EC-Rider Travels

This morning I got up early to go for the most wonderful ride with Ben’s wife Donna. They live just down the road from Bob and Anne and farm about 4,000 acres along the gorge. We went for the most stunning ride up the hill. Donna is a great environmentalist and is trying to reduce the number of foreign plants and trees which are taking over to encourage the natives. Wild lupins are a major problem (particularly the yellow ones) and cover huge areas of the fields taking up valuable grazing land. She has managed to get rid of most on their farm, but Ben had spotted a yellow one on our route so we set out to find it… but failed! Still we had a gorgeous ride, with Fenn the Irish terrier and I probably wont be able to walk tomorrow!

Bob then took us on a lovely drive around the farm, proudly showing some of their beautiful Aberdeen Angus and to see a nearby deer farm where they harvest the deer velvet largely for Chinese medicine. I was not sure I liked the sound of this but was reassured it was all very humanely done, and I have to admit, the huge herds of red deer looked extremely happy and very well.

In the afternoon we drove about forty five minutes further down the gorge to visit Bob and Anne’s daughter, Kate, who lives in the most dreamy house with a stunning garden overlooking the river, but my goodness it is remote. I think even more so than Lake Heron – a good hour from any form of shop or amenity, passing very few neighbours on the way. They do however, have a really lovely set up including a KuneKune pig called Paddy!