NZ +27 (UK -2): Giddy up...!

First of all, I should tell you that I am safely returned from horse riding (or trekking, as we are duty-bound to call it, as in "The Waimak River Horse Trek Experience". I tell you this first, as at least two people, one of them my Dad, considered going on a horse to be the most dangerous thing I have done all holiday.

This is despite the 4x4s and the jetboats and the helicopter and the driving 5000km around some really dangerous roads. I think it's just a thing about horses...

Mine was called Rex, and he is a retired racehorse...



And wherever you get horses, you get horsey girls who have been in the Brownies. Our was called Laura...



...and she was from Plymouth. Going on what Joe Bennett said, she should have been a right cow, but she wasn't, she was very patient with people like me who had only seen horses on the Grand National and on French menus.

She went through all the safety features of the horse - how turn left and right, how to stop when she banged her hand on the dashmane etc. But in the end it didn't really matter, because the horses were so used to The Waimak River Horse Trek Experience that they just followed on quite happily one behind the other...



(You were supposed to keep two hands on the reins, but you couldn't take photos doing that, so I was daring...)

We trekked along the Waimakiriri River... (Maori; Wai - water; maki - cold; riri - fast)



...and as this was the river we had already driven over, jet-boated on, crossed by high viaduct on a train, there was only one way left to cross this holiday and so we did...



It was all good fun, although I was unable to move anything below the waist when I got off for about 5 minutes, so they gave us a cup of tea and let us feed their lamb...



(I look a bit evil in this picture, like I'm about to slaughter the lamb and get mint sauce, but I was quite happy really and it lived to see another lot of Horse Trek Experiencers tomorrow...)

They also had goats and calves and chickens and more dogs than you can throw a stick at, but they didn't make for interesting photos, nothing you can't see at the Longdown Dairy Farm Experience.

But this box caught my eye...



...because it demonstrates how far felt-tip technology has been of benefit to the parcel consignment tracking business.

Will I go horse riding, sorry, trekking, again? I might, but no faster and for no longer. Rex, the retired, slighty lazy racehorse and I were perfectly matched.