Freedom, horse gear, hard work, and a journey that will stay with you forever

‘You don’t need all that gear, look what motorcyclists take.’ I was shown two small panniers, not much bigger than handbags, hooked on the back of a bike.

This is one of the comments I’ve received on the equipment we carried when we trekked in the Australian bush with five horse; it’s all listed out in the back of the book A Standard Journey, or you can see it all here: via pictures.

Mid journey, this was after we had whittled down the equipment even more – bare necessities here!

Bike vs Horse
For a start, if you are camping out with your motorbike and you need something, you can hop on your bike and speed off at 80 km to the nearest shops. You can’t do that on a horse that’s just trekked for six to eight hours carrying your world possessions and you!

Secondly, bikes don’t need feeding, grooming, first aid, rugs, boots, saddles, saddle blankets, fencing, electric fence equipment, water buckets, nose bags… and on it goes.

We’d just unloaded here – next job (once the horses were taken care of) was to sort our gear and pitch the tent

Personal equipment
I’d say fifty percent of the equipment comprised saddles (riding and pack – five in total) saddle blankets, halters and reins. You can’t get very far without any of this.

We were throwing out the hard panniers and buying back-packs – the saddle is in the camp shop – they are big and heavy

Forty percent of the gear would be for the horses, the fencing, water buckets, rugs, food, grooming kit, first aid kit…. etc

Our camp – second tent phase! The grey lump near the horses is all the horse gear

That leaves ten percent for Noel and I. That’s five percent each for clothes, food, cooking gear, first aid kit, tent and… well that was pretty much it!

First set up with hard panniers

Second, and much improved, set up, with back-packs

Compromises
We made comprises and worked harder than we ever did in our entire lives. But there were great rewards, we had one mobile phone for emergencies and ninety percent of the time that had no signal. We had no internet, no car to run, no office to sit in. What we had was nature, freedom and five of the most incredible horses you will ever read about.

Freedom

Take a look at our photo album of our trip and if you’d like to read the story, here’s the link. You can read an excerpt first if you want…. then the reviews.

Charity
I donate fifty percent of profits to horse charities, here’s a website on  A Helping Hand for Horses.

oh and BTW, I’ve just reduced the ebook price.

What are you waiting for?

What they are saying

‘A hauntingly beautiful book.’

‘This will stick with readers for a long time’

‘The journey was not all they had expected’

‘The trail presented obstacles at every turn’

‘The journey itself makes for incredibly engaging & interesting reading’

‘The details of the trip are fascinating’

‘I couldn’t put it down’

‘The horses are as real and vividly drawn as the humans in this book.’

‘The moments when the horses get “naughty” are hilarious’