Riding With Rosie

Riding With Rosie

By Meg Robbins

I am not a total novice when it comes to week long horse rides over exotic and demanding terrain. There was that trip three years ago when my friend Annemarie and I rode with a group over a hundred Spanish kilometers from coastal Zahara through the Alcornoles cork forests up 3500 foot mountains to tiny Jimena, on mostly sure-footed, romantically long-maned white Andalucian steeds. At one point Annemarie’s horse just sort of stopped, gave her a sour look and lay down but otherwise it was a fast week’s ride. We listened carefully to the instructions for navigating through fields of half ton toros; huge watchful bulls lying under shade trees. “Ride double file, don’t talk and if a bull charges, gallop like a mad bull is right behind you.” It was impressively hot and challenging but gorgeously wild and I loved it. I couldn’t wait to do it again.

Still, life intervenes (as do years and finances) and my next opportunity involved an end of summer week’s window when I would already be in balmy south coastal Devon and it seemed perfect sense to book a ride in the Scottish highlands. Weather forecasters were claiming this UK summer as the wettest on record but I put my faith in the good weather luck Tom and I quite frequently have in the UK. Preferring the sun but not really minding rain, I bought some waterproof, windproof miracle trousers, packed my blue velvet pony club approved safety helmet and headed north.

Having spent the last few days by the River Dart helping friends prepare for a huge housewarming party and then enthusiastically helping them celebrate into the early morning hours, I was happy to doze in the cab on the hour’s drive to tiny Exeter airport. Later, groggily sat on a small FlyBe Embrauer which spent more time on the runway waiting to fly than it did actually flying; the man seated next to me who spent the wait time violently folding and refolding the Daily Mail sports section, asked me that old chestnut of a conversation starter, “Where are you going?” Although my ultimate destination was Tomintoul, the highest village in Scotland, I cautiously answered, “Huntley” as the nearest small city. My seatmate, an off shore oil rig worker returning from his week’s break, darkly declared Huntley to be an evil place which could do with being blown up and that I should get psychiatric care if I thought otherwise. I figured right away that his ex-wife lived there and he said, yeah, his mother-in-law as well and I discovered a sudden and deep interest in my copy of the new Harry Potter.

The Glenlivet Ride I was joining in Tomintoul is one of the few remaining UK organized rides which international equestrian tours subscribe to. Insurance has skyrocketed in Great Britain, just as it has in the States, driving out many, many small trekking centers. As an American, riding in the UK, I am always quick to explain that I am not one of those Americans, quick to sue over a fall. One bad lawsuit and that’s often the end for a stable, even if the litigant is suing over a relatively minor accident caused by his or her own ineptitude. Of course Americans don’t hold the prize for being the most eager to sue—Britain’s own are enthusiastically adopting the practice. UK insurance companies have themselves been complicit in tripling or quadrupling the cost of a trekking stable’s insurance after a landmark case a few years ago created a precedent by declaring horses as unpredictable and therefore dangerous. This is of course, true, as it is with human beings, and no one who gets on a horse should think otherwise.

Still, lots of us like to get on horses, and enjoy the pure pleasure of exploring unfamiliar countryside with like-minded companions aboard well schooled, experienced horses. For me, it is all about escape as no one in my family likes to ride, so the week away is truly a week away. I ride abroad for the same reason I go walking abroad—it is at least 3000 miles away from real life, there are thousands of miles of well maintained bridle paths and it is always an adventure.

Having uneventfully reached Aberdeen airport, located the number 10 bus to Huntley and sat for an hour’s ride looking out the window listening to my hungry stomach grumble, we reached Huntley town square. I was arriving a day late to the scheduled ride, due to the demands of the Devon party, and Rosie, who runs the ride, had generously offered to have her partner Sean pick me up at the bus stop as she would be out with the others on day one.

Wearing my laptop backpack, and carrying a small duffel, I could not wrestle my suitcase out of the luggage bin in the front of the bus. It was stuck. I yanked. The driver offered no assistance and people behind me were getting annoyed as I blocked their exit. A lanky, curly headed man casually unfurled himself from a telephone pole and, sincerely hoping this was Sean and not someone who had his getaway car idling nearby, I tossed my duffle down to him, then my backpack and finally the recalcitrant suitcase. Fortunately it was Sean to the rescue, who helped me drag my stuff to his Ka. I’m not misspelling it either—it really was a Ka, a teeny tiny Ford which Sean and Rosie had on loan from the garage while theirs was being repaired. This Ka had room for me, my suitcase, the duffel and my backpack but Sean had to drive with his knees on the dashboard. Fortunately, or unfortunately there was little traffic on the 45 minute ride, and Sean did his best to turn that 45 minutes into 30. Having lived all his life not far from Tomintoul, he knew the landmarks, pointing out a small round mountain as we came into the Glenlivet Estate road as one he often used as a hang gliding launch. Sean worked several jobs (“We all do around here,” he told me proudly) most of which involved heights.

