I hope she's still loving fitting it in when she can . I can't even imagine attempting to train a horse, hats off to Mrs V!!
I find horses absolutely beautiful and admire their power and the skill of accomplished trainers and riders, but there's something iffy about a mode of transport with a mind of it's own .
I got into horse riding because of an ex girlfriend and found it was one of the few things I actually seemed to have some aptitude for. Carried on riding and having lessons and really liked it, found it a huge stress reliever. I ended up on a horse safari in Africa tracking wild rhino, one of the most exciting things I have ever done. Haven't ridden now for about 15 years.
That safari must have been fantasic - I did safari in Tanzania, but all in landrovers. That was great too, but on horseback has got to be something else!
It was fantastic. Normally there were about 6 riders and the 2 rangers in the group, but for the last 2 days it was just me and the 2 rangers so we took more chances and saw more wildlife. If I remember right about 1 in 10 rhino encounters end up with a charge. I asked what to do if that happened and got the obvious answer, just hang on, the horse will get away but won't care if you are still on it. Saying that, a horse was killed 2 weeks before my trip but that is very rare. It's incredible how large an animal can still be so hard to spot until you are quite close, but I got my eye in eventually. We got heart stoppingly close to a mother and calf, also galloped inside a herd of zebra and wildebeest, so close I could have touched them if I wasn't so intent on staying on the horse.
After nearly three weeks of bike repair and maintenance, I got to enjoy the countryside Last chance before weather gets melty...
Once again yesterday actually; but if I'm to spend any time with Mrs Revpaul (who did encourage me to return to motorbiking) then I need to spend some time with her first. So out again with friend Paul and his bobber while Mrs Revpaul was at work. Using the fun setting on his Beeline we head off east towards Chester, pick up the ring road West towards Wales, peel off South West towards Wrexham and then head West into the hills to pick up a single track road across the Welsh hills that he and some other friends had found last month. At the top we had to stop for photos, and to bring down the heart rate after encountering several suicidal (or just thick) sheep. No the abandoned MacDonald's cup is not ours, didn't even notice it because of the beauty of our surroundings. The track then ran down a lovely gorge (we couldn't stop for photographs) into some woods before crossing a ford (it'll be dry Paul said, it wasn't.) Having ridden carefully and successfully through, I decided to roll the bike back to the dry bit in the middle for a photo. That's when I nearly lost the bike, the wet bits were as slick as ice, I was stuck holding the bike up with both feet on the floor and unable to lift a foot to put the bike in gear without either me or the bike sliding. I eventually worked out that I could gently push backwards with my feet and roll onto the dry concrete and get the shot. Then some more single track roads until we picked up the A5 and stopped at the Tollgate Cafe, a great little find, friendly welcome, good food and (I think) run by bikers. The views were great and the Big Boss even drew a halo in the sky for us. After "The Big Breakfast" for lunch, it was back on the bikes up the A5 to Betws-y-Coed then some more twisty roads North West across Wales to pick up the Chester ring road and home again. I'm sorry about the vagueness of directions and roads but Paul had the Beeline and I just followed. All I know for sure is the beauty of the day, the relatively empty roads:, the name of the café and that we left at 9:30am and I got home about 4:30pm after a great day's ride. I'm glad I got my bike.
What a perfect day @RevPaul (I was going to say apart from almost losing the bike....but you didn't, so I think that qualifies as a big win too!).
