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glenatronWe're starting this week riding on a clinic with Kathleen Lindley. Because this was happening really close to home I figured we could just ride over there. About three hours, I thought, I can probably get by with just the GPS mapping stuff I thought.
In fairness, the GPS was full of Ordnance Survey mapping data, so it wasn't too impractical to use it instead of a map, which would be a lot bigger and I didn't really have an easy way to carry. I really should have thought of water, though, that's actually quite obvious.
So we set out from the back of the farm. Actually we started through one gate, then found another gate we couldn't open because it was closed with a stuck shackle, then realised the cows were in the next field with an open gate and coming over to lick us and annoy Iris. I dashed over to close that gate, got there just in time and then went back and unlocked the other gate. At this point I found that even without being shackled the catch on the gate simply didn't work, so there was no way to empty it.
I set off to go around the long way to the back field and passed the farmer who owns the cows. He was probably nonplussed to find his cattle shut away in the back field, but to be honest I blame whoever is responsible for maintaining the gates. As it was I figured they would let the cows out again so we meandered through the alternate route to the back field ( past Cash and the Mule, who called to us a lot, and finally made it to the back gate.
All this before leaving the farm.
Once we were through all the closed gates I was able to hop on and our adventure began...
Riding up beside the dual carriageway. We then went through a tunnel under this road. Iris was not sure about the noise of it.
We found the first track I was looking for and set off on the bridleway. It passed some fairly nice houses.
From the Temple Of The Four Winds on Gibbet hill. Quite disappointing to reach this point from where I was because I could have got there way more easily on a slightly different route.
Still a beautiful location.
We made our way down the hill and ran into the main problems that we encountered repeatedly on our expedition. Firstly some tracks were very badly marked, so it really wasn't clear which ones were bridleways and secondly many of them were also blocked by fallen trees. We would make our way down a track leading to exactly where we wanted to go only to find trees, uncleared since the storms in December, totally blocking our way and have to go back and find another route. Luckily the GPS mapping was pretty good for finding us, so it wasn't too hard but there were false starts and a couple of times we had to leave the track and at one point I was leading her straight through the woods with her having to step very high over tangles of fallen branches to avoid tree trunks.
We passed through the village of Grayswood, where Iris made small children and an older lady happy by being a beautiful dapply grey horse who stopped to say hello and be a little bit confused by cricket. Then we made our way on to find a track through some Forestry Commission land that would take us across the next part of our route.
We wound into the woods ( after a slight diversion ) and then followed narrow muddy tracks through the forest and over small wooden bridges of which Iris strongly disapproved. After a long brambly stretch the trail opened out:
At this point it would have been nice to stretch out somewhat but because I knew we had a few miles to do, I kept things steady.
Unfortunately the track didn't come out quite where I expected ( another poorly signed tracks moment ) so I found myself coming out on a different road to where I expected and not entirely clear how to get back on track. It was at this point that the GPS batteries went flat.
I followed the road I had found myself on up to the main road nearby, then having looked both ways, decided I was probably further east than I needed to be and turned right. The road was quite major so we trotted to get out of the way of traffic faster. After a few hundred yards it became quite enclosed and I realised we were coming up to the Lythe Hill Hotel and Spa, way further west than I expected. With the road busy and narrow I cut straight through the hotel and out onto a track behind it that seemed to be going roughly in the right direction.
After a couple of false starts we found a bridleway and I decided to turn right on it, thinking that would take us towards Blackdown and the last major section of our journey.
In fact, I was once again going completely the wrong way, but this time we were onto a winner because just the other side of a little valley we found a small yard whose owners were at home ( everywhere seemed strangely dead on Saturday ) and as it was a very warm day I asked them if I could steal a bucket of water for my horse and they ended up giving me some water too, which I was really appreciating as I had neglected to bring any and we had been going for a good four hours by this point.
They also told me that to get to Blackdown I would need to go back the way I had come through the valley and then in the opposite direction on that bridleway. I was genuinely grateful for this.
