28th December

We headed for River Valley Lodge near Taihape, literally in the middle of nowhere. I have stayed here with the Kiwi Experience and I was hoping to take Katie white water rafting, however due to the extremely windy conditions and storm the river had swollen and risen very high and no rafting was taking place. We decided to do a horse ride instead and prayed the weather would be better in the morning for this. This was a good decision, the weather was beautiful. We enjoyed a two hour ride with Katie on Whisper and myself on Bling escorted by our guide Lizzie originally from Rye in East Sussex. To trek through the amazing scenery was just fantastic .... well 'awesome' as they say here. Photo's just don't do it justice.

The ride took us up to lunchtime. We no real plans for the rest of the day we decided to head off to Wellington which is where we are now and will stay to see in the new year. Wellington is the Capital of NZ and we are looking forward to 2 whole days exploring here.