The Forbidden Corner

Well the forecast was rain and there were one or two showers but it was quite warm outside and you can never tell the next valley could be sunny.  So we set off full load Mum, Dad, 4 children a dog and myself.  Today we were off to The Forbidden Corner and we were all very excited.  Iy was a nice steady run, with stormy clouds and patches of blue sky and sun.  We arrived around 10.30 and all fell out of the car.  Melanie had fessed up to booking not enough tickets and going through agonies before finally sorting it by e-mail yesterday.  So now everything was set fair. 

We put Albert in his back-pack and got Bernard out on his lead.  The plan being to give Bernard a good walk before we went into the Forbidden Corner (no dogs allowed in there).  We went back down the road and came to footpath signs.  Following the sign into a ploughed field which we carefully walked all the way round to a stile on the other side. We all merrily trotted through and spied a horse at the top end of the field and one at the bottom.  The horse at the top never moved so that was fine and we set off purposefully across the field.  Melanie leading the way with Bernard. Suddenly from the left – the horse at the bottom was galloping up towards us. I suddenly found myself with a girl on either side of me holding on and Melanie had Bernard who had adopted a strangely submissive position.  The horse circled around Melanie and reared up in front of her.  He was massive; he landed back on all fours and pranced around.  Time for a quick exit back through the stile we had just come through with the horse still prancing and rearing around us.  When we were back safely in the ploughed field Melanie’s comment was you now when then they say you should exercise enough to raise your heart rate? Well I think I’ve just and my exercise for today. We now retraced our steps back across the field and headed up towards the hill tops. 

  We were definitely in race horse country there were signs everywhere warning about young racehorses and to keep your dogs on leads. We passed a few horses coming down the bridleway we were walking up.  They were beautiful but very skittish.  When we got up to the top we could see the Middleham gallops and so we took a walk around part of them before cutting back down towards the car park – on the way we passed some starting gates which I guess they use to get the horses used to being in them before going into races proper. 

Back at the car park we had a leisurely picnic lunch before going into The Forbidden Corner, it was everything we had hoped. 

 Once we got going around we understood why you don’t get a map of the place at the entrance.  The whole thing is just a huge maze of tunnels, paths, stairs and surprises.  A map would just totally ruin the illusion.  

Finally after 2 ½ hours of going in, out up and down we stopped for an ice cream before heading back to the car. We came home in the early evening sun to a fish and chip supper to end the day.  Surprisingly we had walked 5 miles and we all needed a rest. Brilliant day I thoroughly recommend it to anyone.