A morning on the beach with some beautiful animals (A horse riding adventure)

Woke up ready for what I could only imagine to be a slow doddle up the beach. Having ridden horses for many years on our farm, and having Roz and Penny as total novices, both had never been on a horse, I was less than excited about going out.

We get there and look at the stables, they’re cool, the person at the front desk is super nice and after getting some jean leggings put around our calves the horses are already ready and it’s time to go.

Find a helmet that fits you is my first tip for this activity, I didn’t and it sat just on my eyebrows the entire ride, quite irritating really, also not good for photos, I looked like a dork.

Secondly, make sure you wear shoes you are ok with getting wet, that’s if you’d like to take you horse into the waves… I highly recommend it, it’s quite a rush having the waves breaking onto you and your pony.

We took the 1 hour ride, traveling a fair distance down the beach, chatting to the guides and getting some photo’s along the way.

Roz and Penny were being led by 2 of the guides while Tyler and I were getting our horses revved up and galloping up and down the beach, dropping in and out of the waves, fabulous fun.

We stop for about 15 minutes and get some more photos of the group, there is a nice pub on the beach, has Bob Marley and the Rolling Stones painted all over it, I recommend you pop in there for a beer, nice spot. There are some great photos of some big name surfers on their wall who have come and surfed on that beach. When you see the break, you can see that there is some good surfing done right there, a really good looking left. More about that another day.

We head back and both Penny and Roz’s horses get into a little canter, closely watched by the guides who have let go of the reins right now. They both are clearly not in control however they are having a ball, laughing and giggling as they bop up and down kinda like rag dolls. Really funny to watch.

For me, it’s great to be back in the saddle, my horse is responsive and the thrill of being at one with my beautiful animal is sensational, it’s been way too long, I can’t even remember when last I rode. The inside of my legs were feeling a little chaffed by the end, clearly not used to it, but a small price to pay.

It all slows down as we head back off the beach onto a back road towards the stables on a leisurely walk. The houses are pretty impressive on the beach here. We get back to the start for a well deserved bottled water. We’re offered lunch however we have to go.

I give it:

Off the richter scale: 7 (as long as you know how to ride)
Value for money: 8 ($65 for the hour)
Scenery: 5 (only because it’s really beach only, I like variety)
Cultural: 3 (Only really met the locals in the bar)
Family: 8 (Absolutely, no matter what level ability, smiles all round)

Check out our facebook page to see some of the other cool adventures we are getting up to.

An afternoon Quading it in the Bali outback

We took off from Vision Villas and after getting lost a few times eventually got to where we the team at Quad Biking Bali have their adventure centre.  What should have taken just over an hour took us two and a half (At least our driver now knows how to get there ;-) Thanks Bauana.

We have 5 of us, Roz, Tyler, Luke (Luke’s friend) and me, so 3 Quads please. Roz and I are on one, Luke and his friend and Tyler out solo.

All driver get a chance to get to know the bikes and we buzzed around their track a few times before loading up our passengers and heading out. We let the buggies go first and we follow in suite. (Oh yes, the buggies looked really cool fun too… Next time I’m giving them a whirl)

We head out through some back roads and off into some really hilly areas. It’s definitely off road, no cars here. We drop down into canyons and blast up the other side of the banks, it’s a scream (well that’s what Roz was doing ;-)

In fact, I have no idea how she is staying on as she is clicking away on the camera, some of the shots are just stunning, how does she do it, I have no idea.

I have to say, after racing motor-cross for 15 years, this is still really fun for an adrenalin junking like me. I’d never actually taken a 4 wheeler out before so it was a little weird getting my weight in the right place to slide it through corners and stuff, but after a while it’s all starting to fall into place.

Tyler, a veteran on Quads is going off, 2 wheels through corners and blasting up and down through the mud and dirt. Oh that reminds me, a definite MUST for Quading are glasses or if you’re super well prepared, bring goggles, that way you don’t get a bunch of dust in your eyes. And that reminds me, you must have closed shoes and a good idea would be some water.

We stop a few times along the way to take in the scenery, interact with the locals and after an hour or so we get to the half way mark. Here you can order drinks and the team buzz off to the local shop to grab what you want. Another reminder to bring a little extra cash for that of course.

After having a little fun a games, Tyler finding a tree to climb and Luke and his mate having a coconut race, we head back out and off towards the club house. The guys in the buggies seem to be have a ball too, one of them spinning our through the real loose rocky corner (amateur). We get back after about 2 hours to some lunch and drinks, all part of the package. It’s late afternoon by now and it’s getting a little chili. Mmm, that’s a good tip, take either a vest under your shirt (don’t wear white unless you don’t mind mud stains) or a thin light style tracksuit top. If you really don’t like the cold then bring the bottoms too..

Great photos, very friendly staff, good food, nice facilities, well organized and heaps of fun for someone who is a motor head. Don’t get me wrong, no matter if you’ve ever ridden or not, you can get on to this thing and steer it around. They are all automatic, simple and relatively safe.

Check out our facebook page to see some of the other great adventures we are getting up to.

I give it:

Off the richter scale: 6 (as an indication to thrill seekers)
Value for money: 7 ($88 for a solo on a bike and $128 for a double)
Scenery: 7
Cultural: 5 (We went through a few villages
Family: 8 (Absolutely, especially if you do the buggies too)

Hi there all adventure seekers

My name is John and this is my wife Roz, no not the furry one, the other one...

We have recently relocated to Bali to seek opportunities to change our lifestyle and find fun and interesting places to play in. Yes that's us below, a little taken by our new friend we met in Ubud, wish we could adopt...

We have joined up with Roger Hamilton and Penny Wee who were already living in Bali (well technically Penny had come over from Singapore a few weeks earlier too).

So we are here now and what we found was a massive discrepancy between what was said to be offered and what actually is being delivered from the accommodation providers to the adventure companies and we’ve really struggled to find a level of integrity in many industries. It's not however because they are trying to be dishonest in many cases, it's because the locals have a need to please so in order to get short-term satisfaction for their customers they stretch the truth a little, and in some cases a lot.

So in order to FIX this, we are, "in the name of research", going on a mission to find the best adventure operators and resorts so that we can update others like you visiting Bali on what rocks and what sucks so to speak.

We’ll be blogging about them over the next months so you can have a trusted reference to what the real deal is.

We are also creating a Bali Map that will show all the best operators and with a clear understanding of time and distance to get there from various places… Oh yes, that is another major issue, how much time they say it takes to get to their facilities and the actual, lots of that kinda thing going on.

Oh, and before I forget, we’ll be taking photos that are actually representative of the facilities and activities as some of what we have seen vs what it actually looks like, quite normal to find 10 year old photos, and sure the facilities looked like that at one time however when you are looking for a place to stay and you think this looks really beautiful only to find when you get there it's dilapidated and run-down.


Keep track with all those photos and our activities on our facebook page