Sheep rrrrround up

This past Saturday I went on a bus trip through the school. The bus left at 8am and we headed to the sheep round up. This is a fairly big event and many icelandic and foreigners come out to it. In June, after the baby sheep are born, the sheep are let loose in the fields and hills of Iceland, so apparently icelandic lamb is top quality very juicy and lean. Then in September, all the farmers will go around gathering up all the sheep on horseback and bring them all to a big coral where they are then sorted out for each farmer. There were hundreds of sheep, scared and confused, being directed around and farmers, finding the sheep with their tags on their ears, grabbing them by the horns and leadings them or picking up the sheep and throwing them over the stone walls into their section of the wheel shaped paddock. There were probably more people than sheep and it seemed that the people were being herded around as well.

After that we headed to Geysir to have lunch and see the geysirs (I don´t even remember how to spell that in english, or is it the same?). There were a bunch of hotsprings there too, the one the water was bright blue. The one geysir went off every 5 minutes or so, it was pretty cool to see. There were a few others but they hardly ever go off. The really big one, called Geysir, which is named after the a guy, who I guess found them? rarely goes off but when it does it can reach 20 meters up. I took a walk up the big hill/plateau, the dirt was bright red, it reminded me of Prine Edward Island. When I got to the top I could a valley on the other side with a few farms and a river and more mountains. It was quite beautiful and very peaceful. I then had to rush back down to the bus.

We then went to Gullfoss, a big beautiful waterfall. Several years ago, the governemtn wanted to dam the falls for energy, but a woman who lived by camped out there and protested, preventing them from going through with the plans and everyone now is grateful for it. The sight was incredible. Words can´t really describe it, but the mist came up, the sun shining through and rainbows formed. Right afterwards the bus took us to another waterfalls called Faxin or Faxið (meaning horse mane) but it was hard to compare to Gullfoss.

We stopped by Skálholt, a church which stands where an older one used to, and in the 1800´s a volcano near by erupted and the lava flowed to only 2 km away from the church, destroying many houses and lives. There is a lot of archaeological excavation going on there trying to understand the way of life back then. The new church looked quite pretty and had a very modern looking painting of Jesus at the altar, which was painted by an icelandic woman.

One of the last stops was of a volcano crater, where a pool of water was collected at the bottom. It was strange because the sight seemed very familiar. I remember when I was in grade 7 or 8, a friend Sarah, who had been to Iceland showed me a picture of a pool of blue water surrounded by rocky cliffs, but I think there was the sea in the background. The picture looked very similar to the crater I saw, but I am sure there are many other sights that look similar in Iceland.

Our last stops were through a small town, Eyrarbakki, I had already been through the town on my first bus trip to the south of Iceland at the beginning of August. One of the oldest houses was in the town, and it was black (they used to paint the houses with tar for protection). On the way home we stopped at the black beach, which I was at before, so I just stayed on the bus. Last time I was there, so much sand collected in my shoes and pants.