This meant many of my off-road routes were speculative and often resulted in my reluctantly turning back and retracing my steps when confronted by an insurmountable obstacle. And in Ireland in 1984 there were no decent Ordnance Survey maps, only half-inch-to-the-mile jobs that didn’t show boreens or “green roads” (tracks or motorable roads that often have grass growing in the centre). But sticking to roads is much, much slower and less scenic, and misses the point of being on an animal bred to deal with rough terrain. The trouble with exploring a country on horseback is that you can’t wriggle under barbed wire or climb over walls as you would when hiking. My first “Yes, this is it” feeling was our crossing of the Burren, an extraordinary area of limestone “pavement” “That’s a grand mare – how much did you pay for her?” followed by a disapproving intake of breath. Every day I was stopped on the road by someone wanting to chat.
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Invariably, the answer was yes and do come in for a cup of tea, which as often as not turned out to be a full meal and conversation about rural life in Ireland, with horses the topic of mutual interest. Most evenings I had to pluck up courage to ask a farmer if he had a field for Mollie and my tent. We had no choice: we were together all day and most nights. Photograph: Ivan Vdovin/AlamyĮventually we bonded. She cost me the equivalent of £650, way more than I had budgeted, but once Willie had mentioned the price he could get for horsemeat, my bargaining powers vanished.Ĭleggan harbour. Willie Leahy, who sold her to me, also let me join a group trek so Mollie and I could get used to each other. And I had just bought Mollie, a grey Connemara pony who fitted that childhood fantasy in every way. So it was that in May 1984 I found myself camping in a field near Galway, next to a pile of luggage that included a saddle made for the Indian army, a Peruvian head collar and American saddlebags large enough to contain all my needs. The reply came: “Ireland! What a great idea! A Connemara pony would be strong enough for the job and the Irish love horses.” Oh, my handwriting … well, why not Ireland? It was a less-frightening prospect and yet foreign enough to satisfy my wanderlust. I’d been trying out the idea on friends, writing casually in a letter that I was planning to buy a pony and ride around ‘Iceland’. The 1980s arrived and with £1,000 in the bank I reckoned I could take a summer off. I travelled with no fixed plans … no anything, except the desire to see the best scenery western Ireland could offer I saved money and started to think about that childhood dream. Tour-leading provided the answer – I was returning to my favourite places but not alone, and being paid to do it. I had never travelled alone, and without George I wasn’t sure that I wanted to travel at all. Then the marriage ended and my spirit of adventure shrivelled. Throughout those adventure-filled, backpacking years I never totally let go of my fantasy of riding my own horse through gorgeous scenery, but it was certainly not at the forefront of my plans. Hilary Bradt on her pony, Mollie, at the Cliffs of Moher.
In Africa, we walked across Lesotho, were arrested in Uganda, and explored the island of Madagascar, a place I have returned to probably 30 times since. Somewhat accidentally we started a publishing company so we could share our discoveries: an old Inca road between Cusco and Machu Picchu, a nine-day hike to hidden ruins in Mexico, and – the biggest adventure – perhaps the first non-expedition crossing of the Darién Gap. Then I married an American with an equal love of the wilderness and together we explored South America and Africa on foot, hiking hundreds – probably thousands – of miles carrying heavy backpacks. That holiday, in the 1960s, confirmed the rightness of my childhood dream of buying a horse and riding a long, long way. My friend and I stayed on a dude ranch, slept in tents at night and rode an 80-mile circuit on those comfy western saddles. On my horse Everest (of course I sent a photo home of Hilary on Everest), I could just gaze unimpeded at the snow-patched mountains, the gurgling streams and the big sky, and soak up the feeling of emptiness.