Meldgaarde Heste and Icelandic horses

After being dropped off by a local bus at a sign by a crossroad (apparantly in the middle of nowhere), we have managed to find our way to our second help exchange - "Meldgaarde Heste", a riding and activity center near Farso, in northern Denmark.

The farm consists of ~100 acres of paddocks and woodland, and is home to Hans and Jeanette, sons Alexander and Daniel, Monty the massive (but cowardly) german shepard and sidekick Ain (who we've nicknamed shit-for-brains), 4 barn cats, chickens, a turkey, and most importantly, about 100 Icelandic horses. We're the only helpers here, but there's also another girl who works and lives on the farm (Janni).

Work wise, our days normally start around 7:30 with breakfast, then I'm off to help Janni with the morning feeding of the horses. The horses are paddocked in 4 herds - smaller horses, bigger horses, mares and skinny horses - at least that's my best guestimate from observations anyway! One by one the herds are herded into the long stable, and get their breakfast of oats (which are crushed/rolled here), chaff and pellets. The skinny herd also gets fed in the afternoon. Horse breakfast normally takes just under 2 hours, and then it's time for people smoko :-)




Lecky and I have been busy whitewashing the outside walls of the barns - this basically means we mix up buckets of lime and water, and then "paint" it on with brooms. At first it just looks like the walls are getting wet and not white at all, but once it's dried, it comes up pretty nice. We've also painted a couple of inside rooms in the barn and boiler room (where the farm heating is generated by burning woodchips). All good practice for when we actually have our own house to paint :-)

Icelandic horses have very different gaits from the horses I've ridden previously. The walk is the short and bouncy walk of a pony (not long striding like my thoroughbred Mick), the trot is even bouncier and super fast (no rising trot here!), and then they don't seem to do a slow canter - it's just up to straight out gallop.


On the weekend we tagged along on a trail ride, which was great fun despite the sore muscles that emerged in the following days. The ride took us through pretty forests with mossy floors, over molehill-studded hills and along rolling fields. We got to one such rolling field, where Hans suggested a gallop, and Lecky said, "Sure, looks like nice soft ground!" This turned out to be a case where he should have touched wood - just as we hit top speed, Hans' horse spooked sideways (at nothing, in true horse fashion), and the rest of the horses thought it would be a great idea to follow suit. I lost my stirrups but stayed on, but Lecky's horse threw in a pigroot, and off he went onto the aforementioned nice soft ground (luckily no injuries!). After we caught his horse (which had decided to bolt for the road), we were off again and made it home without any more incidents.



We also did a bit of riding on some less unpredictable vehicles - some scenic cycling to Hvalpsund, which is a little town on the coast. It was mostly uphill all the way there, so by the time we got there we were pretty stuffed and couldn't be arsed doing more than taking a few photos and looking at some realestate ads in the window. And to our great disappointment, we headed into a headwind on the way home, nullifying all the downhill action we'd been hoping for. But one positive of the ride was counting how many aluminium cans are lying on the side of the roads - you get decent money for returning them, so we might make another more purposeful trip later on to clean us up some cash....