After arriving and settling down in River Valley for our second time on this trip we booked our horse trekking trip and enjoyed watching the frantic-ness of the other Kiwi bus bringing a new load of eager newbie backpackers. We’d been picked up from the nearest town Taihape by a shuttle bus costing an astonishing $30 each. Between 5! Crazy…Conveniently it happened to be a day when the lodge was collecting supplies, glad we could help…We were rammed into the back of the vehicle nursing our bags and some bad toilet paper for 45 minutes while our very nice bus driver hurtled around the windy bends and uneven roads of the New Zealand countryside.
We killed some time in our room by chatting and making some food then we headed off to the stables to meet our horses. Holly had a horse named Rico and mine was called Pedro, a bit of a Spanish theme here methinks. Holly’s horse was beautiful and suited an intermediate rider. My horse naturally had a lazy walk and needed encouragement to move, matched my character perfectly.
We set off Katharine’s horse with a little persuasion and road into the farmlands. Now I haven’t been riding for close to 10 years and the last time I rode was on my sisters birthday led by rope to the leader. I was very proud of myself being able to handle a horse and not be bum clenchingly scared of the animal. We trotted talked cantered and even galloped our way through acres of gorgeous countryside sharing the view only with a few cows and deer. It’s not like the riding you have where everybody is in a line and you can’t go faster than snails pace, this was horse trekking with a vengeance. Holly had her first attempt at jumping with a horse, by accident. The horse was cantering towards a log and Holly was trying to either move him to the side or stop him before she got to the log. The horse had different intentions and jumped right over the log. Erin, the veteran horse rider told her that she looked like a natural doing it. Pure luck she didn’t just fall off.
We were given the opportunity to canter along a few of the sections and were told we could have a race near the end. We went to our starting positions and got ready, Katharine’s horse wouldn’t turn around so she couldn’t race, Erin and Phill were ready to race and we shot off. My horse never got faster than a shy canter and even though I was braced for a fully fledged gallop I looked like a scared idiot slowly moving along. Holly shot off and was in the line to winning the race when her horse got moved over by Erin’s and took a step to the side launching Holly in a slow motion fall to the ground. It was a hilarious but very scary sight. I tried to run over and help but my horse didn’t seem to want to go that way but she seemed fine, a little winded and a bruised bum but other than that just bragging right for having fallen off a galloping horse.
All in all we had a great afternoon and headed back to the lodge for some food. We cooked some Chilli and relaxed for the evening. We woke the next morning and began with good intentions of doing the hike up the mountain but never really made it there. Erin was sick and Holly was too battered and bruised to attempt the tricky walk. We ended up relaxing by our solar heated river and soaking up some of the blisteringly hot sun rays while beating off the irritating sand flies.
We relaxed for the rest of the day and headed to bed for a semi early night. We caught the shuttle the next day and managed to share it again with another load of things needing to be taken to the local town. Glad we could help again guys…But we made it safely and on time to the bus to meet our old friends Kate (Brenda) Jade and Dan. Good times. We’ve got a good few days ahead of us now until we leave this wonderful country, and maybe a cheeky skydive tomorrow?? Who knows.
Kia Ora Friends,
David & Holly
Zambuck - A term used for a person of first aid at a sport event.
Ohh...Holly received a pass and broke a nail!!! GET THE ZAMBUCK!!
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