Lovely day

Yesterday was the coolest day of the week, so we decided to go for a day ride. Ali's friend Aurelie came with us on her little TB, Solium. The first canter truned into a flat out gallop as Seraphina decided she didn't want to be overtaken by him!

Subsequent canters were enlivened by her throwing her hind legs at him to ensure he didn't go past her again......

We stopped by a local lake for a spot of lunch, then rode back. Map of the route here. It had warmed up a bit by the time we got back so the girls stripped off and went in the river again. Seraphina went for a swim.......and so did Aurelie when Solium decided to exit the water in a hurry......!

Seraphina sure does like the wet stuff.... :-)

Beaumont Bivouac day 2

Day 2
I wake early in my comfy bed at Jo’s, grab some breakfast and we load Socianda to get to the stables nice and early as we want to get going in good time. Needless to say, the French are all faffing again. Our 3 horses are soon all tacked up and ready to go and we stand around waiting for the others.....

They finally get going at 9.15. We are apparently doing 42 km today, and will be back at Beaumont by 5.30. No way is this happening at this rate, I think. We set off along the road to Limeuil, where the two rivers, the Dordogne and the Vézère, meet. We troop along the bridge admiring the view.

We troop through the town and get photographed by the tourists. Then we head up into the hills.

Normally this would not be a problem, we have hills round us too. But the ground here is all really stony and Gandalf and Seraphina struggle with this and try to walk up the grassy sides of the track shoving Ali and I into trees and gorse bushes as they go. The arabs have all gone ahead tripping along like mountain goats but we lag behind as we don’t want to push our two.

We get to the top and go into some woods. Down another very stony track. Then the call comes from the front “Demi-tour!”, we’ve gone the wrong way, we all turn around and I find myself at the front of the column for once and Gandalf is not obliged to trot every two minutes to catch up. We like this.

 Down another track in the woods, another wrong move and another demi tour. We start to get annoyed, I get my map out and for the first time consider striking out on our own.

Eventually they find the right path and we go down the hill. And straight back up another very stony track, this time in full sun which is starting to heat things up a bit. I start wondering why we haven’t had a water stop for the horses, I expect G & S are wondering the same thing! A difficult (and for us, slow) climb to the top reveals a stunning view across the Dordogne valley but also leaves Gandalf breathing heavily.

I go marching up to Luc and ask how much more of this there is as our two shod hooves out of eight can’t deal with the stones. He agrees that the terrain isn’t great and we veer away from the intended trail and take the road.

I look at the map and see the lunch stop is still a few km away. We trudge on all the way back down the hill, past a nice looking restaurant with happy people emerging from air conditioned cars in the car park looking forward to a gourmet lunch. I take out our emergency cake bars and grimly ask myself why I’m doing this again......

Eventually we arrive at Mauzac, a very pretty little place by the river. We’ve been on the trail for nearly 5 hours thanks to the wrong turns in the woods and the horses have had enough. We unsaddle and water them and even cadge some hard feed from Isabelle’s lot as they need the energy. I hear Luc telling Stewart he can get some footage of them cantering on the next stretch by the canal to Lalinde and take my map over and get him to mark the route back on it as no way will ours be up to doing that. We eat lunch, watch a couple of the other horses try to kick each other, they obviously haven’t run out of energy, then saddle up and head out on our own, just me & Ali. We ride down the right of the canal, where the trees are for shade.

A little while later, after presumably a load more faffing, the others come charging past on the other side of the canal in the sun. We wave, and amble on.

They all come to a sudden stop as Luc’s horse has a massive spook at some water sprinklers and he has to get off and lead it past! We continue to follow them as they walk down the other side of the canal, then they cross to our side and canter off and we lose them round a bend in the track.

We amble on towards Lalinde, the horses manage a little trot but we don’t do much as they are so tired. We arrive in Lalinde and see a lorry across the river which looks familiar. It’s Isabelle come to give us a lift back!

We cross the bridge, unsaddle the horses and Gandalf, who knows a lift home when he sees one,  goes straight up the ramp (of the same lorry he didn’t want to go in at the Label Loisir) like he’d been doing it all his life.....

Seraphina, however, had other ideas.....

It’s quite a steep ramp and she didn’t want to go up it. Gandalf called her from inside, she refused to put a foot on the ramp. I tried all the usual tricks, backing up, putting pressure on with the headcollar, nothing. Isabelle found a lunge line to put round her back end, she pulled back against it. By this time, we’d attracted quite an audience of tourists to watch the pretty pony being uncooperative. The temperature was in the mid 30s and I am seriously considering tying her to a tree and leaving her there when I try one last trick of lifting her front feet up on to the ramp. She seems to realise that she won’t win this argument and stops pulling and simply steps up the ramp. We all wish she’d had this revelation half an hour ago........

We pile into the lorry, along with Isabelle’s lovely 3 legged Collie, and take the easy way back to the stables. I check out my iPhone app and we’ve still done 30 of the 42km planned for that day. Not a bad effort for a couple of unfit cobs......

But I prefer my own rides, which involve more water stops for the horses, beer stops for the riders and a whole lot less faffing......!

