Over the hills and far away…!

“Over the hills and far away”..! ,Canterbury, NZ

Day one of an eleven day horse trek in the vast hills and valleys of eastern Molesworth Station….

Today, heading into the Bullins hills, and once over the saddle in front of us we descend right down into the Clarence river gorge, for our first night at Cloudy Range hut  a remote and easy place to get lost..lol

I say easy to get lost…. on a previous trek, and new to this country, a southerly weather change while out riding between destinations saw a dense fog arrive, enveloping the view and only having a paper map with me meant we had virtually no land marks to gauge where we were..

Trying to find our way, trying to find little narrow horse pack tracks when the wide open areas become hillsides, was not an easy day…

Subsequently, after this trek I purchased a Garmin GPS to take with us… Yes what a difference that made..!

Little Bailey, my pack horse ( Second Back ) often likes to lead the way on his own in front of me, and at times will be a couple of hundred metres in front, stopping now and then to make sure we are still following… a lovely hard working , sensible horse, that will stop when I call his name  ( most of the time..lol )

footnote…with all of our back country treks, a lot of planning goes into it at home… mapping the route, how far from hut to hut each day, food rations for the duration plus an extra weeks supply in case of hold ups  ( river in flood blocking our travel, etc ) horse daily feed requirements as in summer in some places no or limited grass available, even things like horse shoes…( sometimes a horse may loose one so we need to be able to put a new one back on  ) , then ringing all the high country station owners / managers  asking permission to travel and use huts… at times we may gain access but the farmer doesn’t want us to use certain valleys so need to reroute … careful preplanning often ensures safe and fun travel…!