Well, after spending time whale watching and seal watching, we thought it was about time that we spent some time on land and booked in for an hours horse trekking with Fyfee View Ranch.

The ranch is located about ten minutes north of Kaikoura on Chapmans Road. The drive takes you through some low lying farmland and small clusters of trees before reaching its entrance. Having pre-booked and ascertained our riding capabilities, our horses were already saddled up and waiting for our arrival. ´Dreamer´for Dani and ´Bacardi´for me. All of the seventeen horses that they have on their ranch are ex race horses, as far as I understood, race horses used to tow at racing trap, hens, these horses were only between seven and eight years old and were already at retirement age. Well, we mounted as instructed and, once being given our guidelines, headed off on the one hour trail. It must be said at this point, it is not a trek that involves cantering and galloping, more of, well, a walk through the local bushland….not that that was bad, John Wayne´s we weren´t…!

The horses have been trained to follow a set trail through woodland, and today after the recent rain, it was extremely muddy and slippery under their hooves including rocks. Dreamer seemed happy to weave his way onwards, whereas my Bacardi buddy seemed to want to skirt around the edges of the sticky mud and move as fast as possible out of it! You aren´t allowed to let them eat any vegetation along the way, but the odd leaf was sneaked in by the crafty horses. On shallow stream crossings, I had been warned that my horse liked to hang around and drink/play in the surging water, so I had to be careful not to let him. Rocky and slippery underhoof we did manage to cross the water without any major problems.

After winding through the low branches of the forest and making it through the rocky river bed we were then offered the chance to ´trot´ our horses. All good, except Bacardi seemed to take the heel kick as ´off we go then´and so I had try and rein him in to prevent him for cantering off into the yummy vegetation! All in all, a good one hour spent, not exactly horse riding, but we had a nice gentle ride and got to see some nice scenery.

After dismounting, the ranch as a lovely little ´petting zoo´where you are able to buy a small bucket off pellets and go and see the animals. These included donkey´s, llamas, goats, Fallow deers, pot bellied pigs, sheep, possum, cockateels, geese and ducks (ok birds) but with them being so used to human contact and used to the sight of a small aluminum bucket of pellets we suddenly found ourselves with a lot of friends! This was a lovely thing to do also, as feeding a llama and a Fallow deer are things that we had never done, the pigmy goat that followed us around could have easily slipped him into my pocket  (and I would have taken him)