I promised you this tale a few days ago and so here it is. This is true and it happened to Carol and me. We have walked in the Preseli Hills many times now but there is a much smaller range of hills just to the South East of them centred around Foel Dyrch (pronounced Voil Durch – where the ‘ch’ is like a Scottish loch) and we decided to bag that range last weekend. It was a lovely day – sunny and mild and all was well. There are a couple of photos below showing the views over the Preselis and where we stopped for lunch.
In truth the walk was largely uneventful until near the end! We had about 2 kilometres left to walk and we were on a bridal path which was slowly bending to the left, as per what the map said it would, and I was 100% sure of our exact location. As we approached a fence I saw the expected gate and then I also saw two big black heads suddenly lift up from amongst an overgrown area of bracken and general foliage some 100 meters away from us – two horses. Well so what? We have often walked in fields with horses: indeed earlier that day we had passed by a herd of about a dozen wild ponies and horses. Walking Tip No 2: when walking close to livestock of any type, walk at your normal pace and keep talking with your group (or to yourself if you are alone!) because this indicates to the animals that you mean no danger to them. I guess a hunter would not be openly talking to his mate if he were approaching his quarry. But also use common sense and walk around them if you can rather than through the middle- particularly never get between a cow and its calf! I’ll talk more about accompanying pets another day. Well I don’t know why this pair decided to buck the trend but without warning they both charged towards us and I mean charged. This was no canter-out-of-curiosity or lets-see-if-these-nice-people-have-an-apple- for-us … this was a charge and I suddenly realised what a terrifying sight it must have been for infantry to face a full on cavalry charge in days gone by. I saw Carol shudder about a second before I did the same but hey, this was a warm sunny Saturday afternoon in Pembrokeshire and here is the mute point, I WAS ON A RIGHT OF WAY AND WAS PERFECTLY WITHIN MY RIGHTS TO FOLLOW THE BRIDAL PATH THROUGH THE FIELD!! Anyhow the bottom line was that the metal gate and fence between us and the horses looked …. well … actually it looked pretty ropey!!
The horses and ourselves arrived at the gate at about the same time. One of them immediately lost interest and started grazing again but the other one started kicking at the gate (above is the actual horse although I took this shot a few days later) and was clearly letting us know that he was the king of the castle. Now a braver sole might have patted him on the head or whispered sweet nothings in his ear and proceeded past him but I held up the map to show him that we were on a bridal path and so he should, therefore, stand aside and let us through! Perhaps he could not read because at first he did not move. But then he turned round and presented his rear end to us. The picture below does not do his backside justice – it is very big close up!
I thought he was about to show us the utmost of contempt and we both jumped backwards to avoid the spray but he did not. Instead he proceeded to rub his back end from side to side along the gate. And then it happened …. the metal lock on the gate snapped in two, one piece fell to the ground and the gate …. slowly swung open!!!
A lesser man might have run for help leaving his wife to hold the line, but instead, I uttered a long string of embarrassing profanities which would have done credit to a bunch of Glaswegian docker’s on a Saturday night. Fortunately, once he had bust the gate-lock he started to graze and immediately lost interest. “Quick,” said I “hold the gate shut. I have some cable ties in my bag and we can secure it before he turns around again.” Now perhaps that horse could not read the map, but he did understand English, because he immediately turned round to face us and reached over the gate which my terrified wife was trying to keep shut at extreme arm’s length and he had a good look at what I was doing. Unperturbed by my audience, I found my cable ties, fixed four together and re-secured the gate. Walking Tip No 3: always carry a range of come-in-handy-bits-and-pieces. You never know when you might need them. Now I know that this horse, possessed by Satan as he seemed to be, could have made short work of those cable ties but, joking aside, at least I had fulfilled my moral responsibility to do something about the broken gate. At that point we beat a steady retreat and walked the long way around the field. I still felt aggrieved though because I WAS ON A RIGHT OF WAY AND WAS PERFECTLY WITHIN MY RIGHTS TO FOLLOW THE BRIDAL PATH THROUGH THAT FIELD!! By rights I should have reported the incident to the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority but I didn’t.
I returned to the scene of the stand-off a few days later, this time with my camera, to take the above photographs of the horse and the broken gate. He was perfectly placid and butter would not have melted in his mouth (but look at those hooves!). Maybe he was having a bad day when we first met so I forgave him but couldn’t help muttering under my breath that I had had the right of way!! I swear he give me a little smile and carried on grazing.
Coming up soon – did you know cows are often artificially inseminated – I saw it with my own eyes (and they watered!)