A very long ride......day one

When Tess said it’d be great to ride the horses from her place to the gite étape at Naulet for a weekend camping and doing a night ride, I thought it’d be great too. She reckoned it’d be about 25km from her place.......wrong!! On Friday it took us 12 hours to get there and we covered about 45km, due to some detours caused by marked chemins no longer existing or having been fenced off. We had a laugh though, riding first through the mist at 7am when we set off and later in the sunshine.

I was on Gandalf of course, Tess on Organza, Aliénor rode Seraphina and Caitlin rode Maverick who provided a lot of the entertainment living up to his name. My friend Anna (who will be joining us here when she has internet access via something bigger than a Blackberry, she assures me) rode Chester and Hollie was on little Coquinette.

Coquinette, being an opinionated little pony, needed to be on a lead rein. She didn’t think much of this and neither did Gandalf who pinned his ears back if she tried to get in front of him, which she did approximately every 10 seconds......Organza and Seraphina did the mare thing of objecting to being anywhere near each other, Maverick spooked at everything from birds to drain covers and Chester spent the entire trip trying to eat anything that came vaguely within reach of his incredibly flexible neck.

By lunchtime, the mist had burned off and it was starting to heat up. We stopped at a tiny hamlet north of Sauveterre where we found a stream and field full of shady trees. As soon as we got off, a vieille Madame came rushing over to ask us if we were intending to set up camp on her land! When we assured her we would only be there for an hour or so if she didn’t mind, she relented and even told us not to venture into the maize field next door which was full of animal traps.......

Mike showed up with a car rammed full of camping kit with a small SNO shaped hole in it and provided lunch whilst complaining bitterly about how much mess the horses’ haynets had made. Predictably, the wretched animals ignored them and stuffed their faces with grass instead, before dozing off.

By this time, Hollie had had enough of being jiggled about on Coquinette, who had been renamed Trottinette, having had to jog most of the way to keep up with the others, so Tanya was summoned to take her away from it all.

On we went, avoiding the cycle track which would have been a very convenient route for the next chunk of the trip, as Mike had already reconnoitred it and said it was like the Tour de France on there as everyone was having an extra day off after Bastille Day. Attempting to avoid a main road, we ventured into what must be the only fenced in vineyard in the whole of France and having circumnavigated it, we ended up back where we started, so went down a stony track, which turned into a grassy track where we went for a canter. We then discovered that Tess’s saddlebag wasn’t shut properly as Anna was obliged to duck to avoid flying sun cream and gloves. Coquinette decided to race Gandalf and went flying off ahead (on the lead rein), he wasn’t having that though and accelerated to get back in front of her!

A huge flag on top of the hill caused Mav to spook and attempt to bog off and some of the others with him, but we managed to stay in control. We pressed on, along main roads some of the time where certain drivers felt it necessary to beep the horn at us and many made no attempt to slow down so we gave them the appropriate hand signal.......

Another chemin marked on the track wasn’t there any more and we found ourselves on the manicured lawn of a chateau, passing a swimming pool and statues of cherubs. Luckily no one saw us to come and shout “get off my land” but we lost a load of time getting back on a road in the right direction.

By the time we got to St Pierre de Bat, we were all hot and tired, so we were delighted to see a lavoir complete with the bit they used to use to clean carriages, so all the horses went in for a drink and a cool off, even Gandalf!

 After that it was a short climb up a hill to Naulet,  a very welcome sight by this time, particularly as I’d taken the precaution of putting a bottle of gin in the fridge to await our arrival.

Mike and the SNO had set up camp, we put the tired horses in their little paddock then sat down for apéros.

Five minutes later we had to get back up as Mav had decided to have a go at Organza through the fence separating their fields and had broken all the fences. So we had to put her and Coquinette in another field on the opposite side of the driveway and Mav had to content himself with glaring at her from afar.

But we’d made it, all 45 odd kilometres of it so we allowed ourselves a celebratory gin or two. And some wine. And went to bed.

Nice long ride today....

Magali at pony club wants to do a day ride with the kids to my friend Marianne's house, which just happens to be next to the horses' current field so I said I'd go and investigate a route for her. Tanya came with me and we found a lovely route mostly through the woods (just as well as it was really hot today!).

We found some stuff that was good practise for TREC (although the stream was very low):

and we met some pretty baby horses

and generally just enjoyed the scenery

When we got back, we gave the boys a shower then they did a nice display of sychronised rolling as soon as we turned them out!

I tracked the route on my iPhone app, we did 17kms in total. The dog is very tired this evening.....!

Meeting a serious rider......

Went for a very long ride (for us) today. Last night someone from one of my horse forums came to stay at Jane's with her horse, Samba, a very handsome Arab x Boulonnais gelding. She is doing a tour of south Dordogne so this morning we went with her for the morning. She usually does 10 hours a day but we only did 3 this morning, guess we held her up a bit....! It was great fun though and at lunchtime we parted company and Jane & I headed back home.

Some photos:

Heading out

Yes, Gunther, your house is still there......

Meeting some Percheron friends

Down by the Dordogne

Stopping for a snack!

Gandalf likes blackberries......