Trundling through the village of Tomintoul, Sean bumped the Ka down a dirt lane (“Must repair those holes”) into a broad green valley with grazing horses to either side. Sean’s directions were to deliver me to St Bridgid’s Farm where he hoped Rosie and the Ride would be back from their day out. St. Brigid’s had once been home to Jacobite war rebels but right now it looked like—a farmhouse. Sean spent a lot of time fixing the barns. Pulling up near the ancient stone cottage and barns, the Ka reluctantly allowed us to get out. The Ride were not only back, they were seated in the stable yard on folding canvas chairs in what I learned was the daily post-ride circle, drinking tea and Nescafe and, I was thrilled to note, eating biscuits. Feeling a little out of place in my chinos and city shoes when everyone else was wearing muddy boots, breeches and helmets, I was quickly seated, handed a cup of tea and a cat, and introduced by Rosie to Guido, Dagmar and Ursula who were on the same ride with me, and two others who were just along for the day.

Everyone looked curious when it became quickly apparent that I was American. Rosie contracted with Swedish and German international tour companies to bring her riders and although my agency was Canadian, it was affiliated with the German company and seldom sent recruits from the states. Nevertheless they enthusiastically told me about their ride that day, we drank our tea and no one seemed bothered that one of Rosie’s spaniels and I ate most of the biscuits. Rosie gave me a long and considered look and asked me, if I could choose, what exact sort of horse would I want to ride for the week. Having given this one a lot of thought I was quick to respond. I wanted a sensible, forward-going Mrs. Brown- type Highland pony who would be happy daydreaming with me at the back of the pack. I didn’t want an antsy horse who required a lot of attention nor did I want a horse who needed a lot of encouragement. Rosie nodded. Once the last biscuit was sadly gone, the riders went to attend to their mounts who were tied to rings from the barn walls impatiently licking the last oat from their feed buckets.

Rosie took me off to show me the ropes. Speaking gently but firmly, she explained the way things were done at St Brigid’s where we would be responsible for safely and expertly grooming and tacking our horses every day. Each horse would wear a halter under its bridle, with a lead rope knotted around its neck to be used for tying them when we stopped for lunch. Baling twine lengths went in our pockets for this purpose as well as to be used to secure jackets or rainwear to D rings on the pommel of the saddle. Horses coming in from the fields needed to be de-mudded and brushed, hooves picked out and forelegs stretched forward after the girths were tightened in order to avoid wrinkle sores. On our return every day, bridles were to be removed, girths slightly loosened and saddles left on for at least ten minutes while horses were fed, as this too reduced saddle sores by allowing capillaries under pressure from girth and rider, to gently expand. We were to wash bits, de-hair saddle pads and brush sweat marks off our horses but not get too bothered about it as they would all be ponied out to fields throughout the village where they would have a good, muddy roll.

Sean and the Ka rattled me and my bags the half mile back to the three star Gordon Hotel on the Tomintoul square, where all riders were booked in for the week. Everyone else walked. The Gordon is a typical Highland hotel with a decidedly atypical non-Highland staff. Victim of a recent shift in ownership from local to chain, most of the staff who had worked there for years had left, leaving it prey to international summer workers. A Mr. Bean look alike checked me in, handed me my huge room key and watched me clump my way to the second floor where my bags and I bounced down the hall, through the smoky little corridor with the glass fire doors and the big no smoking sign, around the corner and into my home for the week. Like most Scottish hotels this one boasted its share of stag themed paintings, plaid curtains, plaid carpets and plaid furniture. A plaid blanketed single bed in a small room, I was very happy to see that mine also had a very large bathroom with a very large bath tub, my single requisite if I am going to be spending my day out on the range.

