Adventure Clydesdale (click link)
No ordinary riding school trek. It is called Adventure for a reason. Okay, at times we followed the leader and there were times we did a bit of roadwork, but mainly it was 2 hours across the Moor, we crossed a river (my horse decided to stop half way for a drink, fair enough he was thirsty, but the river was flowing quite fast and I couldn't see where he would take his next step, totally had to rely on my horse Ecco knowing what he was doing. That comes a little difficult for someone that likes control of their horse, lol)....Onto the moor we negotiated Rocks, lots of rocks, small rocks, big rocks, through heather and overgrown areas and between rocks that you would have difficult walking on foot! Then, up Yar Tor, around 1600 ft above sea level with a 360degree view. It was stunning, and then down the other side, over rocks, only rocks. You get the drift, there were a lot of rocks.
Enough of my rambling, here are some pictures. Daughter took most of the photos of me and the pictures of Lil were taken by the organiser of the trek.
Daughter took the top left photo of me waving to her. One of the short areas where we were actually on a road...
Here's daughter on her horse Faro. Everyone (except me) stood on this ridge for a photo opportunity.
I opted out, having just ridden down a 1-in-4 gradient of rocks to get to that spot,
I thought it was a step too far for the sake of a picture!!!!!
As it turned out, daughter said it looks like the ground drops away, but
in fact it extended out much gentler and safer than it looked.
there I am on the right, waiting my turn to negotiate this. It looks so straight forward, but believe me it wasn't!
The horse was 17hh
(for those who don't know about hh it's hands high
and one hand is basically 4 inches, I'll leave you with the maths).
The tricky part was sitting for 2 hours doing the SPLITS!
YES, it was a stretch believe me.
Doesn't do it justice in the photo, but two days later my legs are still trying to recover.
In the above photo it looks as though my near-side stirrup is shorter,
whereas in actual fact it was slightly longer, purposely so that I could relieve pressure on my knee, which had been aching somewhat)....
WORTH IT THOUGH
and
YES I WOULD DO THIS RIDE AGAIN
footnote......The views were stunning beyond belief, as no doubt you can see. And Yes, I wished I had my sketchbook with me, and YES I would have sat on the horse and sketched at the same time :)
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