We'd all arrived at Alison's the day before. Helen brought Finn and Mac in her trailer, which Paul then drove home. They had a grim journey up getting stuck in a jam on the M6. Sue brought Milly in her lorry which Di Tranter and Brenda (her lovely whippet) drove back to Derbyshire which was amazingly kind of her. The horses stayed at Alison's at Stone Trails, a business she started 10 years ago from scratch. She now has trekking ponies and also does holidays where you can bring your own horse, staying in a holiday cottage on the farm. It's a lovely set up - Jan and Helen had been before and that was when the germ of the idea for the ride settled in Jan's head....
We were only there for one night so stayed at the local pup, the Fat Lamb. Jan joined us later being dropped off by her husband Neil on their way down from Aberdeen, where they'd just left their daughter Leah, who was starting University at St Andrew's
For the ride we had beautiful sunshine and fabulous scenery. Slight hitch first thing. Fin had slipped shoe in field overnight but a farrier happened to be the at yard! Hooray. All fixed and ready to go at 10.30. Alison and her pony Danny accompanied us and got us off on the right track. Stunning scenery with hardly anyone else around to share it with. Mills led the precipitous drop Alison had warned us about down into Mallerstang. We lunched on the east side of the Mallerstang valley by an interesting statue with stunning views. Milly stood on her reins and broke them due to rider incompetence but fixed with cable ties. Cable ties should be on any long distance riding kit list as they proved invaluable!
Arrived at Garsdale about 3pm and horses settled into their field while we settled into a comfy B&B, Garsdale House, at Garsdale Head.
The pub next door was not doing food that night so Karen's husband who runs a taxi service took us to Hawes for dinner where we ended up at The White Hart. The food was good and the wallpaper in the ladies remarkable....
Karen has been at Garsdale Head for 10 years moving from Harrogate. Originally they moved with their business importing goods from China. Hit by the recession that came to untimely end so they converted their barn for B&B and were building a new business which now also includes cycle hire. They are obviously resilient and enterprising people, having had a computer business flooded out in Harrogate in the past as well....
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