Hills and horses, not sure they mix for me!

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This morning I went horse trekking (are you starting to see a bit of a trend here). I went quite a way up to the coast for this one. A nice Glaswegian girl took me out on a lovely horse and we had a fun time. He was quite a responsive horse to ride. Which was just as well as we did some scary stuff. We went up over this lovely hill adn saw Whale Island and just about saw White Island (a volcano) off in the distance. Problem was that we had to coem down the hill again. It was steep anyway, and very narrow, so my feet kept getting kicked out of the stirrups, and makes it hard to stand on them and lean back for down hill. Also, where the rain had been so heavy, not only was it muddy and slippy, but it also washed out some of the track, so there were steps for the horse to go down, which was very scary. Did you get that, it was scary. VERY SCARY. The scariest I think I'd been on a horse. VERY STEEP. I was a bit scared. Not sure if I've convinced you of that yet... Luckily, I had learnt in Waitomo to trust the horse, so I did. I had learnt in Taupo tolook at the scenery and not down at the ground, so I did. I had learnt at my yoga lessons in Surrey to breath deep and relax, so I did. I didn't fall off. I didn't die. The world did not come to and end. And I was VERY glad to be at the bottom of that hill. "We aren't going up that again, are we?" I asked. "No" the girl replied. At which point I was very happy. I got trotting again, which was good. My feet come out of the stirrups quite easily though, so I have got to work a bit more on keeping my heels down. One of the best parts of this ride, was riding through a stream on the horse. I got soaked! (This seems to be a lot of my NZ stories; "Great time, got soaked") Not as much as the guide though... her horse liked laying down in the river to cool off, which I can't blame it as it was a mega hot day. She got drenched as the horse did this twice! Riding through the river was gorgeous, so clear you can see the bottom, nice and cooling. Riding under these tree branches with leaves hanging down... just beautiful. Another great ride.

From there I went paddling! I had driven past the lovely Lake Rotomo. The sand was quite stoney, and water quite cool, but a really nice long paddle. And yes, I got soaked. Just as well my combats dry quickly.

From there I went to Waimangu Volcanic Valley - their slogan is "how the world began". They have some lovely geothermic natural wonders there, all related to the volcano that created Lake Rotorua. I walked along a path, with a pamphlet to explain what I was looking at. There were some nice algae covered pools. There was the most massive steaming lake, and a gorgeously blue steaming lake too. I just wanted to jump into it! At 35 degrees it might have been ok, but at it's top it can get to 75 degrees. There were also gorgeous silica terraces too. And after that, I went back to the B&B and collapsed, I was so tired. I just watched a bit of tele (only four channels, and bizarre to have adverts on 1 and 2!) and finished off my 5th novel 😊

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