Day 16

We had to get up extra early today, as we needed to be at the Lodge for 8am to book in for the horse riding. We booked in, and then went for breakfast. We made our way down to the Corral, and were assigned our horses. Mine was named Tanya, Mum’s was Sweet-pea, and Chris’s was called Rob, he was old and farted a lot (the horse not Chris), which mum never got bored at laughing about. We did a trail into Bryce Canyon and saw some more great sights. We were out for around two hours and it was good fun. The horses got quite close to the edge at times but they seem to know what they were doing. We were given instructions on how to control them but they were mostly on autopilot so we didn’t really have to do much at all. Our guide took some photos for us, and told us about this huge rock that had a crack in it, and they had to decide how to stop it from falling on the trail, he pointed out a twig, which had been accurately placed to keep the rock from falling which was quite funny. We said goodbye to our horses and made our way back to the RV so we could start our journey to Zion National Park. Chris said that now he had ridden a horse through a Canyon in America that he was officially allowed to buy a Cowboy hat! Leaving Bryce, we set out for Zion hoping to arrive in the daylight rather than in the dark.
This was the best decision we made as the park closed at 8pm so we wouldn’t have been able to get through the tunnels after that anyway! We had to pay an extra $15 to get through the tunnels at Zion. The roads wound back and forth down the valley to the floor of the canyon and Mum’s white knuckles came back again. We drove from one end of Zion to the other and stayed at a campsite called Watchman. We parked up and had a great spot by the river. We had our own little path to the river, with a little beach area. We took our chairs down there, with beer and wine, Mum and Chris took a seat, and I had a paddle in the river. It was really refreshing, as it was so hot, and the water was very cool. Our guide for the horse riding had recommended a restaurant to go to in the local town, Springdale, called Oscars and it was very nice. When we decided to head back to the RV, it was very dark, and we struggled to find it as we forgot to take a torch. We got there in the end!