River Valley Lodge

Beautiful Lodge! One of the prettiest and most peaceful places we have seen yet!

Thank you
Robynn Nierop & Erik Edgar, Unionville, Ontario, Canada

To this day, nearly 10 years after my visit to you all, I cannot get this amazing place out of my head. I loved my time in NZ very much, but it is the River Valley that I reflect upon when I think back.

I am very happy that you are still there.

Do you still have that amazing roast dinner?

All the best!
Dean Pollock, Canada

One thing we really noticed though, was how friendly all the staff were, and how they put us at ease both horse trekking and rafting. In fact the guides were massive. All the staff seemed to be so close.

Paula and I decided to come to River Valley because I wanted to do the white water rafting, and Paula wanted to do the horse-trekking, so we were looking for a place that we could both do what we wanted to on a Weekend Getaway.

So looking on the internet we found River Valley, it had what we wanted, and was not too far from Hastings.

Originally there were going to be four of us, two could not come, however we will be going home and bringing them back with us next time.

We arrived in the afternoon, and that evening we went on a Sundowner Horse Ride. I've got to say that we found it a bit challenging. For some reason we thought we would be riding over flat paddocks, not up and down hills! However we were on great horses and the whole experience was just fine.

The next morning we went Grade 5 white water rafting which was a heap of fun. Tom our guide tipped us over in some flat water so we would know what it was like, luckily though we stayed upright through the rapids.

The jump off the big rock at the end was something that we never thought we could do, in fact if anybody had said we would be doing that earlier, we would have said - No Way!

Our accommodation was in one of the comfy Garden rooms with our own showers and toilet. When you get to a certain age, you just don't want to do the backpacker thing anymore.

One thing we really noticed though, was how friendly all the staff were, and how they put us at ease both horse trekking and rafting. In fact the guides were massive. All the staff seemed to be so close.

The food was really good too.

In fact it was just so good to get out of the city, into some fresh air, and to have no cell phone reception is a bonus.

When we recommend River Valley to our friends, we are going to tell them to go both rafting and horse trekking, it makes such a brilliant weekend, and is just such a good package. We simply rang up, an itinerary was emailed to us and we just went from there.

We just had such a grand time here.

Paula Parrant, Tracy Armitage
Hastings, NZ