VISITOR FEEDBACK

With my own horse, Rosy, I was riding the length of New Zealand. But how to get from Hanmer through to North Canterbury; the road looked busy and yet… was it the only way? A phone call to Alpine Horse Safaris solved my dilemma.

I met up with Lawrie O’Carroll at the Glynn Wye station, on the road to Springs Junction. The huge property (24,300 hectares/60,000 acres) is managed by the owner’s two sons, Clive and Mike and runs something like 16,000 sheep, 1,400 cattle and 1,400 deer. I got the impression of a village from all the buildings gathered together inside the gates of the property!

Lawrie was riding Bracken; I was on my own horse, Rosy (more about that later) and we headed south away from the road, climbing directly south for 2-1/2 hours until we came to the summit of the Little Organs Range. Here there were magnificent views - the large flat paddocks above the station, the Boyle, Doubtful, Waiau and Hope Rivers, from Hanmer Springs in the east to Lewis Pass in the west, and the Spenser and Hanmer Mountain Ranges. Peaks such as Mt Captain, the Dillon Cone, Mons Sex Millia, and the Castle were at eye level.

I was pleased that Lawrie was with me; we went on foot down a barely discernible track, one carved out of the slope by animals that wandered around the mountains. It was narrow and slippery. Rosy kept charging past me, so Lawrie led both Bracken and Doug, and I let Rosy follow loose.

I was dawdling behind, taking photographs, when I heard a shout from Lawrie. I struggled to catch up to him and when I came over the top of the edge I could see just a little bit of Rosy submerged in a tumbling creek, while Bracken and Doug stood looking disdainfully down at her from above.

Lawrie hauled the saddle off her and dumped it on the track.

"You lead Doug and Bracken on. Take them up to that grassy bit," he shouted at me.

Somehow, he managed to encourage my horse out of the mud. She stood pitifully, her head hanging, holding one hind leg up, on the track again.

She seemed to be sound, though a little sore. When I saw her, I had had visions of her being shot, and left unceremoniously beside the track! But what else could we have done, miles from anywhere?

The track was so steep that at times we partly rode, partly led the horses, up and down, up and down, to the Gorge Creek Saddle, where we stopped for a breather. Then it was down into the beech forest of Darkies Gully, along another packtrack to arrive at picturesque Valley Camp Hut, in the lea of Mt Skedaddle.

"We’re on another station now," Lawrie told me. "This one’s Island Hills, about 6,850ha or17,000 acres."

The track out the next morning followed the Organ Stream down through manuka and onto the Mandamus River. Beautiful country, which can only be really appreciated from the back of a horse. The scenery was stunning – we came across homesteads and crossed rivers, but mostly it was wilderness, perhaps NZ as it might have been so many years before. And parts of it were so steep. At times, the coward that I was, I closed my eyes; Rosy seemed to know what she was doing.

I told Lawrie of my fears.

"Some weeks ago we had a family come out," he told me. "They’d never seen a horse, let alone go out into the wilderness. They didn’t even speak English! But they had a fabulous time, and I could tell they felt safe with us too.

He explained to me why they don’t encourage people to bring their own horses.

"I know what mine are capable of. I breed my own, I train my own. I only use the best. I know what they’ll do, and what they won’t do. We put hours of training into them so they’re sensible and disciplined."

Not like Rosy!

At the Hurunui River Lawrie wanted to make sure we could cross safely. He had arranged for Jenny to meet us on the other side, with spare, sensible horses should we need them.

"You can understand why I only use my own horses on these rides," he told me. "Rosy and Doug just don’t know South Island rivers; they’re city bred. Why, I don’t think Doug had even been up a mountain before!"

However the water was not as deep as Lawrie had feared, and we rode through the swirling current, heading slightly upstream and Bracken sensibly picking her way, the water swirling around the horses' shoulders.

Rosy and Doug were pleased to be at their stables; Lawrie and Jenny demonstrated teamwork at its best as they hosed the horses down and give them a hard feed before drying them down and turned them into a lush pasture. Over the next few days I learned a lot about horses and life in the mountain of New Zealand.

Now living in the Far North of New Zealand, I hope to return and go on a longer ride with them – but this time I will take their advice and leave my own horse at home!