We took two meals a day at The Gordon, included in the ride fee. Breakfast was always interesting (porridge, black pudding, local bacon and eggs) and served by a trainee entrepeneur from Istanbul. I like black pudding but it’s presence every morning was a little scary Dinner was almost anything off the menu but scallops. Our dinner host was sometimes Mr. Bean and sometimes a young, garrulous Australian Goth. His friend worked the bar. Lunches (dry white bread cheese sandwiches, juice box, crisps) were packed for us to pick up as we headed out each morning. The hotel had wireless internet accessible on the ground floor but it took a long session with the techy chef to format my laptop. He told me that, in this, the highest, if not the smallest, village in Scotland, they had to be very, very careful about hackers. I used Skype to call home and wished I hadn’t as all was chaos. Still, after heeding the call by my German companions to sample a little single malt at the pub on the square, I slept well.

New Zealand-On Four Feet

February, 2007

Abel Tasman National Park

Ride the horses from Lord of the Rings said the flyer on the wall at the Abel Tasman tourist information center in tiny South Island Marahau, New Zealand. It showed pictures of thickly muscled steeds romantically galloping on a moonlit beach. Two hour rides cost $85 NZ dollars (about $63 US dollars—pretty much the going rate). I wrote down the number and tucked it into my back pack, then sauntered down the summery quiet road for a late day January swim in an azure sea.

It wasn’t until we were back at our chalet perched high above the coastal beaches, that I dug out the stable phone number. My call got an answering machine so I left a message and enjoyed a nice chardonnay on the chalet’s deck in the warm early evening as cicadas began to simmer down a little, letting through the bucolic sounds of people cutting and baling hay in the fields far below.

I called again a day later and talked to Matt who told me he wasn’t sure if they were doing any rides out as the sun was shining and they were making hay. I peered over the deck railing and just made out a small figure in a red jumpsuit sitting on top of a baler with a cell phone in his hand. I figured that about half the meadow was cut and baled and as the crew were using a small wagon hauled by a ridiculous mini (when they might have been using a Lord of the Rings giant war horse) and seemed to be alternating the actual loading of bales with beer and moments of general hilarity, they would not be available to offer rides until it rained. The forecast looked bright.
We ate our dinners at one of the two cafes down the hill and when we went for our fish and veg at the hippy Park Cafe eaten under a large open window with a view of the sea I saw another flyer announcing camping and horseback riding so I wrote that phone number down too. When I
called I got a campground (Old MacDonald’s Farm and Holiday Camp) and the person I spoke with, possibly Old Mac himself, made me a booking for the following evening as Brian liked to go out when the weather was cooler. I quite agreed. It seemed sadly unlikely that Old MacDonald’s Farm would offer any equine Lord of the Rings.

The next day spent largely and perfectly hiking and swimming and in water craft, I drove down the hill from our chalet, took a left past the café and a sharp right to the camping farm where they told me to go back out, drive a bit farther and turn left into a field with horses. So I did all that and bumped across the meadow towards the horses Brian and Luke were tethering to a rope barrier. Luke said a brief hello, unhooked one of the horses, athletically swung up and cantered off bareback, a daredevil in shorts, his dreads flying heroically behind him, leaving me, Brian, the two remaining tethered horses at one end of the field and several others who roamed free, casually cropping luscious green New Zealand grass.

Brian and I sized each other up in a laconic sort of six gun- free western style. He wore old jeans and an ancient button down shirt and I had on all weather combo riding/hiking boots and an unfortunate pair of what had become pink half chaps. I borrowed a “helmet” from his trailer and helped brush the mare Brian was generously allowing me to ride. Neva a savvy bay, was station bred with curiously large round hooves and had that look that you sometimes see in wise mares, which is sort of a warning: measure up or you’re off. Brian gently combed and saddled her and kindly asked her to accept the bit he had warmed in his hands. She allowed me to ascent to the saddle and adjust my stirrups. I talked to her a lot but not as much as Brian did. Brian loved Neva, and with good reason.

It was just the two of us, Brian and me, and we walked the horses towards the beach via the arts colony where Neva took a dump and Brian got off to clean it up. We walked through the parking lot near the beach where two young men sitting on a car bumper well into an evening’s inebriation commented derisorily on our namby pamby girly sport and then by the Park Café until finally we were on the huge flat beach. Brian had not stopped talking but Neva seemed to have taken a shine to me so I was happy. I could not tell Brian why America had voted for George Bush (twice) nor could I reassure him that the economic and environmental future of the world wasn’t going to be totally screwed by the outrageousness of American stupidity but once we were really ON the beach he took a tiny talk break and we both just enjoyed the gorgeous evening and the fine horses and the incoming tide.

