Trek of a lifetime

By that stage Mary and her two horses, Foggy and Borrie, had been on the road for seven months and had travelled over 3,300 km.

"I had established an amazing relationship with the animals as a result of being completely interdependent for so long," said Mary, 49, from Gisburn.

"They were very strong characters -- both of them. I learned to play the mouth organ and as I rode I played songs to them."

Mary's journey had taken her through drifts of snow, 2,000 metres above sea level, and along 90 mile beaches through winds of 110kmph.

She and her horses had trekked from Bluff, at the bottom of New Zealand's South Island to Cape Reinga, on the north of the North Island, in a remarkable expedition.

The idea for the trip had been germinating in Mary's mind for some time. As a child she had read about a Swiss explorer who made a similar expedition from Buenos Aires to Washington DC.

However, it was while working as headmistress of a school in Prague that she decided to quit her job and make her trip across New Zealand.

"I was ready to do something different and the idea of a trek came back into my mind," said Mary, a former teacher at Westholme School in Blackburn.

"I loved the idea of taking a journey with two horses. I'd been involved with horses and country sports all my life and I'd worked as a qualified riding instructor. I felt I wanted to see a new country in a certain way and relate to horses in a certain way."

The choice of New Zealand as a destination was determined by Mary's love of horses.

She said: "New Zealand just captured my imagination. I didn't even know whether Auckland or Wellington was the capital.

"I thought about South America, but as a horsewoman one of my biggest concerns was that, after the trek, these two animals on which my life had depended would end up dehydrating quietly in a marketplace somewhere.

"I needed to be somewhere where the standard of horse management would meet my own requirements."

Having fixed on New Zealand, Mary travelled out to get a feel for the landscape and purchase her horses. The reactions she encountered were not encouraging. One e-mail, from Rob Stanley of Hurunui Horse Treks, told her: "Mary, we sometimes pick up people like you. They are usually under-prepared, ill-equipped and cause nothing but trouble to those of us that live and work here."

Mary said: "I had to work to achieve credibility in this very male world. To them I was this pommy woman, travelling around on a couple of grey horses, thinking I knew it all."

Mary eventually managed to achieve that credibility, to the point where Rob lent her Boris, a 10-year-old pure bred Connemara pony, for her travels.

To accompany Borrie, as he became known, Mary purchased Foggy, a 14-year-old Connemara stallion. She said: "I rode one of the horses, while the other carried the pack, and then we swapped. It was hard work for them, but we grew very close.

"Borrie was our food correspondent -- he thought of nothing but where his next meal was coming from -- while Foggy was the adventurer."

Mary set off on her trek in October 2001. Her journey took her across remote outback stations and up into the High Country. Nearly half her trip was off-road, across tracts of land that are normally inaccessible. She said: "The highest we rode was 2,000 metres above sea level. At that latitude the ground was just broken rock and snow. We spent Christmas in a hut, way up in the High Country. It was just so beautiful and the air was so clear. The landscape was very dramatic and at night there was no light pollution, so the stars were magnificent."

At night Mary either camped, or was able to sleep in shearers' quarters and she carried fencing to construct a small paddock for the horses.

In a country with no public rights of way, Mary came to know the local landowners very well as she sought permission to trek across their property.

She said: "I didn't have it mapped out. I knew approximately where I was going and I just planned bits at a time.

"I was completely self-sufficient. One of the pluses of the journey was realising how much I enjoy my own company. It's a real gain."

The final stretch of her trip consisted of a three-day ride up a 90-mile beach on the North Island coast.

She said: "I'd heard talk of sinking sands and vehicles getting washed away at high tide. My last day saw the highest tide they'd had that year and winds of 110kmph were recorded that day. I'd never been on a horse that nearly got blown over before. It was really wild, but very exciting."

At the end of the trek the time came to say goodbye to the horses.

Mary said: "It was awful -- the worst part of the whole thing. Borrie went back to his owner and later Foggy joined him there. He's currently doing trekking holidays for tourists. He'll be happy doing that."

In total, sponsorship from Mary's trek raised over £20,000 for three different charities, including The Brooke Hospital for Animals and The Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy. However, that's not the end of the story for, in two weeks' time, Mary will return to New Zealand to seek a job as a teacher. There, she will hopefully be reunited with Foggy and Borrie.

And, who knows? She may decide to turn to the open road once more, although she insists: "It would be with the same proviso.

"At the end of it all, I would want to ensure a secure future for my horses."