Its an annual tradition to make it out to Hestasport, once a summer, for the most epic of all horse trips. Appropriately, they call it the Wilderness Expedition, and it is one of the longest and most difficult journeys you can make on horse back – 7 riding days, 25-40km per day.

Despite covid tests and limited flights, eleven people still made it to Iceland for the trip. Every single person was German or German speaking, and luckily two of our staff were too. Unlucky for me, I only had the two horse men and two super jeep drivers to speak Icelandic with, although everyone forgave me for english.

We were meant to ride north over Hofsjökull but didn´t quite make it as close as we wanted. Ingólfskáli was our destination, but we made a bit of a shortcut from Vesturdalur to Laugafell.

We had the most incredible rain when riding 50km back out Austurdalur, soaked completely thru and thru to the bone (us and the horses), but we made it to the abandoned farm of Merkigil where a hot shower and elctricity finally awaited us again.

We rode down and up thru ´amazing canyon´, as the name suggests, before taking the last sprint back to civilisation. I had two friends with me who lost quite a bit of weight and put on some muscle instead, but how grateful and respectful I am to these amazing animals – the Icelandic horse truly is the Icelander´s best friend.