Of horses and hobbits

When we sat on the floor of the hotel this morning, looking out at the mirror-still lake and the doubled mountains, I wondered why we hadn’t made our plans earlier. We passed around the brochures, made phone calls on three different phones, and finally had a plan: horseback riding, a walk on a trail, and then a boat ride to the glow worm caves. This sounded pretty good, I thought. I had no way of imagining how stunning it would all be.

First, the horseback ride. We had chosen to go with the extremely laid-back fellow who had promised us “quiet” horses and lovely views—mostly because he was the one who would take Aidan (the other horse places thought Aidan was too young). We drove up to find our horses saddled and waiting, and the rancher and his teenage daughter waiting for us. The rancher—who seemed overly-quiet and smirking at first—unfolded slowly as we rode across his magnificent lands. He and his daughter—who was leading Aidan’s horse—led us up hills, through sheep pastures, past yearling horses and nursing foals. By the time we rode down the hill at the end of the ride, I was in love with the reticent rancher and his lands. We had talked about his theories of horse raising—gently and with lots of love—and about his wish to sell pieces of the ranch to give himself the time and money to set up a fishing business. Why? “Cause you’re a long time dead,” he explained to me. His horses were the most gentle I’ve ever seen, and the ride the most beautiful. I was so blissed out afterwards that I hardly noticed how sore my ass was.

When we got home, Rob (who had spent the morning mountain biking—he’s not a big horse fan), took us on the short walk he had chosen: the Kepler Track, a 3-4 day walk on which we spent a couple of beautiful hours. Here, although we were next to a lake surrounded by mountains, we saw neither lake nor mountains. Instead we were in the bush next to the lake, surrounded by tall trees and sweeping fern plantings. In this magical grove, we searched for hobbit prints, and we were convinced that some of the enormous beech trees were ents who followed our noisy gang disapprovingly.

That takes us only to the early evening, when things got really good. But now it's the late evening and I can hardly keep my eyes open. So you'll have to wait for the glow worm caves for tomorrow. Just know that here we are, in the most beautiful place I've ever been--and still we aren't to the place Keith tells us is "really spectacular." I will need to learn more words to be able to describe in any way how beautiful this world is