Brian liked to talk, but like Neva, he seemed to take a shine to me as well and told me his own story which was not atypical for these parts; a wander down the coast, a trailer, stay for 8 or 10 years maybe get restless and leave sometime soon but maybe not. He lived for his sheep and his horses. Brian said the summers were fine in Marahau but the winters were kind of slow. I sort of half listened until I startled at the word “murderer” and then relaxed just a little when Brian clarified that it was sheep (his own) that he murdered and ate and when we got back he would give me a couple of chops which I assumed were those of the lost lambs and not violence directed towards me personally. A gentle but driven soul, Brian relished the shock value of the word “murderer” so much that a small spray of spittle accompanied his pleasure in speaking it aloud.

By this time we were dancing in the sea and had several sweet gallops up dunes and through the waves and it wasn’t until Brian mentioned that he wasn’t sure where we were that I came down from my riding- a horse- on- the beach- holiday- high. What did he mean? I could see the Park Café, the trees sheltering the parking lot, the coastal path and the little mountain with our tiny dot chalet a few hundred yards across the flat beach.

Brian looked increasingly anxious as he scoped the beach and told me that he rarely came out this far and was not really, really familiar with this part of the sands especially as they constantly shifted. Somehow in between his rambling dream of someday taking trail ride groups up the old mountain pack roads he said existed beneath the dense foliage of the coastal volcanic mountains (which he could only do he graciously said, if all the riders were as accomplished as I) and his continuing and vocal annoyance at the avoidable but potential disasters awaiting the outside world, I gleaned an undercurrent of what lost could mean on a darkening beach with an incoming tide.

Although it may have seemed sensible to just aim, say, for the Park Café and gallop on in, Neva said otherwise. Her eager gait slowed to a crawl as she very, very carefully placed each pudding bowl hoof on spongy ground, never leaving her weight on any hoof for more than a teeny tiny moment. Brian was somewhere off to my right, concentrating on the same intricate ballet. It did not occur to me I might get off and walk as the mystery of what Neva was doing slowly unraveled and became the one word Brian had not spoken—quicksand.

Having had many an encounter with the demon bog during “walks” in the UK, quicksand is still the stuff of myth for New England me. A quicksand is just that—a water saturated sand that does not create enough tension to support weight. It is exacerbated by any nearby running or subterranean water –for example, gulp, an incoming tide. Vibration makes it unstable. The vibration of a hoof or a foot can destabilize the viscous sand and create the sucking effect that essentially closes around the unfortunate limb like wet concrete. Like that straw tubular trick toy you tell your friend to stick both fingers in and pull back, trapping their forefingers, quicksand has the same reaction. Once you pull back (one would say a natural reaction) the tension of the sand causes it to lock and tighten. Struggling makes it worse—and hurries the descent into whatever depth the sand remains unstable. Mostly people die in quicksand because they panic or succumb to exposure—or drown.

Neva of course didn’t need any of this advice and Brian had, amazingly, gone mute after cautioning me NOT to get off. We did a four legged tiptoe over quivering sand as the tide began its evening rush towards shore. The sun had gone down behind us, leaving heavenly red clouds over the mountains, all of which we were able to examine in great detail as we minced along. Brian was, I must say, very cool. His faith in Neva and his own horse was paramount and infectious and he knew to leave them quietly alone to do their work. Neva’s great hooves continued their dressage over the dicey sands which took enormous physical effort as she had to remain completely balanced step after step after step. I tried to sit as relaxed and light in the saddle as I could, taking my cue from Brian who sat back dreamily with reins dangling from one hand.

I could feel Neva make contact with her first bit of solid sand, one hoof at a time. Her pace instantly altered and she strode out purposefully headed for shore, leaving Brian to navigate the last dicey patch until he could trot up to us. There was no altering Neva’s plan as she worked out a route to a distant path that eventually led us over a leaping ditch, through a river and on to dry land.

We circled back through the car park, ignoring the now truly drunken louts who I mentally imagined up to their necks in quicksand trying uselessly to raise that can of lager; down the road over the bridge past the café, back through the art colony and into the long field. Brian’s spirits had perked enough to allow him to argue the future of global nuclear threat which took us right through the unsaddling and brushing down and offers of well deserved Polo mints to the champion horses and at last it was time for me to say goodbye to the magnificent Neva. Brian asked me if I would like to go out again before we left Abel Tasman and I thought yes I would but as it turned out I accepted a counter offer the next day to kayak to Bark Bay and hike back and then we were gone; headed north to Picton and the Marlborough Sound.