Muriwai Beach & Forest Horse Trek 10/06/16

Something really exciting happened last Friday, on the 10th of June!
Guess what it was?

Yes, obviously the title gives it away; Me, Awatea, Maddie, Natalia, Chanel, Jake, and Ben, as well as Jake's Mum Meredith and Natalia's Mum, all went to a horse trek in the morning till around 12 a.m.

A few weeks back I decided I wanted to run another horsey-themed little school trip after all the positive feedback we'd received from the trip we'd done when we went for an hour lesson to Greenbarn Equestrian. So I got Cass and Maddie to help me organize another trip; this time we decided to go to a trek rather than a lesson, since the lesson had been a teeny bit boring and we thought a nice trek through the nature would be somewhat more interesting. We went through basically the exact same process as we had for the previous trip, except this time it was a race against time trying to get the risk management sheet off of them; I literally only got it the morning before the day of the trek.

Anyhow, Cass injured her ankle a day or so before the trek so unfortunately she couldn't come, but it was still really enjoyable. The only crazy thing that happened was nearly falling off, and also Meredith (Jake's Mum) actually DID fall off! It was rather frightening but we all still got through it. In fact, if you're wondering for the details about this whole falling off thing, then here's a short paragraph thingy I wrote in order to 'capture the crazy moment':

All I could remember was the male instructor beckoning us to go and transition into a trot as we slowly emerged into more of a clearing, my gaze flickering upwards to see six - no, seven including the female instructor - pairs of eyes staring at both me and Meredith excitedly from the top of a moderate slope. They were eager to see us do something they’d think was extraordinary; which really just was us picking up our horse’s pace a little bit rather than just trampling through the trek single-file. My heart raced a little bit; I easily knew how to trot -  it was like my second nature at this point -but I’d only ever ridden properly in an arena before, not out in the open, like we were attempting to do right now. The male instructor rose his voice above the chattering of the six students atop the slope waiting, telling us that now was the time we would begin trotting, so I dug my heels into the sides of my pinto horse and urged him forward both with body and vocals but in almost what felt like a split second everything went wrong.

It’d been fairly easy to perceive that the male instructor was having a hard time controlling his seal brown horse, even just to make it hault. I assumed that it was possibly a little green, but of course I wasn’t exposed to the details. As soon as he told us to trot, I’d begun a nice little gait beside Meredith and her horse, but all I managed to see was the instructor’s horse spooking in front of Meredith and that caused her horse to freak and bolt. He jolted off into the other direction, and in panic my horse started galloping; a gait I hadn’t a clue how to control. In the length, I saw Meredith lose balance and fall off her horse. Rather scared and startled, I did the only thing I thought I should do - pull back on the reins. Hard.

I managed to stop my horse, and desperately patted its neck with one hand holding the reins tightly in an attempt to calm him. It worked, but to my left I could see Meredith on the ground with a shaky laugh. Her horse had gone off a few meters, now grazing on a patch of long grass. What an egocentric; though, of course it was just a horse. I stared in shock, the male instructor quickly dismounting his horse and leading himself over to help Meredith and catch her horse, but he told me to go rejoin the others. I desperately wanted to help, but instead nodded quietly, steering my horse away from the drama to slowly rejoin the group.

The six others looked out into the distance in absolute frozen shock before shifting their gaze onto me. Meredith had just fallen off her horse in front of all our eyes - particularly mine, and I had nearly fallen off as well. It was a shaky, but definitely eye-opening experience. As Meredith slowly remounted her horse with the help of the instructor, I briefly told them what’d happened, regardless that they’d witnessed it as well. She was lucky it’d hadn’t been a bad fall, and the only thing she’d gained was a little less than bruises.
Anyhow, apart from the slight spooking that went on through the horses quite a few times through the trek, it was SUPER enjoyable. I'd love to do it again, except maybe a different place since a) yes, the spooking that went on was rather frightening for everyone and b) it's just a matter of meeting new horses and going to explore new places. At first, we went out of the kind of 'campsite' where we'd all met, then through the bushes out towards the beach. It was amazing to feel the wind whip your hair and the waves crash a few meters away from you and your horse. There was even a tiny stream going through the bushes down through the sand towards the ocean which we walked through, and that was pretty awesome seeing your horse's hooves splashing down below. Unfortunately, I was hoping to maybe go for a canter along the vast wide beach, but the instructors said otherwise so we were left single-file. Afterwards, we went through the sand dunes emerging into the forest, and that was very pretty with the brown leaf-covered ground. Apart from the spooking, of course. We then went off into a clearing (where Meredith unfortunately fell off), continuing going through the forest (now the trees there were bare and spiky so you had to duck and dodge them a few times), and once through there we went off through the hills. Below was this deeper river, and I have to admit I was actually rather nervous since we were trekking down the edge of a hill. If my horse spooked, and I fell off, I'd be tumbling down towards it! Fortunately though, that didn't happen. Thank god. As we went through the river, many people's horses started drinking, except my horse Panda didn't... Instead, he just stood there enjoying the water at his hooves. Anyhow, once I finally got him going, we moved through the hills and through the forest back to the campsite. The trek was around an hour, but it definitely felt like more... weirdly. But yeah; that's just a quick summary of what happened at the horse trek!