We found our way out onto the road and then up onto the down in the late afternoon sunshine. It had been a very long day and Iris was very tired. When we reached the car park I got off and lead ( I had done a lot of leading previously too when tracks got too narrow or tricky and when we hit awkward gates and bridges ) and we walked together up the track onto the heath. The view from the top was pretty great, though:
Iris was really starting to drag by now and I ended up switching over to her halter, which I had carried on the saddle the whole way. We stopped for a bite of grass a couple of times but I really felt that our objective was in sight and I was tired and keen to get there too, so I pushed us on.
After a while I figured we must be in nearly the right place and we set off down a track that started out looking like a bridleway but then got narrower and narrower until we were pushing through bracken and brambles in single file. Just after its narrowest squeeze we reached another path and I turned downhill. This lead us down for a long time before we hit a road. At that point I called my friend who is hosting the clinic and she told me what to look out for and after I described what I was seeing, that I was going the wrong way and should turn back. We went back to the point where we had joined the road and about five metres further along there was another track down the hill, that matched my friend's description perfectly - we were nearly there.
Of course, Iris had no idea about any of this, but she steadfastly - if slowly - ambled along behind me.
This was around the point I realised I actually knew the track we were on. The last mile or so was hard going but at least I felt confident in our direction and eventually we arrived at my friend's yard.
We had gone about fifteen miles and it took us six hours. For us, that was a long trip. I realise that a bunch of you have done endurance and laugh in the face of such miniscule distances but it certainly seemed like hard work to us, particularly the demoralising process of finding blocked trails, trying other trails and finding those blocked too.
It was the first time I think I have really used riding as a way to get between two places, rather than going out for circular trail rides where home was never that far away, and it certainly felt different.
I was very proud of my beautiful, brilliant mare, who did a sterling job from start to finish.
The expedition also had a really unfortunate side effect which I will probably talk about later.
In fairness, the GPS was full of Ordnance Survey mapping data, so it wasn't too impractical to use it instead of a map, which would be a lot bigger and I didn't really have an easy way to carry. I really should have thought of water, though, that's actually quite obvious.
So we set out from the back of the farm. Actually we started through one gate, then found another gate we couldn't open because it was closed with a stuck shackle, then realised the cows were in the next field with an open gate and coming over to lick us and annoy Iris. I dashed over to close that gate, got there just in time and then went back and unlocked the other gate. At this point I found that even without being shackled the catch on the gate simply didn't work, so there was no way to empty it.
I set off to go around the long way to the back field and passed the farmer who owns the cows. He was probably nonplussed to find his cattle shut away in the back field, but to be honest I blame whoever is responsible for maintaining the gates. As it was I figured they would let the cows out again so we meandered through the alternate route to the back field ( past Cash and the Mule, who called to us a lot, and finally made it to the back gate.
All this before leaving the farm.
Once we were through all the closed gates I was able to hop on and our adventure began...
Riding up beside the dual carriageway. We then went through a tunnel under this road. Iris was not sure about the noise of it.
We found the first track I was looking for and set off on the bridleway. It passed some fairly nice houses.
From the Temple Of The Four Winds on Gibbet hill. Quite disappointing to reach this point from where I was because I could have got there way more easily on a slightly different route.
Still a beautiful location.
We made our way down the hill and ran into the main problems that we encountered repeatedly on our expedition. Firstly some tracks were very badly marked, so it really wasn't clear which ones were bridleways and secondly many of them were also blocked by fallen trees. We would make our way down a track leading to exactly where we wanted to go only to find trees, uncleared since the storms in December, totally blocking our way and have to go back and find another route. Luckily the GPS mapping was pretty good for finding us, so it wasn't too hard but there were false starts and a couple of times we had to leave the track and at one point I was leading her straight through the woods with her having to step very high over tangles of fallen branches to avoid tree trunks.
We passed through the village of Grayswood, where Iris made small children and an older lady happy by being a beautiful dapply grey horse who stopped to say hello and be a little bit confused by cricket. Then we made our way on to find a track through some Forestry Commission land that would take us across the next part of our route.
We wound into the woods ( after a slight diversion ) and then followed narrow muddy tracks through the forest and over small wooden bridges of which Iris strongly disapproved. After a long brambly stretch the trail opened out:
At this point it would have been nice to stretch out somewhat but because I knew we had a few miles to do, I kept things steady.
