White Horse Pilgrim

Exploration

Yesterday's lecture visit and subsequent post set me thinking.

First of all I looked through my archive for a photo of a pack horse. However these were rare in Transylvania. All I found were images of a shepherd riding his horse carrying baggage and  a donkey carrying baggage minus his shepherd who walked.

All this makes me want to travel. Of the very many miles that I covered on horseback few involved actual exploration. It wasn't a good idea to venture into the unknown with guests.

Now I'm yearning to explore the wilder parts of that area unencumbered by guests or timetable. I'd like to take time to stop, talk, photograph and think.

There were Roman roads, medieval trade routes and Habsburg tracks all awaiting exploration: so much history readily accessible on horseback.

It would be fascinating to go back and explore the area properly. On the other hand over eight years I saw and appreciated much of that history. So perhaps the right objective is the exploration of another region.

I wonder where? Slovenia where Brena originated? Or perhaps a country where good trails exist, such as France? There is time to carry out some research at my leisure. After all there surely has to be within reach a nice warm place with a friendly population, good riding trails and plenty of interesting history. I'll start to look.

 

Horses afar

I spent the early evening at the Royal Geographical Society listening to a travel writer's account of the Tea Horse Road, a long trade route in China named for its two main objects of commerce. Historically Tibetan ponies were taken south for sale as military horses whilst, within living memory, valuable tea was transported over a thousand miles to the high frigid land of Tibet.

There were many pictures to accompany the lecture and I was fascinated to see many horses at work carrying loads, a few being ridden and a handful working in draught. They looked robust and quite well cared for. The method of working these horses was quite different to my experiences in Transylvania where, in contrast, most horses were driven and very few carried packs. The terrain explained this for southwest China is very rugged indeed. Trails were narrow, some even cut into the rock; torrents crossed by flimsy-looking suspension bridges; gradients steep and paths rocky.

The lecture was a great way to share the experiences of an intrepid and perceptive traveller. It did awaken within me the desire to travel, exploring places remote and strange. Well, who knows, there are still a few remote corners tucked away even in Europe. I used to live in one and never did explore every part. It's good to be inspired, to realise that there are journeys still to be made, and that one can explore not just wilderness but populated places too for culture is fascinating.

Restraint

Here is Doru, equipped for travel, tied to a gate leading to wild Welsh moorland.

He was tied up briefly because I wished to visit the bushes. I have previously had the experience of a horse that I was holding becoming alarmed by the performance of my large bodily needs. This is a bad situation in which to be dragged several yards forward. Whilst Doru was not the culprit in that situation, I did not wish to offer him the opportunity.

So Doru spent a few minutes restrained by a rope, during most of which he decimated all vegetation within reach in his customary manner as if he were famished. Which of course he was not, as he had been grazed in long lush grass barely half an hour earlier.

Danielle's hair needed restraint too when she wanted to photograph on a windy day. There's no point having a quality camera when one's hair blows across the lens. So I saved the situation and enabled her creativity to flourish unfettered by flailing follicles.

Personally I like to wear a hat. For summer, I have a Transylvanian forester's felt trilby, a rakish hat that demand a feather for greatest effect. But the days when I sported long hair are gone (by about five years). It was good for theatrical effect ("bohemian equestrian guide") but such a lot of work to keep clean and tidy. So, of course, on the trail it wasn't clean and tidy. Better to have the horses well groomed. Fortunately for me, Danielle never saw me at that sartorial nadir.

The narrow way

Lengths of the trail were wide and open, and other sections were narrow and hemmed in by vegetation.

There was such a variety of character spread over a week. Here we traversed - remarkably, given the overgrown nature of the place - an old Roman road. This trail had climbed over a bleak hill, plunged through open meadows, then withdrew to a tenuous strip between two thick flower-strewn hedges. It would have been difficult to pass another horse here, or to turn around.

Alternating sun and rain is a fine environment for grass and hedgerows. We benefitted from warm dry days, however it is not always so. A colleague who had been a soldier tells me of many uncomfortable days training on the neighbouring mountain range when always it seemed to rain. But perhaps poor weather makes it easier for soldiers to move stealthily?

