FRIDAY IN QUEENSTOWN

Lord of the Rings Horse Back Ride/Summit Hill/Goodbye Ferg

       This was the day I was a little bit nervous about. I think I was more scared to go horse back riding than I was to jump out of a plane. Not because I was scared of the horse, but I was scared I would get allergic and end up in the hospital.

        Anyhow, I debated back and forth for a very long time if I wanted to go on the Ride of the Rings horseback ride. I knew I really wanted to go see all of the sites where Lord of the Rings was filmed, I just wasn't sure how my body would handle it. I decided I would go, and just took every precaution possible!

         There were eight of us that decided to go horseback riding, Hannah, Kara, Allison, Neeley, Christine, Whitney, and Anna. We woke up pretty early that morning, and I took some medicine and got ready. After we walked up to the station. This is where we met them to go drive us up to Glenorchy. We met our lady and we got in the van. 

         Once we got there, we had to get all of our gear. They gave us helmets and boots, and then a place to leave our bags and our shoes. This made me a little bit nervous, because if anything went wrong all of my stuff was in my bag, but I left it anyway.

         After this, we got in another van to take us to meet our horse. On our way there, the lady pulled over and said we are going to take a little stop. We got out and she showed us where the Riders of Rohan was filmed. She started giving us all of these crazy facts, like how several of the riders were actually women dressed up like men, and how all the horses had to go through an audition to be in it, and then she said she was one of the riders! I got to met someone in Lord of the Rings! We then drove up a little bit further, and pulled of again. She showed us where Sam, Frodo, and Seamgol make Rabbit stew! This was so cool! After a little bit father of driving, we pulled of, and we got to meet our horse!

 

       I was the third one to meet my horse! I got a horse named Elvis! He was a very pretty horse! I really liked him! He was a dark brown and very kind, and guess what! HE WAS IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS! He went to the audition made, it and then got cut, because he was running too fast, but then they need him again and he got to be in the Lord of the Rings! I felt so special only two of the eight horses had actually been in the movie and I was riding on one of them!!!

      Anyway, we started our horse back ride, and it was one of the best things I have ever done! I loved riding my horse, and need to do it more often . Anyway, on our horseback ride we started out and we got to see the forest where the Orks fight. We were transported into middle earth! I was in heaven. I got to see the tree where Boromir dies. An interesting story they told about this, the director wanted the look of fear to be real, so on the day it was shot he hired someone to shoot fire arrows at him without his knowledge. The director was sad to find out, that this was illegal and was not able to do this. We got to go through the Golden woods of Lothlorien, passing Ammon Hen, then it opens up to into the Golden Mile. We also got to see where one of the towers was (Or was digitally brought in.) All of these sites were absolutely incredible.

      Now I know this is going to make me sound really nerdy, but several people had told me I wouldn't recognize the sites, or be able to tell what part of the movie they were, well they were all wrong. I could tell easily, and so could the rest of the group! It was really cool. If I thought yesterday I should have seen them, I felt like I should have seen them even more. They also told us several neat stories.

      Some of my favorites were that Legolas/Orlando Bloom had a broken rib during the filming from one of the stunts they did. That several of the girls were afraid of horses, and wouldn't be even ride a horse, and had to be pulled by the trainer, and my all time favorite was Arogan wanted the relationship with his horse to be real. He didn't want it to be fake. In order to do this he spent several hours with his horse. This also included him spending two nights in the stable with his horse. He ended up buying the horse after the show, because he loved his horse so much!

        Aside from all of the Lord of the Rings sites, we also got to see where America's Next Top Model was filmed, and some of where Prince Caspian was filmed. It was really neat.

        Once the ride was over, we got off our horse, and guess what, I got to feed my horse. I pretty much fell in love with Elvis. I got to feed him, give him a hug, rub his nose, and even gave him a kiss. I loved it so much. Kara, Christine and I all loved our horses, but the others were pretty scared. We were the only ones taht got to do anything at the end of the ride. The horses liked us too! Elvis and I became good friends! 

 

        Anyway after the ride we rode back down to base! Now I know you are all curious how my allergies were holding up! Good news, I didn't have anything more than a few hives on my arms. It was as if I had just been playng with Natalie and Kolt's dog Kai! I was so luck that nothing happened to me! It made it an incredible ride, and an incredible memory! 

       Anyway, we went back to base and decided to go for a hike. We had explored the mountain the first day, and found some trails we wanted to go on, so today was the day we went on one. Christine, Anna, Allison and I decided we wanted to hike Summit Hill. We were unaware of how hard of a hike this would be, also that it took us to the summit! We hiked for a couple of hours and enjoyed every minute of it! It was basically like climbing stairs for two or three hours straight! It felt so good! Plus the air smelt so good. Once we realized that the hike went to the summit we decided to turn down. We didn't want to be there in the dark. We had had about half way up the summit. We were very proud of ourselves!

        After we had come back down, it was time for our last meal in Queenstown. We weren't really sure what we wanted. Okay that's not true. We all knew we wanted to go back to Ferg's. So that night we all went and split a Ferg Burger and tonight Christine and I split Onion Rings too! They were so good! I decided I think Queenstown may just be one of my favorite cities! I loved Queenstown and the time I got to spend there!