A slightly late blog on the South Island

---

Hello again everyone! My keen-eyed mother reminded me that I never wrote up on our last day in Queenstown and heading over to the North Island with sligthly sore thighs from horse riding! So I thought I'd just do a quick update on that before doing a separate blog on whats going on currently.
We began our last day in Queenstown with another relatively early morning; bags packed and half the dorm shuffling around in the dark, trying to put on skiwear whilst saying goodbyes, we headed off outside of the Nomads hostel to be picked up for horse riding.
From central Queenstown its about a 45 minute car journey to the valley we were riding in; you feel a sense of recognition as you bomb down the narrow roads and the guy driving explained why - lots of beer and car adverts are filmed in this region, along with the Lord of the Rings trilogy and many other films. You can see why though! New Zealand has the most beautiful scenery, particularly the South Island, or atleast what we saw of it; and horse riding was the perfect way to capture the beauty. When we reached the farm it felt like being transported back in time - the women riding looked every inch cowgirls, although they didn't have the cliched hat or boots it was the tight fitting jeans and muddy 'gum boots' that made me realise my 'experience' of riding probably wasn't quite up to scratch.
There were four of us on the 2 hour trip with our guide, Jules who was not only informative but good fun and spent the majority of the trek calling us either by our horse's names or, as I was, called "sophie ellis-bextor', due to an apparent facial similarity. (For all you oldies, she's a relatively well known has-been pop star). Ed was on the biggest horse 'Jaffa', he was huge and Ed looked every inch the rider, as we were kitted out in huge mud worn rain coats and oversized wellies, it felt quite upper class! And of we went, it was a little bit chilly (as, overall, is New Zealand) but with these large coats it was hard to feel the wind as each of our horses strode, up to their necks, through a river with a seemingly strong current.
It felt like wandering through some kind of outback; the water flowing next to us was completely transparent and on mentioning this to Jules she commented that as it was glacier water, it was technically purer than any bottled 'spring water' you buy at home - which I guess would explain the look of it!
The other two people in our group were Spainish and the woman, Maria, didn't speak any English and had never ridden a horse before. This made things a tad tricky and in the end she got pretty scared when we tried trotting and the two of them stayed behind with their horses as Ed and I had another go. I hate to admit it, but Ed was pretty good on a horse! Much better than me at the actual trotting but we both really enjoyed it; as we went on Jules also mentioned that the valley we were going through was the setting for the recent 'The Lovely Bones' blockbuster, which was pretty cool.
As all four of us headed back I could definitely start to feel an ache in my legs, particularly in muscles I believe I'd never used before! But more interestingly as we went over the sand to cross the river again, the Spainish man's horse decided to roll in the sand - doesn't sound that dangerous until you realise that horses move relatively quickly, follow each other, and we all were pretty inexperienced. So off jumped the Spainard and his horse began to roll; we were then instructed to kick our horses' sides to prevent them from following suit - but Jaffa, Ed's horse, had already decided he wanted the feel of sand on his skin - so off jumped Ed.
It was pretty funny from a distance, maybe only because my horse wasn't interested but even Jules said she'd only seen the horses do it twice - so it was pretty memorable! Shortly, after returning to the farm area we were driven back and headed for our last meal in Queenstown.
Here comes my only advice if you go to Queenstown. Get a fergburger. You will understand if you ever become lucky enough to experience one. The place is packed like any other burger bar but they do the most amazing variations in burgers and they are HUGE. We're talking 7 inches width and 2 inch depth and a great taste - a good last meal!
Then it was off to Christchurch, not much to say about that except that for the second biggest town in NZ its not that impressive. But now to tell you about Auckland! It will make more sense (to me more than any of you) to do it separately so there should be another shortly!
xxxxxx

---