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!
