Pony trekking

I went pony trekking today! It was awesome. The vet school owns a herd of Exmoor ponies, and basically they just keep them in a big field and do treks with them for the public. In the winter they only do 3 treks a week (if that), but in the summer they go everyday.

Keri, Emily and I went. We met our driver/guide (a 5th year vet student) and another guide (guide -in-training really, an English student) at 9:30. We drove the half hour out to the field but when we got there our guide realized she'd forgotten the key to the tack room! It was sad because in the 5 years she's been doing treks, that's never happened before, and this was her last trek ever! Ironic. But anyway we drove back to Edinburgh, got the key, then went back to the 'barn' (a huge field with a converted storage trailer for a tack room).

It was reeeeally muddy in the field because of the snow we got recently, and it was really messy walking out to get the ponies (who were, of course, at the far end of the field). We were just covered in mud, as were the tiny ponies. We tacked them up ourselves, which was nice.

Our ponies ready to go:

It was cold but not freezing, and grey but not raining, so that was fine. The good thing was that it wasn't windy. Apparently it's usually really windy which makes it really cold and hard to talk to each other.

The scenery was beautiful:

The guide and I went off by ourselves a few times to trot and canter (since Emily and Keri don't know how to ride), so that was really fun. The ponies are so tiny but they get excited! It was nice to be able to do more than just walk. We did trot a few times as a group so that was cool too.

We stopped for lunch, and here are 2 pictures that Keri took of me then:
Oh, my pony's name was B'elanna.

The actual trekking part was a good 3 hours I think. Not bad for only 20 pounds! Here's a group picture we took at the end:

So yeah, needless to say, it was a pretty awesome day. Lots of pictures on my facebook!

My flat is making dinner tonight and a few people are coming over so I'm going to skip church this week. I really need to get some work done tomorrow...