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Horse Riding Gold D of E Expedition Pyrenees 2009

During 2008/9 five young people from West Berkshire decided that the Pyrenees would be a great adventure for this award; after all we had done Bronze in Berkshire, Silver in the Brecon Beacons, all on horseback, it seemed logical that the next step would be abroad.  Where do we start?

Fortunately our leader, Carolyn was keen to see the venture through and with her encouragement we were able to source a riding centre in the Pyrenees with the help and guidance of Emma Getliffe at Have Horse Will Travel and Pierre and Carol Enoff in Porta, that would enable us to hire horses and be self-sufficient.

Eventually after many months of preparation and emails flying back between us and Emma, on 4th August 2009, with expedition food packed, we embarked on what was to become an amazing experience in France, Spain and Andorra.

We left Heathrow airport at 7.10am on Tuesday on a flight to Barcelona; we were somewhat surprised when two of our leaders left us for an upgrade into First Class courtesy of British Airways! On arrival in 40° C in Barcelona, all our careful plans were thrown out of the window when it transpired that the route to Porta had to be changed due to engineering works on the rail network. However, we arrived at 7pm at La Pastorale to be greeted by the owners Pierre and Carol, somewhat tired and hot.

The following day was changed and we were asked to start our expedition after lunch. After a familiarisation ride in the local area we packed our horses and set off on the first leg of our four- day expedition – from Porta to La Tour de Carol. This should have been a straightforward start to the expedition and Pierre was keen that we should make good time to the first camp site. However, according to our route cards we should take between 6-7 hours, which left an hour or so to sort horses out at the beginning and end of the day. We eventually found the correct place in about 8 hours. Pierre and our leaders met us at the camp site and camped with us.

The second leg of our trip took us into some spectacular scenery from Latour de Carol to a wild camp site near Girul. Our navigation began to become more confident as we got used to the Spanish 1:50,000 maps with no grid lines. We were able to have some great canters on fantastic shoe-less and bit-less horses. At our second campsite we again camped wild and were getting into the swing of things, managing to cook, get tents up and get the horses sorted before the inevitable thunder storm.

The third day turned out to be a bit of an epic! We left Girul and made good time into Meranges and then into Eller, despite taking a slightly different route to the original planned one. Unfortunately, we did make a navigational error when leaving Eller and followed an incorrect GR route! We then had to correct our error and retrace our steps back to Eller! On arrival back at Eller we knew we had at least another four hours of riding before our next camp site and to make matters worse the usual thunder storm arrived early. At 1700m being in a thunderstorm can be quite frightening, particularly Pyrenean ones! However, we were in good spirits, particularly when Mike, our assessor said that he would keep us company for the remainder of the day. Five hours later, after hail stones the size of marbles had rained down on us, lightning that seemed very close at times we arrived very relieved and extremely wet at our third camp site near Viliella. Although, we could be penalised in the award for what happened next at the camp site, there are some things that help to build relationships between different nationalities and far outweigh the rules of an award.  It was on this occasion that barriers between our group and another group of young people, who were being guided on the same route by another leader, began to come down. The French young people felt really sorry for us having being caught out in the storm, that they helped put our tents up for us, made hot chocolate for us on our arrival and took our horses off us to put them to bed. It made the day seem really special and we had a fantastic evening with them.

Day 4 dawned brightly and we were keen to be off on the final leg of our journey. We had packed up by 8am and were in the saddle by 8.15am for the last 20km, which would take us up to the col between France, Spain and France at Portella Blanca D’Andorra. Mike decided that he needed to get fit for Mont Blanc and decided to walk with us – we soon left him behind! The views were spectacular and our route finding was spot on. We were surprised when we began to be followed by what we thought was a wild horse! Unbeknown to us one of the French young people was poorly, so went back with Pierre, and his horse had followed us. We were delighted to see Carolyn and Jan walking into meet us as we headed back to Porta just in time for the afternoon thunderstorm again!

What have we gained from this expedition?

There are so many things that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. During the expedition we learnt so many things; our navigation improved, we learnt self reliance, team work, sorting out problems – navigation is difficult from a horse, you can’t all crowd around the map to seek agreement. We have learnt that there is more than one way to look after a horse. Pierre is passionate about the way his horses are treated; they don’t have shoes, yet they are able to cope with terrain that is rugged. They don’t have bits in their bridles, yet they are easy to control and have soft mouths. Our horizons have been broadened; we have seen new countries and new wildlife – the eagles soaring overhead was amazing.

We are truly grateful to the following people without whom this expedition would not have been possible:

Carolyn Ashmore – who enabled a dream to become reality

Emma Getliffe from Have Horse Will Travel www.havehorsewilltravel.co.uk

Pierre and Carol Enoff in Porta, France for entrusting us with their horses

Mike Purchase our assessor

Jan Porter – who gave up her time to be an invaluable staff member on the trip

West Berkshire D of E unit for allowing the trip to go ahead

And finally…..

Our parents for supporting us with funding for the expedition.

About the Author

Emma Getliffe is director of hhwtravel.co.uk who specialize in worldwide adventure
horse riding holidays.