Riding at Kilpitiya

On Day 2 we spent the morning riding, a 4 hour trip that started at Kalpitiya beach and followed the coast up to a christian Church, where we had brunch. The horses had travelled all the way from Colombo in a box, and are used for endurance riding. Of the Marwari breed, they have curly ears, are very intelligent, and can ride for over 100kms with most of that at a canter. Needless to say, that posed a few problems for our "intermediate" standard of riding - Eliza had to swap horses with Jemima because hers was b ouncing too much. Awesome ride though.

Eliza with her horse.

Jemima was her original horse, which Eliza adopted.

The horses cooled down in the sea periodically.

Monty as a cowboy.

Breakfast at the Kirimundel sub post office.

Ole.

Sarah's horse bolted towards the end which was quite amusing for everyone, and ran a few kms down the beach. It doesn't like kites, so riding past 100 kites at the kite-surfing beach proved too much.

Monty loved his horse. Monty always loves his horses.

So does Mima. This was originally Eliza's horse and bounces quite a lot. Highlight of the trip was probably when we all cantered over the top of a mongoose fighting an Indian Cobra. These are very rare to see so that was a treat although unnerved the horses and we were lucky that everyone stayed on - also that none of the horses got bitten on the way past.

A well-deserved roll in the sand at the end.