Iceland Travel Photography // Iceland Travel Photographer // Redden

Day 4: A Whole 'Lotta Horses, A Whole 'Lotta Kisses.

For our fourth day we went with a  'let's do something fundamentally local' approach. We asked our host, Katrin, for suggestions and she insisted we drive through Snaefellsness Peninsula. 

Located in the Northwest, Snaefellsness is an easy day journey that consisted mostly of random stops here and there to enjoy what we were passing through. We pulled over for snowy mountains, fashion shoots, distant craters and sweet little draw bridges.

My favorite stop though, is by far our little detour through an Icelandic horse pasture. Surrounded by what we figured was an electric fence, were about 50 sweet, rosy Icelandic ponies. We parked the car and tried to will the lil' furballs over to us, but no dice. So we hopped, into poop, over a very underwhelming fence and waddled through foot-thick manure to get a picture with just one. Only one. 

The thing about Icelandic ponies, is that they are very friendly. They also don't have many friends since they're basically chilling in the middle of nowhere. So when I composed the shot, handed my camera over to Kyle and said 'go' it shouldn't have been surprising that not one, but 25 came over to get in on the picture. It was so freaking adorable. and slightly terrifying.

They are so curious that they quickly encircle you, nibbling at your coat and giving sweet little kisses. So we went with it. We took turns jumping in the horse circle and gave more kisses than we care to admit while standing in one foot of literal shit. Totally, totally worth it. 

We drove through white-out roads, down the entire peninsula to Kirkjufell Mountain. I don't know if you've seen the Secret Life of Walter Mitty (do it!!) but this is one of the few places he goes during his excursion to Iceland. It was really windy, and I mean really windy. Everyone decided to stay in the car at certain points, but Kyle and I were always down for a little windburn. 

At one point, we decided to pull over for this awesome view of the mountain. I wanted to get closer, so I went sprinting down the bank (that I thought was short) and ran with the wind to the shoreline. The winds were going at about 60mph, if you can imagine that. So naturally I stumbled and got there pretty quick, with the help of my coat/make-shift wings.

Kyle ran after me after getting some shots of his own, and while the trip down to the shore was delightful (I laughed the whole time) getting back up there was a complete embodiment of the words 'uphill battle.' I'm pretty sure my neck hurt for the next month after running against that much wind. It was not a short run. Alas Kyle and I ran into each other's arms, and managed to get some cool portraits before flopping back down in the car, exhausted and laughing. 

We stopped at a local town whose name escapes me, creeped around the prettiest church I've ever seen and settled down for beer, wine and cards in a local pub.