Tough as

My day: sleeping in, washing and drying and airing clothes, towels, riding gear and camping stuff, downloading photos, chatting and emailing about the trip, drinking pots and pots of hot tea, and lovely long afternoon nap under a warm doona.

Given that people down here in the everyday lowlands are still talking about Saturday’s weather, and given the amount of flooding my sister and I saw on the drive home, it’s no wonder that some folk took it for granted that the ride had been cancelled. But no, tough trail riding folk laugh in the face of torrential downpours and alpine squalls that leave non-horsey folk shivering in their non-riding boots.

On the first, and worst (weather-wise) day of the ride, not one person opted out of the ride. As we, or rather the horses, climbed mountains made of rocks and mud, and then slid down the other side, as we hunched against winds and sleet and cold, as we felt rain slip inside our drizabones and our boots filled up with water, not one person whined or did a prima donna turn.

Instead, everyone joked about the situation and made the best of it. Tales were told of other rigorous rides, songs were sung (Slip sliding away...), and when the weather turned really bad, everyone just hunkered down and rode through it. Then, when we reached the King Valley camp at the end of the first day, soaked and shivering as they were, everyone took the waterlogged saddles (so heavy!!) from their mounts and made sure their horses were okay before dashing to change clothes and warm their outsides with fire and their insides with food.

The kind of people with you make or break a ride like that, and fortunately on this trip we had the company of even tempered folk for whom horse riding is a way of life. And that’s what it all comes down to – the riding experience. Either you love it, or you don’t, and if you do, you take whatever it throws at you, the good and the bad.

After Saturday’s extreme riding (apropos which we came up with a business idea for a new sport that involves horses, rolling down mountainsides, and giant, rain-shunting bubbles, which we will, of course, base in New Zealand) the weather improved, and the occasional showers were a trifle compared with what we had already been through. Bonded by adversity, we set forth once more and over the next two days forded swollen rivers (no-one fell off, though a few horses submerged their riders before regaining their footing), picked our way down steep, narrow, muddy trails, had saddle and bridle malfunctions in the most awkward places, and were much amused by the requisite person-hanging-onto-a-low-hanging-branch-while-their-horse-walks-on-without-them episode.

Trail riding isn’t everyone’s idea of a fun time, but I love it (that’s me, in a photo taken by my sister).