Our Riding Weekend

We're Back!

Though, errr, considering my lack of consistency in updating this blog, you probably didn't even know we were away...

Anyhow, it was DD's birthday weekend and it seemed like the perfect excuse to take a short break. We synchronised our leave and I took up the challenge of determining our destination, while keeping DD in suspense of course :)

It being a holiday for the husband made things a little tricky, at least from my perspective. For one, it had to be restful and ideally, we shouldn't have too much to do. It should also be relatively nearby with minimal travelling time. Then it should ideally also be cheap, or at least, not expensive... I had my heart set out on going to Phuket until I realised that it was the monsoon season, making me reluctant to fork out money on uncertain sunshine.

So in the end, I opted for a rather unconventional choice:

Yes, unglamourous Johor :) I got reactions ranging from surprise to incredulity to thinly veiled ridicule when I told others about our intended destination. That didn't stop me though. DD was actually the one who found this place on the net about a year ago and we'd been meaning to try it out. I figured this was as good a time as ever.

And it worked out real well! We were looking to get a break from the hustle and bustle back home and Riders Lodge, with it's "away from it all" feel just fit the bill. The openness, the white fenced paddocks, and that old-world manor house were definitely foreign enough to allow us to feel like we were on holiday and yet it was just 45mins away. I guess Bintan would also have done the trick but I wanted something different.

The highlight was the riding :)



It's been years since I've been on a horse. When I was 13 or 14, my parents (unbelievably, I might add) signed my sis and I up for riding lessons at the now defunct Greendale Riding School. That was seriously the coolest thing they'd ever signed us up for. And incredibly fun, even though I'm pretty sure I topped the class in falling off my horse the most number times... ;) I just sucked at jumping. Sadly we had to stop after about a year and since then, I haven't been back on a horse.

No matter. Even though DD had no experience and my experience was more than 10 years old, they popped us on a horse and ran us through the basics and we were soon trotting away. Up, down, up, down... it all came back and now I've got the itch to do it again!



It helped of course that the food included in our full board package was really pretty good:



Of course, we took time to celebrate the reason why we made the trip in the first place...



The husband was happy, therefore I was happy :) I dare say we'll head up again when we can.

:)