We were not stealthy, Doru crashing through the undergrowth whilst I talked to him. It was such a pleasure to be out there, in the warmth and open air. Doru, always hungry, did take the odd nibble from the hedges. One cannot begrudge a travelling horse his snacks, though I prefer to stop him to graze properly from time to time rather than the ill habit of snatching at vegetation. It is remarkable (as the Long Rider Jeremy James told me many years ago) just how much food a travelling horse needs to eat.

Other parts of the route used asphalt roads. This was less welcome, however I was travelling a route planned by someone else. It had the advantage that the accommodations were arranged - and very nice they were too. On reflection, in future I will fit hoof boots to Doru if we are going to do this much riding on asphalt. Whilst he is sound, his soles are quite abraded - he is due a trim next week, and I doubt whether anything will need to come off.

At least the roads were, for the most part, tiny quiet lanes. People drove slowly and, anyway, one might see a motor vehicle only once every half hour (and all driven by courteous country people in my experience). This particular lane went on for several miles and served only a handful of farms. Riding rather than driving, I had the bonus of being able to see over most of the hedges, opening up lovely views across the hills and woods.

I was reminded of just how slow it can be travelling by horse - and how unusual this can be in our modern world. Small details of the passing trail become significant. It's best to be unambitions where distance is involved, to allow plenty of time and not to expect to get far. One needs to see time in a different way, a strange discipline to many of us. It can alarm me how the impatience of modern life tries to manipulate my thoughts and deeds. Out and about, I am tempted to worry about arrival time rather than enjoying the minutiae of the trail and hoping to be out until dusk. Why the artificial deadlines, the perceived need to rush? Why not a long lunch break instead whilst one rests and one's horse grazes? (How wonderful it is to doze in long grass, hearing a horse munching the lush herb.How beautiful to watch him graze, viewed lazily through eyes heavy with sleep, when the world seems to have shrunk to half an acre with just two inhabitants.)

A few miles led through the forest. It seems that one commercial conifer forest is much like another, and this stretch was quite reminiscent of long leagues in Transylvania (without the horse carts, logging debris and litter, anyway). The flies were there too, great swarms of bluebottles that kept up with us even at a canter - so there was no escaping them. But, otherwise, the forest ride was warm and quiet, indeed soporific, reminiscent of that stretch of Mirkwood where Bilbo's companion dwarves became so sleepy.

And then out of the forest, along a track through meadows, across a farmyard where a loose mare and foal stared at us, through a ford where we paused for Doru to drink, and onward into a deep beech wood where light slanted down as if we were underwater and I ducked beneath ancient boughs heavy laden with foliage. Into a strange wild world where, somewhere ahead, supper and a full manger awaited us at a cottage remote and hospitable.

Doru reclining and competing

Each night Doru enjoyed a good soft straw bed, of which he made good use. Here he is resting in a generous box at a quiet farm high in the Welsh mountains. Just out of sight, he had a big net of hay and a water bucket.

Apart from the farmer's horses, there were the inevitable sheep and a rather surprising herd of Highland cattle. The latter, with their great broad horns and long caramel-coloured coats, were a picturesque (and, I gather, profitable) curiosity.

There were chickens too, cheekily competitors with Doru for his morning and evening feeds. They advanced, pecked earnestly, then retreated when Doru pinned back his ears and shook his head at them. It did make a comical sight.

Doru did deserve both his rest and his feed. As well as the miles to be covered, there was considerable climbing involved, as well as tiring negotiation of bad ground. I suppose that the chickens ate only the most miniscule amount, probably just the fragments that fell from his mouth. (That would count as recycling waste. The chickens did, I must admit, produce excellent eggs.)

The terrain does have a sculptural quality, and it was against that backdrop that we travelled. A side trip to the Gospel Pass allowed a little unrushed photography, including this view of a small group of riders out amidst the vastness of this sweeping sandstone landscape. How distant it seems now when Doru and I did that job, leading rides through the enormity of the Carpathian mountains.

Here is a softer, smaller landscape than the mile-high Carpathians, but magnificent nonetheless. It is green, spacious, crossed by a variety of trails, and little over three hours drive from here. Really we are very fortunate.

This particular photo shows a trail that I rode during my first weekend of trail riding, almost two decades ago. Howard had me cantering on the first afternoon, then on the second day we rode over the Gospel Pass and across into the next valley, stopping for lunch at a pub so old-fashioned that it barely had beer-pulls. (Even near Oxford I remember a pub where, back in the late 1980's, an old lady brought the ale out in big jugs to be poured out into clients' glasses.) How rosy-hued and misty the good old days seem now!

