Riding with Frodo

* Friday

The morning had arrived for me to go horse riding, hurray.  I wanted to go whilst we were in Australia however the right opportunity never arose. Then Andrea told me about the ride they had done in Glenorchy, Lord of the Rings land, South West of Queenstown and it sounded brilliant.  So that's the one I went on, which coincided well as a pre-bday treat.

There were eight of us plus two guides, and as lots of the group hadn't ridden for a while I was given the young hyperactive horse named Frodo.  I do admit that at the start of the ride I was a bit nervously excited but once I got to know Frodo (and was felt reassured his flightiness didn't seem to be leading to any dramatic antics) I relaxed into it and was overwhelmed by the scenery and the gorgeousness of the ride.  Look how handsome my lovely Frodo is and in fact he was very very good, fun and fast but safe and kind too.  (By the way for the lord of the rings geeks Frodo wasn't actually in the film as he wasn't born when it was filmed but his friend Elvis, who also came out with us, did star in the film).

The ride was two hours alongside, and often through, the dart river from Paradise back to Glenorchy which is the other side of the mountains to Milford Sound.  It was an excellently organised ride and they allowed the more experienced riders to get some long canters in without stressing out or scaring the others who were new to it all. And it was really fun riding through the rivers and creeks and sometimes they were pretty deep and we had to lift our legs to avoid filling our boots.  I was able to risk a sneaky shot of one of our river crossings (via horse cam!)

While I rode Rob and Eric went on a long walk in the same area, in fact they saw us crossing a river at one point.  They didn't make it as far as Paradise though and so we popped up there afterwards, but only as far as the start of the unmade road.  You could tell why they had used the area for lots of Lord of the Rings, and lots of other films in fact.  It has the ability to be both imposing and picturesque.

Then on the way back into Wellington we made a final stop at the Twelve Mile Delta which again was some film site at the end of the first LOTR films (not that I care that much).  We had a lovely lunch of poached eggs.  The great thing about the camper is being able to stop anywhere but still have everything you need with you.  Today we chose this peaceful riverside spot.

Back at camp Rob and I needed to do some admin as we've realised there is less than two weeks before we will be arriving in Bangkok and so we booked ourselves a fancy hotel for three nights which came to £50!  We are shamelessly looking forward to moving onto Asian prices.  Once the jobs were complete and we were vaguely tarted up (well clean and dressed) we headed into the hip, hop and happening town centre of Queenstown for a Friday night on the tiles. 

We started off in a fancy bar by the lakeside to soak up the last of the sun and then went to a New Zealand restaurant in town in search of New Zealand Lamb.  We found it and it was yummy!  We had a lovely meal by a wide open window overlooking the mall where we could combine good food, the last of the sun, and spying on people.  Then after a final drink by the lake (this time wrapped up in convenient fleece blankets) we crawled up the hill to our camper.  It had been a fun and leisurely day in Queenstown and we felt suitably revived and ready for a fuller days driving tomorrow.