?" Hedwig asked.

"Is this a hostage situation?" Karen queried.

Karin smiled and kept on driving. 

We arrived at a parking lot with a few other cars. Karin parked, and we got out. 

Off in the not-too-distant distance there was an amazing, two sided waterfall.

We followed Karin...

to a little observation deck.

Then she served us our usual post-ride coffee, tea, fruit and cake.

As usual, it came with the horse quiz.

This time I was prepared. I told her my favorites for the day were Grettir, then Hreggur, then Fimma. She told me I couldn't say Grettir because he was tired. Fine. Hreggur, then Fimma. 

That should have been that, but no. Next I was asked to give her my top three for the week. I went with Tinna, Glóinn and Grettir. Again, Grettir wasn't an acceptable answer. I sighed and said with exasperation, "I like all of them, but I guess Hreggur or Vaskul third." 

Sheesh.

After we were done with food and horse quiz, most of us decided to get closer to the falls.

This involved a lot of scrambling on rocks, and taking pictures.

Hanna's other hobby is acrobatics, so we challenged her to do some of the poses right next to the edge.

Hanna took pictures of Karen and I.

This was supposed to be us jumping, but we couldn't work out the timing.

So good.

Slowly but surely, we kept working our way down closer and closer to the falls.

As close as you can get and still be dry.

Hanna decided she needed to get a little closer.

Amazing.

I thought about it for a couple long minutes...

then I took off my boots, rolled up my pants and did the same.

It was every bit as cold as it looks.

Worth it.

I could have stayed there forever.

Eventually, however, Karin reminded us that the horses were waiting for us in the trailer. We hiked back to the parking lot.

Hello, Hreggur!

Then we piled into the truck and made the long drive back to Eldhestar.

This was such a fun day, spent with the best group of people. I can truly say I enjoyed every single minute.