Perpetual possibility

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

T S Eliot

Llanbedr Hill provided a great open wilderness, a high moorland pasture where the wind whistled, blueberry and fern bent underfoot, and the remoteness was tangible. Even in good visibility, the featurelessness and multiplicity of tracks made me think about navigation.

At one level, such a space is good for the soul, allowing humdrum cares to fall away like raindrops from a steep roof.

At another level, I was searching for the soul of the place, and did not quite discover it. Perhaps here the memories lie in the inhabited valleys? For these high places bore relics of drove roads and travellers, but not of habitations - no foundations, no hill forts, not even field walls. Maybe I need to make another visit to begin to appreciate the deeper historical atmosphere? Or maybe this always was a place that travellers gladly left, dropping down one hillside or another to a home or a cozy inn?

One could imagine a party of Hobbits crossing such a waste in search of Bree and the Prancing Pony inn, or Aragorn striding through the tussocks on an errand yet with a warm fire and a mug of ale somewhere at the back of his mind. Oh, to journey with them!

The way was stony and we did not make rapid progress, in deference to Doru's recent entry back into work and his being barefoot. There will be more about the latter in a subsequent post, however I did feel that too much of this week-long ride took place on asphalt roads. On reflection, I would use hoof boots were this ride to be repeated. But, as you will read, I have a different format of ride in mind for the future.

As we plodded along, two escarpments reared up one after another. How curious that such a powerful feature should appear so suddenly in a relatively featureless terrain? Like islets sighted from an oceangoing ship, they were sighted, for fleeting moments revealed in detail, then fell behind and soon were forgotten. This green, airy, rolling land did seem a little like an ocean. Perhaps that is why (unfairly, I think, to both sea and moor) Robert Louis Stephenson described the great undulating mass of Rannoch Moor as being as waste as the sea?

There was life, nevertheless, clustered like fugitives in the hollows. Silent and wary, this mare and foal watched us pass.

I had ridden for two days and a half by this point. Doru and I had tired a little, found our travelling pace, settled down on the trail. There is space to journey, time to walk, liberty to think - we are blessed.

On one hand, I have realised - indeed remembered; been reminded - of why I gave up the job of riding full time. After two days, my back was stiff and sore. At night I struggled to find a position comfortable enough to permit me to surrender to sleep. I am too worn out by eight years of that work and somewhere around twenty thousand miles in the saddle to pursue the vocation professionally. In this I am momentarily sad, and yet happy to have gained so much from that unique period: a time varied, in turns joyful and heart rending, inspirational and character building, therefore a gift if I choose to view it as such. Not every gift is immediately recognisable as such.

On the other hand, I have more fully understood - walking Doru in hand by the river Wye, on a hot early afternoon in bright sunshine, through long grass in air that seemed nearly liquid with heat - that I am travelling with a horse. I am not on a riding holiday, indeed I am doing something quite different. I'm travelling with a big roan stallion who is my companion. It's quite different to a riding holiday - our progress and indeed our fates are bound together as we share moments of joy, satisfaction, frustration, and problems. We both feel the warm west wind and that from the north, the sun and rain, heat and cold. We travel together, get tired, rest, he grazes whilst I sleep in the long grass. I lead him to save his energy even as I expend mine. We travel together as companions. And this seems better, more satisfying, indeed more real than simply having a horse in order to climb a hill or gallop across the turf, to obtain a thrill, to buy the commodity of riding. More real, yes, and more of a challenge to me to match up to the rigours of being a horseman.

Here we are walking down from Llanbedr Hill to the river Wye. I don't necessarily lead Doru like that, from way out in front, however it's difficult to photograph one's led horse other than at the extremity of the split reins. Doru's quizzical look is special and typical.

This realisation, that I am travelling with a horse - which I knew in my heart - informs how I travel. In antithesis to equine sport, I am aiming neither for speed nor distance. Of course it may be necessary to cross a certain mountain simply to reach shelter, requiring a particular distance to be covered on that day. But, in general, I am becoming inclined towards shorter distances and richer days. I am seeking time and space to appreciate travelling with Doru, to enjoy the views, to let him graze, to speak to people, to let Doru pick a good way for his bare feet. I have not become unambitious, only that I am moving beyond mere statistics: how far, how long. This was not a perfect ride, for overnight stays were fixed in advance (and on two occasions further away than I would have wished), but it was an inspirational ride and one that will help guide what Doru and I shall do in future.

