Saddle up and hit the beach

VICTORIA BARTLE goes on a sentimental journey with the help of Ginger Megs, an obliging horse.

My jeans are on top of the pile of washing for the down-the-stairs journey to the laundry.

The placing is deliberate - right on top from where I could drink in that unmistakable scent one last time. Ahh, the leather of a well-worn saddle.

It may be distasteful inhaling what's left of a few hours on horseback, but grown-ups who spent their childhoods travelling to gymkhanas at weekends and riding through back roads and forests will understand.

When too many decades have passed since you last swung into a saddle, getting back on a horse is the most wonderful experience.

Pakiri Beach Horse Rides - a 90-minute drive north of Auckland and out to the east coast - makes sure it is.

Close enough to the city to return home before dark, Pakiri is also remote enough to give that New Zealand experience of riding into native bush, on sand dunes and around 17km of an otherwise deserted surf beach. If you want to stay the night, there's riverside cabins, back-packers' lodgings or a beach house big enough for a couple of families.

Driving along the dusty gravel road towards the coast, anticipation builds.

The last 3km of the road to Pakiri Beach are gravel with a few one-way bridges. When you finally see the Pacific Ocean it still manages to seem far off.

Guarded by a fortress of sand dunes, pines and native bush, the breath-taking beach scene that has international visitors spell-bound remains a promise until you've been in the saddle for a while.

Up a road, across a stream deep enough to dampen your horse's belly, and through underbrush and trees, the dunes give way to that superb view.

Until some techno-whiz can make scratch-and-sniff camera film, no photograph could capture all that this setting with all it has to offer.

It's not just the blue water, white sands view or the native birds that join you on the journey. It's those smells: horses, the saddles and reins, wild grasses and the earthy scent of hoof-deep fallen pohutukawa leaves and bracken. Even an untimely horsey plop raises a smile and triggers memories.

And the sounds: hoof beats, your horse huffing and snorting the air, especially when you nudge it into an up-hill canter in the dunes, sea-bird calls and the waves breaking on to the sand.

The owner-founder of Pakiri Beach Horse Rides, Sharley Haddon, must have tapped a tourism goldmine - if not financially (housing around 70 trekking horses can't be cheap), then one rich in the experience it offers tourists. Steeped in Maori history, this area is Ngati Wai ancestral land, once owned by Rahui, the daughter of paramount chief Te Kiri and the great-great-great-grandmother of Laly Haddon, who grew up here.

Sharley Haddon - a Waikato farm girl and a teacher - started the business in the mid-1980s when, like many farmers, her husband Laly was struggling through a recession.

"I've always bred Arabian horses and one day Laly said we couldn't afford to keep them," Sharley explains. "That's when I decided if I could make the horses pay their way, I could keep them. Over the Christmas holidays, I spent six to eight hours a day taking tourists riding. I didn't advertise, but they kept turning up to ride, through word-of-mouth.

"We'd just go when the people came. After three years, I realised I could take control and started having set times for rides."

Thanks to roading authority restrictions on signage, Pakiri Beach Horse Rides is not easy to find unless you have looked at its website or have a brochure, and have a map in hand.

On the main highway at Wellsford, there's no hint that an equine adventure can be had nearby, though Pakiri itself is sign-posted. Once off the main drag, it's a matter of keeping your eyes peeled for Haddon's signs. Bureaucracy, she says, has resulted in some self-drive overseas visitors getting lost - arriving for their horse ride hot and bothered.

The best part about heading out on horseback at Pakiri is that the horses are well-mannered. There's nothing worse than going on a ride with a bored horse that plods miserably along the same old tracks, then discovers energy anew when it realises you're homeward bound.

Sharley Haddon's steeds are sure-footed enough to calm the nerves of novice riders, but they clearly enjoy the sea-air and the vast playground covered by the various rides. They so enjoy the beach, the guides suggest you don't allow your mount to get out in front, where the expanse just begs for a wayward gallop.

I didn't meet all the horses but I can vouch that Ginger Megs showed no signs of champing at the bit or quickening her pace once we turned for home and she didn't need much encouragement for a few bursts through the dunes.

The price of a ride ranges from $15 for a child spending 30 minutes in the saddle in the confines of a paddock to $155 for a day's journey, with a picnic lunch, to the beautiful Te Arai Point (from 10 am to 5 pm).

Serious equine adventure can also be had, with an extensive programme including possibilities such as a two-day ride with a night camping beneath the stars or in a shearers' hut in cool, wet weather.

There are twilight rides, moonlight rides, New Year dawn rides and a five-day Warrior Trail beach ride, which includes a night on a marae as the journey follows the paths of Maori warriors.

The ultimate adventure, though, which has had some riders hyperventilating with a mixture of fear and excitement, as they climb some mountainous country, is the Great Northern Coast-to-Coast Ride - a seven-day journey that sticks to beaches and farmland.

Case notes

Pakiri Beach Horse Rides, Rahuikiri Rd, Pakiri, ph (09) 422 6275, fax (09) 422 6277, e-mail pakirihorse@xtra.co.nz

Travel there by turning into Matheson Rd at the northern end of Wellsford township, or take the main turnoff towards Leigh and Goat Island from SH1, Warkworth.

Pakiri Beach Horse riding