Thursday 17 January 2013

Hill work, Exmoor style!

When Krista was down visiting Buddy at the weekend we went off-road and she was very impressed with our hills and how well Buddy coped on steep, slippery terrain. I thought she might enjoy these photos of us going down a proper hill out hunting...
You can just see the huntsman in the middle of the picture, and that's our intrepid master in blue.
Huntsman is still in sight - and Charlie has one ear on him and one on hounds, of course.
This is the sort of hill which  - when I first hunted on Exmoor - I would have assumed horses couldn't get down. Turns out they can ;-) 

 It never looks quite as dramatic in a photo but it is quite steep...
 After all, those in front are only a few feet ahead of us but already a LOT further down :-)
 Charlie is an old hand at traversing Pixie Rocks - in fact it was on this very track that he had to suddenly step up to the plate and be the huntsman's horse, many seasons ago. It was quite a challenge for a youngster but he was, as always, a very good boy.
 Looking down...
 and looking up...even a bit of blue sky!




7 comments:

dreams579 said...

you gotta have a head for heights round your way! the horses might make it down, but i'm not so sure i wouldn't just wobble off the side from getting dizzy!

Krista said...

I'm showing this to Ian later! The hill we went down was definitely that steep... If not even steeper ;0)

Dreams579 I thought if I sneezed I'd fall off as it was so steep. Brilliant fun though!

Nic Barker said...

LOL! They take some getting used to - I used to hate going down things like this when I first came here!

M's mum said...

"It never looks quite as dramatic in a photo but it is quite steep..."

Looks pretty steep to me!!!

jenj said...

Yikes! I think I'd suffer from vertigo and come off! It sort of reminds me of that scene in "Man from Snowy River".

irish horse said...

Oh, I love that terrain, and gorgeous photos! I'd be totally game to try it, we have lots of steep terrain here, but it is dry and rocky, yours is much lovelier.

Kristen Eleni Shellenbarger said...

Whoa! It looks VERY dramatic in photos, can't imagine how steep it is in person!! Just gorgeous!! I dreamt of riding that terrain ever since I saw Nation Velvet 2 :)