Enthusiastically stopping off in the tourist office again this morning was all too easy in the pristine Queenstown. This time we were enquiring about a Ferry from Picton over to Wellington, on the North Island, for the not too distant future. It seemed that the spaces were being booked up at a ferocious pace so we wanted some assistance just to double check that we were doing everything correctly - $293 was a lot of money to get something wrong!

Now the ferry was all booked up we had a leisurely few hours to kill before driving up to Glenorchy to meet or noble steeds, something we had booked yesterday. We had booked a horse riding session with a company called Dart Stables which would take us around some of the Lord of the Rings filming sites.

The drive there was winding and pleasant, with the usual spectacular mountains and lakes to be seen. Glenorchy itself was utterly minute with a singular shop and only a handful of homes; about four miles on from Glenorchy we were told that there was a town called Paradise which was home to only six people!

Stopping at a small jetty on the lake due to a picturesque setting for a cup of tea and a tuna sandwich. We ended up being there for about half hour longer than we wanted to as Chelsea wanted a photo of the jetty with no one on it but a Chinese family had decided that they were going to be a girl band for the day and must have taken about 13 million photos of themselves. They were led on the floor, hats on then hats off, sat on the railing, stood on one leg - it was endless. In the end Chelsea just bulldozed through them like a bowling ball down a skittle lane, holding her GoPro above her head, and they seemed to get the message.

Dart Stables themselves were lovely. The staff and owner, Nigel, were extremely friendly and a good laugh. Equipped with my enormous helmet that made me look like a magnum ice lolly and 'shag me wellies' as Nigel called them we departed to meet our horses.

I was expecting my horse to be called Panicky-Death or Guillotine but when he came he was rather lazily just called Harry. Once gracefully saddled up I thought that the whole place would be greatly improved if all future horse names were ran by me first. With myself and Chelsea (astride Zef) at the front of the horse train - I strongly believe that they put the most capable looking riders at the front - we set off towards the local river.

My lime green anorak quickly became a burden due to the unyielding sun as the weather went from strength to strength. We enjoyed a few trots and I managed a canter by hanging back from the horses in front (a trick my Dad showed me on a Centre Park family holiday) and scoffed arrogantly as less accomplished/experienced riders allowed their horses to eat the grass or drink from the river - Harry had obviously taken one look at my fluorescent anorak and seen my sinewy legs poking out of my 'shag me boots' and instinctively known who was boss.

The 'Lord of the Rings Tour' title was perhaps a scoach tenuous as what actually happened was our guide vaguely pointed at a mountain and said that it was the backdrop to Isenguard and also the location were the proud Boromir died defending his hobbit companions. We did walk along the base of The Misty Mountains however and a few rivers crossings added to the experience.

Returning to the stables some two hours later, with a bum that had a surprising amount of feeling left, we departed in high spirits for Te Anau, further South and the little know Doubtful Sound.