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Recently Laxnes Horse Farm became the first horseback riding company in Iceland to receive the new VAKINN certification.  Basically this certification is a sure way for travellers to know which companies are safe and qualified to operate the tours they advertise.  Our riding tours with the Icelandic horse have been operated for almost 45 years now and next year there will be online offers and other birthday treats for travellers here at the farm.

So far the fall and beginning of winter has been much better than last year.  The temperature and weather conditions are ideal for the Icelandic horse and riding for the last couple of weeks has been great.  The herd has been split into two like every fall with some 60 horses getting a winter break where we take off their shoes and send them to a neighbor´s farm for some R&R.  There they´ll stay until may on vacation, horse-ing around to their hearts content.

SOLD OUT!

24 /8  Day 1 – Rjúpnavellir

Day 1 will be an easy day, we ride about 15km total to let everyone get used to their horses and warm up in the saddle.  The group will stay at Rjúpnavellir for the night.  Shower facilities available

25/ 8  Day 2 – Rangá

Day 2 trail will be along Rangá river which will be crossed at one point.  This day will be more difficult as we ride about 40km to Landmannahellir where we´ll stay for the night.  Shower facilities available.

26/8  Day 3 – Landmannalaugar

Day 3 we ride to Landmannalaugar and bathe in the outdoor geothermal springs.  The stop at Landmannalaugar will be about 3 hours after which we ride back to Landmannahellir for a total of about 35km ride.  Shower facilities available.

27/8 Day 4

On day 4 we ride up to Pokahryggir and down to Reykdalir and Hvannagil ravine.  On this day we ride about 55 km.  Shower facilities available.

28/8 Day 5

On day 5 we ride up to Einhyrningur.  This day is about 30km riding and stay overnight at the cabin at Einhyrningur.  There are no shower facilities here.

29/8   Day 6

On the last day we head back to the farm we start from which is about 35km of riding.

After we set up this blog on our site, for the purpose of being able to say something about Icelandic horses or our riding tours or something fun going on at the farm a good hour of my time every week goes into deleting spam comments on the admin page.  This makes me wonder if the spammers are actually aware that their posts don´t show on our site unless approved or do they just sit at their desk all day copy/pasting messages all over the internet?

Food for thought…. or as one popular spam line says “Great post.. cleared my thoughts” hehehehehe

/end rant

We received an award of exellence from Trip Advisor this week which we are really happy with.  It´s a great incentive for our work bringing the Icelandic Horse closer to travelers in Iceland.

On may 8th we transported 20 Icelandic horses to Viðey Island, just off the coast from Reykjavik to be used for our Viðey Island riding tours this summer.  Local news followed us across the channel, the link can be found on our Facebook site.

It´s started snowing and this is the time of year the Icelandic horse really shines. The temperature is not too bad at about 2°C.  Nothing beats riding in weather like this, the area around the farm looks amazing and we´re exited about getting to finally start using our winter overalls 🙂

With November already here we´re all tucked in for the winter. 45 horses have their winter shoes on and ready for the winter season while the rest are now on their 6 month vacation.  We´re crossing our fingers for a little snow but the temperature is holding above freezing so all we get is rain 🙂  Horseback riding in Iceland during the winter season is really fun. Fluffy horses and spiked horseshoes, a warm overall and coffee after the ride makes a great day in my book.

We´ve updated the page with the 3 day riding tour for summer 2012.  We´re still working on some finishing touches and estimate that we´ll start to book for the tours in November 2011.

It´s that time of year again, when we change from summer to winter shoes on the horses.  During our winter season the horses that are in use will be fitted with special studded shoes to prevent them from slipping on ice or hard snow.  The studs are made from carbon so they won´t wear down and with them in place the horses will be able to walk or run on ice.