Unfortunately the track didn't come out quite where I expected ( another poorly signed tracks moment ) so I found myself coming out on a different road to where I expected and not entirely clear how to get back on track. It was at this point that the GPS batteries went flat.
I followed the road I had found myself on up to the main road nearby, then having looked both ways, decided I was probably further east than I needed to be and turned right. The road was quite major so we trotted to get out of the way of traffic faster. After a few hundred yards it became quite enclosed and I realised we were coming up to the Lythe Hill Hotel and Spa, way further west than I expected. With the road busy and narrow I cut straight through the hotel and out onto a track behind it that seemed to be going roughly in the right direction.
After a couple of false starts we found a bridleway and I decided to turn right on it, thinking that would take us towards Blackdown and the last major section of our journey.
In fact, I was once again going completely the wrong way, but this time we were onto a winner because just the other side of a little valley we found a small yard whose owners were at home ( everywhere seemed strangely dead on Saturday ) and as it was a very warm day I asked them if I could steal a bucket of water for my horse and they ended up giving me some water too, which I was really appreciating as I had neglected to bring any and we had been going for a good four hours by this point.
They also told me that to get to Blackdown I would need to go back the way I had come through the valley and then in the opposite direction on that bridleway. I was genuinely grateful for this.
We found our way out onto the road and then up onto the down in the late afternoon sunshine. It had been a very long day and Iris was very tired. When we reached the car park I got off and lead ( I had done a lot of leading previously too when tracks got too narrow or tricky and when we hit awkward gates and bridges ) and we walked together up the track onto the heath. The view from the top was pretty great, though:
Iris was really starting to drag by now and I ended up switching over to her halter, which I had carried on the saddle the whole way. We stopped for a bite of grass a couple of times but I really felt that our objective was in sight and I was tired and keen to get there too, so I pushed us on.
After a while I figured we must be in nearly the right place and we set off down a track that started out looking like a bridleway but then got narrower and narrower until we were pushing through bracken and brambles in single file. Just after its narrowest squeeze we reached another path and I turned downhill. This lead us down for a long time before we hit a road. At that point I called my friend who is hosting the clinic and she told me what to look out for and after I described what I was seeing, that I was going the wrong way and should turn back. We went back to the point where we had joined the road and about five metres further along there was another track down the hill, that matched my friend's description perfectly - we were nearly there.
Of course, Iris had no idea about any of this, but she steadfastly - if slowly - ambled along behind me.
This was around the point I realised I actually knew the track we were on. The last mile or so was hard going but at least I felt confident in our direction and eventually we arrived at my friend's yard.
We had gone about fifteen miles and it took us six hours. For us, that was a long trip. I realise that a bunch of you have done endurance and laugh in the face of such miniscule distances but it certainly seemed like hard work to us, particularly the demoralising process of finding blocked trails, trying other trails and finding those blocked too.
It was the first time I think I have really used riding as a way to get between two places, rather than going out for circular trail rides where home was never that far away, and it certainly felt different.
I was very proud of my beautiful, brilliant mare, who did a sterling job from start to finish.
The expedition also had a really unfortunate side effect which I will probably talk about later.
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no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2014 07:28 (UTC)I hope you and Iris were none the worse for the adventure.
no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2014 20:38 (UTC)I'm still really proud of her for what she did though and for staying with me.
no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2014 14:03 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2014 20:45 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2014 22:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2014 17:31 (UTC)Congrats on making it and looking forward to hearing how the clinic went.
no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2014 20:46 (UTC)your expedition
Date: 30 Jul 2014 18:14 (UTC)Re: your expedition
Date: 30 Jul 2014 20:37 (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 Aug 2014 12:36 (UTC)Glad you got there safe & sound, and that there were people to water you and the horse. Also, really beautiful scenery there.
no subject
Date: 5 Aug 2014 21:16 (UTC)That latter one starts to look very slightly like a pattern...
no subject
Date: 5 Aug 2014 16:25 (UTC)Glad it all paid off and you got to where you wanted.
no subject
Date: 5 Aug 2014 21:34 (UTC)I guess the other part of it is that it really showed what a reliable trail horse Iris is. She was a total star.