When you lose £300 worth of camera and spend 30km looking for it you might think you’re having a really bad day. However when you’re exploring a lovely new training ground on your favourite pony, the sun is shining and your lorry is all sparkly clean, it’s pretty hard to be really upset about anything as trivial as losing something that can be replaced.
I set off to explore Sutton Park, which is a 50minute drive from the yard after hearing really good things about it from a Photographer at my last pleasure ride. I’ve also seen the maps from previous Sport Endurance rides and thought I’d give it a go.
The parking is excellent, I went on a week day and although still busy out on the trail there was plenty of room for the lorry and for the ramp (The amount of times someone has parked under or right next to my ramp is mind boggling, maybe I should get a sign?). I downloaded a map of the Park bridleways onto my phone and off I went.
The bridleways aren’t marked so it was actually quite fun to crack out my map reading skills, Tissy as usual had her ears pricked and was a keen little pocket rocket, she genuinely loves new places. The trails were a mix of grass, gravel, packed dirt and tarmac. The only thing I would say to watch out for underfoot is there are a few sections of boggy areas, probably only 5metres long with board walk…..don’t walk on them, take the bog, they are pretty rotten. I stupidly assumed as they were on the bridleway they would be safe for horses but they weren’t. Luckily Tissy is as sure footed as a mountain goat and we weren’t injured.
Everyone I met was super polite and Tissy made many a friend who wanted to know her name and give her a pat. About 12km’s in I noticed the GoPro attached to my saddle had vanished….doh! I still had one attached to my helmet, I looked through the footage to see if I could hear when it fell off but no such luck. Cue riding up and down a 6km stretch several times……I didn’t find it.
I sighed, thought well there’s nothing I can do, contacted the Groundskeepers, who actually got back to me in under 5mins, to ask if they could keep an eye out/let me know if anything was handed in and off I went back to exploring.
I passed beautiful lakes, there were a few stretches of short hill but it was mostly undulating/flat. I came across a heard of wild Exmoor ponies……in the middle of Birmingham!!! Which was a nice surprise, one was even chilling out in the pond like a hippo.
All in all a beautiful new training ground for me to explore and get a bit of variation for the longer rides and in a very unsuspecting urban area!
Beth Endurance 