📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
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💼 What the programme involves
This is the third year that SEEDS volunteers will have the unique opportunity to get to know and explore the traditional Icelandic dairy and vegetable/carrots farming. Our hosts, a farmer's family, cultivate carrots, have cows and run a tourist accommodation.
Our tasks in this project will mainly be connected with the carrots cultivation; we will be working in the fields, covering the garden beds with plastic wraps.
There will as well be some renovation and maintenance tasks awaiting SEEDS volunteers, for instance painting some of the machinery used in the carrot farming. If weather conditions allow we will do some painting preparation work outdoors.
Some work might as well be in the stalls, such as milking the cows or tending to them in general.
The weather conditions in Iceland are unpredictable, especially during winter and in early April the average temperature is just above zero. Be prepared to experience all kinds of weather and be sure of bringing warm clothing.
🏠 Accommodation on site
SEEDS volunteers will stay in a fully equipped flat, in a sleeping bag accommodation sharing rooms. Please bring your own sleeping bag.
Volunteers will receive food supplies and be in charge of cooking and cleaning. Do not forget some traditional/typical food from your home country for an international evening.
📍 About the location
The farm is located in the South of Iceland, a beautiful area surrounded by mountains and glaciers to the north and facing the Atlantic Ocean to the south.
The inhabitants here live in constant threat of volcanic eruptions and the area was hit during the recent eruptions in Eyjafjallajökull 2010 and Vatnajökull 2011, as it got all covered by ashes, but the natives here are strong minded and 'e~folded up their sleeves' as the Icelanders express it and proved the common believe that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
V k, the closest town, is Iceland's most southerly village. M ½rdalur is bordered by the glacial river Jökuls to the west and the river Blautakv sl to the east. Its northern border is the M ½rdalsjökull glacier, which caps the volcanic Mt. Katla, while its southern limits are black sands and the rolling Atlantic waves. The district lives mainly by agriculture. Although this community of 600 inhabitants faces the open Atlantic, V k is the only seaside settlement in Iceland left without a harbour due to natural circumstances. Among the many aspects of V k that make it attractive are the sea-and-land trips and trips on the M ½rdalsjökull glacier to list a few.
The natural beauty of the area is spectacular. Just east of the village's outskirts lies one of Europe's biggest arctic tern breeding grounds. South of V k is a beautiful beach, which the international Magazines named one of the world's ten best island beaches in 1991. A short hike within the close vicinity of V k is sure to satisfy all serious nature lovers and bird watchers. V k and its surroundings is one of the main bird life areas in Iceland.
ℹ️ Additional information
Our host will organise free time activities in the area, depending on the weather conditions.