Horsey!

So I did go on a "horse trek" yesterday.  I didn't write about it because there wasn't much to mention -- wasn't notably different from most horse trail walks I've been on in the States.

Well, a little different.  They didn't make us sign liability waivers.  And they did make us wear helmets.  (Last one I went on, we were able to dodge the brain bucket if we signed a waiver.)  At least they were them cute white horsey helmets.

My horse was named "Dash."  This was a joke.  We decided he'd be better named "Meander," and during the walk, I found he answered just as well to it.  "C'mon, Meander, let's go.  Good boy."

We went riding down by the Shotover river, which was very pretty and I took lots of pictures.  At the edge of the river, the nice guide lady took pictures of us ("us" being me and the one other woman on the ride) with our cameras -- which was particularly nice, as I'm starting to really hate the stuff where they take a picture of you and then you have to buy it.

At the end of the trail, they did one thing which was different -- they turned us around and let us trot and canter back to the ranch.  Actually, we didn't canter as much as normal, because the guide lady's horse was being particularly skittish, and she had to lead the horse back 'cause it wouldn't let her remount after the pictures.  But she led it a run sometimes, so we got the canter experience.  At the very end, she told us to just grab onto some mane and we cantered uphill.  I'd never done that before and thought it was pretty damn fun.

It was just as well that we didn't trot much.  The trotting was really bouncy and it seemed to hit my ankle ligament against the stirrup strap -- which didn't make the ligament extremely HAPPY.  I expect that I could probably get away with this in future if I shorted up the stirrups, but as it was, I was glad to have just a taste of the experience.