Please let me count this as an extreme sport lol.
On Sunday I boxed Raf and we went off on our own to ride the North Yorkshire moors, one to tick off my bucket list. It was a Ride Yorkshire route, so I had instructions, plus my OS map, glorious weather and all day to kill ... luckily ... The route was marked as ‘hard’ but I imagined this would be because of the climbs and the isolation. Naively I imagined that the ‘moorland tracks’ would be peaty paths through the heather, which is why I chose to go during a spell of dry weather. However most of the tracks were 4 wheel drive type tracks - I can only describe them as loose stone/rock on top of hard stone/rock. This meant that almost the whole 17.5 miles was walking (including a fair bit of me walking where the going was really bad or to give Raf a break). We were out nearly 7 hours and at times I wished I’d never set out on the sodding hack, although for many more times I was blissfully happy to be enjoying the stunning scenery, just me and my horse. In the whole time we saw two joggers and a cyclist.
I hope I can upload this short clip of us approaching the highest point in the moor ...
This was one of the nicer paths:
The view from the highest point on the North Yorks Moors (Round Hill on Urra Moor)
The path down into Tripsdale where I was promised a stream at the bottom - the path was particularly bad here, very loose rocks and slippy so I walked and led Raf all the way down and back up again. I was beyond disappointed at the bottom that the stream was crossed by a bridge and the banks were too steep and overgrown for me to get Raf near for a drink. On the way back up I was really regretting my decision to come on this ride, and I had a lot more sympathy for Raf having to do all this walking and carry me. Thankfully when we got to the top we both recovered and the track got a lot better.
Looking over the edge down into Tripsdale
Then, as time was getting on I decided to take a short cut down a bridlepath that it said to avoid on the instructions (I assumed because they wanted to extend the ride by a couple of miles, but no, they really meant avoid it) It turned from a definite track to a very narrow track, to no track at all at which point I had to get off and lead because I didn't know whether we'd step off the edge of a cliff, into a bog or onto a huge boulder! You can see the sun is starting to get a bit low here. We're aiming for the ruined Stork House half way down the hill. We had a pit stop here and then the track led down to a stream where Raf could finally have a drink.
After that it was plain sailing, up through some farmland and back over a short stretch of the moor to the wagon - I was really pleased to see the little red box in the distance. Raf seems absolutely fine, thankfully. We had lots of pit stops for him to graze and I gave him a feed of sloppy grass nuts before and after the ride.
I'm glad I did the ride, I thought it would be a challenge and it was. I feel I've got it out of my system for some time to come, much to the relief of OH who was less than happy at my absence until nearly 11 pm (It was a 2 hour drive as well!) Just trying to catch up on my life after skiving for one whole day now
On Sunday I boxed Raf and we went off on our own to ride the North Yorkshire moors, one to tick off my bucket list. It was a Ride Yorkshire route, so I had instructions, plus my OS map, glorious weather and all day to kill ... luckily ... The route was marked as ‘hard’ but I imagined this would be because of the climbs and the isolation. Naively I imagined that the ‘moorland tracks’ would be peaty paths through the heather, which is why I chose to go during a spell of dry weather. However most of the tracks were 4 wheel drive type tracks - I can only describe them as loose stone/rock on top of hard stone/rock. This meant that almost the whole 17.5 miles was walking (including a fair bit of me walking where the going was really bad or to give Raf a break). We were out nearly 7 hours and at times I wished I’d never set out on the sodding hack, although for many more times I was blissfully happy to be enjoying the stunning scenery, just me and my horse. In the whole time we saw two joggers and a cyclist.
I hope I can upload this short clip of us approaching the highest point in the moor ...
This was one of the nicer paths:
The view from the highest point on the North Yorks Moors (Round Hill on Urra Moor)
The path down into Tripsdale where I was promised a stream at the bottom - the path was particularly bad here, very loose rocks and slippy so I walked and led Raf all the way down and back up again. I was beyond disappointed at the bottom that the stream was crossed by a bridge and the banks were too steep and overgrown for me to get Raf near for a drink. On the way back up I was really regretting my decision to come on this ride, and I had a lot more sympathy for Raf having to do all this walking and carry me. Thankfully when we got to the top we both recovered and the track got a lot better.
Looking over the edge down into Tripsdale
Then, as time was getting on I decided to take a short cut down a bridlepath that it said to avoid on the instructions (I assumed because they wanted to extend the ride by a couple of miles, but no, they really meant avoid it) It turned from a definite track to a very narrow track, to no track at all at which point I had to get off and lead because I didn't know whether we'd step off the edge of a cliff, into a bog or onto a huge boulder! You can see the sun is starting to get a bit low here. We're aiming for the ruined Stork House half way down the hill. We had a pit stop here and then the track led down to a stream where Raf could finally have a drink.
After that it was plain sailing, up through some farmland and back over a short stretch of the moor to the wagon - I was really pleased to see the little red box in the distance. Raf seems absolutely fine, thankfully. We had lots of pit stops for him to graze and I gave him a feed of sloppy grass nuts before and after the ride.
I'm glad I did the ride, I thought it would be a challenge and it was. I feel I've got it out of my system for some time to come, much to the relief of OH who was less than happy at my absence until nearly 11 pm (It was a 2 hour drive as well!) Just trying to catch up on my life after skiving for one whole day now