Horse Riding Trip to Greenbarn

Hi everyone! So this is actually going to be a recount of something that happened a little while ago, last term, but for some reason I never actually put it up on this blog so I've decided to do that now.
It's a little long, so beware, but anyhow... Enjoy!

(Week 4 Term 1)

So this week, me and Cassady organised a project for some people to go horse riding!

I had had the idea of doing something along those lines for a while, but I was never quite sure if it would work out; as well as the fact that Daniel would have to approve of it, but finally on Monday I told my near-impossible idea to Cassady and she said that we should try give it a go. Anyway, what could possibly go wrong?

We went to talk to Daniel at morning tea that day and after trying to awkwardly explain our idea, mumbling things like ‘we’d understand if you couldn’t let us…’, he leaned back in his chair with a little smile and said yes rather easily. Me and Cassady were so shocked, and grateful of course, we couldn’t say much but ‘Thank you thank you.’ He, however, went serious before also telling to us about the fact that horse riding was much different to running something like a disco - and, therefore, a lot of work would be needed to get it to work out correctly.

So Cass and I accepted the challenge. We rang up and emailed hundreds of different equestrian centres that day. Some replied, some didn’t - majority of the people who did respond, though, were the ones we’d called over the phone. I train at Maree Green Equestrian, in Kumeu,so I was really keen (basically begging to Cass and annoying the heck out of her) to get us to organise something over there, but sadly we never got an answer from them regardless of whether we called or emailed - until we booked with another place. Like, c’mon now, it’s a little too late!

It took a while, and Cass was on the phone every time while I was the one who organised what was to be said and all the other necessary information. Even one time, we rang up a number and then it turned out that it wasn’t an equestrian centre but in fact someone’s home phone! It was super awkward and Cassady ended up just apologising and hanging up. One of the places however, called Greenbarn Equestrian Centre (that was also in Kumeu), said that they could take SEVEN people, not just five, which was the maximum amount of people any other place would take! They asked us what date and time we wanted to book the lesson at but obviously we hadn’t arranged that with Daniel yet - so we just told them we’d call them back.

The next day, we went to talk to Daniel about how we could earn some money that we would need for the students to go, as it cost $45 each. Cassady and I tried to figure out some ideas of how we could possibly fundraise, and after a while Cass came up with the idea of doing a ‘breakfast and waffle day’, where everyone would come to school in their pyjamas, pay $5 and get some free waffles with additional toppings. Daniel seemed alright on this idea and even Julia the music teacher said she’d lend her waffle maker to us for the little event, but in the afternoon when me and Cassady had already begun making posters to put up for advertising, Daniel approached me.

He told me that maybe we shouldn’t fundraise, because it wouldn’t be fair to have the whole school pay for 5 kids’ enjoyment. It was a good statement to bring up but it annoyed me and Cassady because then, now what? What now if we weren’t to fundraise? It all came to the hasty conclusion of having to make those 5 students pay for themselves. We both got worried that now no-one would want to participate anymore because of the fee, but I suppose we just decided we had to take a risk.

The next morning we checked to see if we’d gotten any responses from the equestrian centres via email, but unfortunately we didn’t get any. Not one. It was SO frustrating. We finally decided to talk to Daniel about the Greenbarn place and how they were the only promising place we’d found, but all we lacked currently was a suitable date. Daniel seemed a little unsure but we managed to persuade him so we agreed that the March 11th, Friday, would be good. We were a little puzzled at first because that was supposed to be athletics day, but Daniel reassured us by stating ‘it’s been changed to another day’.

We tried to ring Greenbarn Equestrian Centre again but for some reason we didn’t get a reply. We’d been using the landline in the ‘cave’ in the common, and it’d worked fine yesterday, but not today.  Me and Cass were starting to get super worried and Cassady said we should just wait and ring back later on, but I felt like something wasn’t right; in terms of the phone itself. I got my phone out and rang them from my mobile number and as though nothing hadn’t been working before, they replied! Cassady booked the date and time (10:30a.m.) and it was all sorted.

At the campfire before lunch, we advertised that we were doing to take 5 people horse riding (7 people including me and Cassady). Everyone seemed keen about it but when we said that people had to pay $45 for themselves, they immediately lost interest. Problem is, horse riding isn’t that easy and it IS quite expensive, but $45 is super cheap comparing it to the other places that would ask for around $70 to $100. We got around 7 names but we’re not quite sure yet so we’ll just have to see what happens next week.

- Whizzing through time -

First of all, me and Cass started out with only 7 unsure people wanting to participate, but for some reason - after the little campfire we’d had - people started wanting to join. Cass went around asking for people to join and I ended up having to chase her up and tell her to stop, otherwise it’d be too hard to pick! I’m pretty sure we ended up with a total of around 16. That’s seriously heaps. To make it fair, Cassady suggested we write down everyone’s names and rip them up, put them in a hat and pull them out as though it was a lucky dip. So that’s what we did.

