Horseback Riding - Waitomo Travel Weekend

On Friday night, our group of eleven went on a nighttime horseback ride at the Karamu horse track. We arrived at about 8pm while it was still light outside, and began hopping on our horses. Mine was a grey horse named Spirit, and she wasn’t really feeling the whole trail ride thing that day. I can’t really blame her though. If I was a horse and someone was trying to make me walk up and down giant hills for two hours, I would probably try to stop and eat grass whenever possible too.

There were only a few mishaps along the way. Gabe’s horse decided to take a head swing at Spirit while we were on the edge of the trail next to a very steep hill. There was a moment there where I thought me and my new horsey friend were going to tumble down the mountain like in a cartoon. Scott’s horse, Kiki, decided to take a fast, spinning turn at one point and he fell off. We discovered this when Kiki came trotting back up the path to where us stragglers were waiting without a sign of Scott. He was fine though- just a sore hip.  

The sun began setting around 45 minutes into our tour, and we quickly discovered that the guides weren’t exaggerating when they said we wouldn’t be able to see more than a few feet in front of us. I figured the highlight of the ride would be the section of the trail that was lit by glow worms (which I have to admit was pretty sweet), but they paled in comparison to the view of the night sky.

Having spent most of my life in the suburbs, and many years riding horses pretty far away from even those suburbs, I thought I had seen some pretty great views of stars. I still can’t believe the view we had from those rolling hills in the middle of nowhere. I think the best way to describe it is that it was the first time the sky had ever really looked three-dimensional to me. The surrounding area was so dark that you could just barely see the farthest stars that give the sky a slight glow to it. The closer stars really seemed to pop out in comparison. I almost wish I had tried to get a picture, but it wouldn’t have come close to doing justice to that view. It’s just something you have to witness for yourself.