Post by fimacg on May 25, 2009 8:35:18 GMT
There seems to be trend of good rides over the weekend as I too had a brilliant day yesterday riding out in the sunshine.
H and I decided to hack the boys up to Blairadam Forest and ride up there, we must have covered about 10-15 miles in all as it is nearly an hour's ride just to get to the forest but all quiet single track lanes and we only met 2 cars on the way and about 4 on the way home.
The whole hack was fab the ride up in the sunshine, you have to climb up a REALLY steep hill (the road switches back on itself 3 times its that steep) but the views from the top were amazing you could see for miles and miles. Brave spooked at every pile on sand at the side of the road (left there for the winter) but did not bat an eyelid at the rements of a bright red metalic helium balloon and yellow string caught on the fence... daft horse
Then past a herd of semi feral ponies who live on the hill are unhandled but fed during winter. Before turning onto a track and into the forest, there were 2 gates to negotiate but someone had kindly put proper mounting blocks either side of the gates so dead easy to jump off and get back on again.
The forest tracks from that point were sandy and just wide enough for 2 horses to ride abreast, as neither of us had been up in this bit of the forest before we both started out a little cautious and just walked and trotted until the track opend up a bit and we had the 1st canter... straight into a huge puddle, Chompy at the front did an emergency stop in the middle of it and had an expression of pure surprise on his face as if to say hey whats this
. Brave on the other hand decided to have fun and splash, he didn't feel like he was going to go down and roll it was more like "Mum see what I can do" as he struck the water four times with each foreleg before deciding that he better listen to me and keep walking.
We decided at each T junction to turn left (otherwise we went straight on) and rode along perfect hacking tracks for about an hour at all paces from dawdle to gallop and we did not see a single person before accidently arriving back at our start point we had no idea where we were going but knew we would come out somewhere.
By the time we reached the big puddles again both horses just happily trotted through them I think they enjoyed cooling off a bit.
We were out of nearly 4 hours in total and the only downside to the whole ride was that I had made a poor underwear choice and by the time I got home there was a bit of caffing going on from the seams on my knickers
H and I decided to hack the boys up to Blairadam Forest and ride up there, we must have covered about 10-15 miles in all as it is nearly an hour's ride just to get to the forest but all quiet single track lanes and we only met 2 cars on the way and about 4 on the way home.
The whole hack was fab the ride up in the sunshine, you have to climb up a REALLY steep hill (the road switches back on itself 3 times its that steep) but the views from the top were amazing you could see for miles and miles. Brave spooked at every pile on sand at the side of the road (left there for the winter) but did not bat an eyelid at the rements of a bright red metalic helium balloon and yellow string caught on the fence... daft horse
Then past a herd of semi feral ponies who live on the hill are unhandled but fed during winter. Before turning onto a track and into the forest, there were 2 gates to negotiate but someone had kindly put proper mounting blocks either side of the gates so dead easy to jump off and get back on again.
The forest tracks from that point were sandy and just wide enough for 2 horses to ride abreast, as neither of us had been up in this bit of the forest before we both started out a little cautious and just walked and trotted until the track opend up a bit and we had the 1st canter... straight into a huge puddle, Chompy at the front did an emergency stop in the middle of it and had an expression of pure surprise on his face as if to say hey whats this
. Brave on the other hand decided to have fun and splash, he didn't feel like he was going to go down and roll it was more like "Mum see what I can do" as he struck the water four times with each foreleg before deciding that he better listen to me and keep walking. We decided at each T junction to turn left (otherwise we went straight on) and rode along perfect hacking tracks for about an hour at all paces from dawdle to gallop and we did not see a single person before accidently arriving back at our start point we had no idea where we were going but knew we would come out somewhere.
By the time we reached the big puddles again both horses just happily trotted through them I think they enjoyed cooling off a bit.
We were out of nearly 4 hours in total and the only downside to the whole ride was that I had made a poor underwear choice and by the time I got home there was a bit of caffing going on from the seams on my knickers
Sounds like you had tonnes of fun though!
for so much hard work we thank ye!!