These are the people we got out; Grace, Mea, Maddie, Maya, and Leilani. Those 5 were SO happy to be picked; you have NO idea how I felt. Around 2 minutes later me and Cass were writing down a little permission slip on google docs, printing it out, trimming it nicely, and handing it out. Everyone we picked seems so excited about the trip, and I’m so glad. I can’t wait till Friday! Time feels so slow lately, and it’s really bugging me. Hopefully we’ll have loads of fun and enjoy ourselves! One thing I’m definitely a little worried about is whether I’ll get a horse, or a pony. I’ve never really ridden a pony before - not unless it’s one of those 5 minutes rides, if you know what I mean. But I guess whatever happens, it’ll still be all good!

So now it brings us today, a while after the trip happened! If you're still reading, congrats; I have no idea WHY you decided to spend your precious time reading about my horse trip, but I appreciate it c: Anyhow, on the day, everyone was so pumped getting into their 'horse appropriate' clothes. We went to the car, all loaded in, and the trip to Greenbarn equestrian was mainly all of us being very loud and noisy, with music blasting from the radio. Honestly though, it was so much fun. Because of slight traffic from the construction going on the roads and us *being a fail* and missing the turn towards the barn, we were around 5 minutes late, but it didn't seem to be too bad as they were still tacking up their last few horses and ponies. When Leilani came, with her Mum in their car (we didn't have enough space for everyone so Leilani just came that way), this random goat just blocked their way on the steep driveway downwards, and it was just hilarious.

The people assorted us to each of our horses, and I got a pony (which sucked, because I wanted to ride a horse so bad instead but... Oh well!). Though I was upset, it was actually a very well-behaved pony. And yes... It was rather cute, with a pure white coat.

Afterwards, we got split into two groups, one group with them all riding mares and the other group (the one I was in) with all geldings. We went around doing some things like walking over poles, just going around the paddock, and doing some trotting. It was heaps of fun, and it was great to see everyone enjoying the horsey experience, though something that slightly irritated me as a rider and the other group members was how they frequently restrained us from doing things. I've only been riding for over a month now, but I take the equestrian thing really seriously, and so far I'm developing my canter and I've basically 'mastered' trotting, so it was annoying that when we asked to trot they just HAD to clip a lead onto the horse as if it was going to be super dangerous. Which, of course, it wasn't.

Overall though, it was loads of fun! I'd love to do it again, and Daniel did say that me and Cass could organise another trip this term, but if we did I would make sure to go to Maree Green instead. They have mainly horses and some ponies, but the ponies are very large, and they're all well behaved and they'd definitely let us do more than what Greebarn let us do. So yeah! That's my super long blogpost for today. If me and Cass DO do another trip, I'll make sure to blog that as well. Cya!

Beach Ed

For this week’s learning story, I’d like to talk about what actually happened the previous week, which was beach ed! At first, I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t that keen on heading over to the beach because I just didn’t really feel like it, but I do have to say that in the end it was rather worth it. We learnt a range of different things, but if I went through it all, I’d be writing a giant story of a hundred paragraphs, so I’m going to go through one of the things that I really enjoyed learning about, which was rips.

At first, the idea of rips really scared me, because I thought that if I ever got caught in one I’d be done for, but the information we learnt really helped out. Apparently, first off you need to know how to identify where a rip may be. Avoid rocks, where the water is a slightly different colour (if it’s a white sand beach the water would be lighter, and if it’s a black sand beach the water would be darker), or where there seems to be calmer water, especially amongst waves. Those tips so helped out. Now that you know them, they seem so obvious.

The next step as to if you get caught in a rip is to stay calm. Don’t panic. If you do, that’ll only make things worse (as it does in almost any other threatening situation). Lie on your back and float, and let the rip take you away. Once the water stops feeling like as though it’s pulling, you’ve probably out of the rip, so then you can swim away. Make sure to swim across, and if the red-and-yellow lifeguard flags are out, try swim to them. If you can’t reach that far, then just swim as far away from the rip as you possibly can and then head back to shore.

Oh, and I nearly forgot! Another thing, before anything else, if you get caught in a rip, make sure to check if you can touch the ground. If you can, then just walk out of the rip - simple enough, right? I hope so; when the three lifeguard girls at the beach told us about it, it seems pretty self-explanatory, but whenever I search up images of a rip current it just seems to confuse me even more. I plan to give out this information to some other people, maybe not my friends since they already know too, but my family. I doubt that we’d ever get stuck in a situation such as a rip current, but it’s best to be safe than sorry, right? Then again, I don’t really visit the beach that often anymore. Why? Don’t ask me! I wouldn’t really know - I used to visit the beach a lot when I was a kid, but nowadays I don’t really. I think it’s because we moved to Hobsonville Point - there’s the wharf, yes, but it isn’t quite the same as the beach. Before we moved to Hobsonville Point, we lived in Browns Bay (near the beach) and then Murrays Bay, yet again, near the beach.