Green hill country holiday

It has been a pleasant and varied week in the Welsh hills. We journeyed through inviting green hill country, across wild open moors, past remote hamlets, across clear rivers, in a pastoral land where life moves slowly.

Getting to the start point, the roads got smaller and smaller. A large motorway (like an interstate or autobahn) became a dual carriageway main road, then a single carriageway road. The road began to twist and turn through the growing hills, it narrowed through villages, and then we left it behind. A secondary road wound intimately through the tumbled landscape, then we quit it for a lane barely wide enough for truck and trailer. Wheels on both sides brushing the vegetation, we arrived at the comfortable guesthouse where we would spend the first night.

The riding was mixed, and this and the following few posts will cover my experiences and Doru's.

On the first day I had the good fortune to be accompanied part-way by my hostess, which both gave me someone to talk to and eliminated the need for any map reading on my part until well after lunch. My hostess might have wondered whether I would make it from where she left me to the end, however I have a good eye for topography after years of guiding in a place where most maps were rudimentary at best. In fact the topography was simple enough: a mass of sandstone headlands forming an eroded west-facing rampart, below which a heavily disessected jumbled land fell away riven by deep stream-cut valleys. At the foot of all that, the wide valley of the river Wye meandered. Easy on a clear day, doubtless trickier in low cloud or mist. However we were blessed by a clear day, warm and tranquil.

It took a steep climb not unlike those of former days in Tranylvania to reach the top of an outlying prow of the escarpment - one of those climbs where one stands in the stirrups and leans forward. The space on top forms a great expanse of common grazing, where sheep and native ponies thrive in summer. Here we met a group of mares and foals, who crept just out of our way. They are tiny creatures, perhaps twelve hands or thereabouts, and indeed the foals look small enough to pick up and take home!

This was a good terrain for fast work on soft, springy ground. However, being aware that Doru had only just come back into work, we were admirably restrained and worked him only gently. He isn't a fast horse at the best of times, being sturdy and sure-footed rather than speedy. My host's mare is a Fell pony, a little quicker than Doru, sure-footed too, like the big stallion adapted for steady, reliable work.

Here is a nice shot of the pretty black Fell mare at our lunch stop in the hollow where a spring bubbles out of the stones surprisingly close to the top of the hill. These are the sorts of places that local knowledge, or perhaps a bit of intuition, yields to the traveller. Other than occasional springs and a handful of dewponds, the plateau is a dry place, quite short of places where a beast might drink.

I did gently get rebuked at work a week ago for admitting to applying intuition - to which I had a response. There is a role for informed intuition, knowing the lie of the land and the geology, knowing the people at work and what tricks some of them get up to (certain contractors come to mind), that can lead one at least to point in the right direction. At last, a benefit from being a little bit older. (I told colleagues that I came to the project ready-aged!) But anyway I have seen a lot of trails and many hills, if fewer horses than some and less of the world than others.

Doru, let us remember, is a stallion. He was accompanying a mare who was, for the most part, alongside or in front. Knowing how he is, especially when a little tired by work, I was not surprised when the most interest that he showed in the mare was a display of Flehmen and a couple of whinneys. I do like to ride a trustworthy horse.

The route dropped down a steep slope where I led Doru. I think that a sharp descent is quite hard enough on a horse without having to carry a rider too unless there is a good reason for staying on top. Doru was not so tired that he didn't try to start a nipping game on the way down, momentarily forgetting that I was not a fellow horse, however a tap over the muzzle from the end of the long reins by which I was leading him put a stop to that! Nipping play is a favourite of his, generally on the way out to the field when he is a bit fresh, and not something that I put up with.

We continued through the bracken below the escarpment. This view does not really give a sense of the height and majesty of these rocks - which might, in an arid land devoid of vegetation, be the setting for a Western movie. The colours would be splendid - even the soil here is a surprising reddish shade.

Bracken is a curious plant, rather a weed, and invasive of grassland. This is common land, and those local people with common rights are allowed to cut bracken to dry for use as animal bedding. Though straw, shavings and hemp are in wide use, some people do still cut bracken. It seems like a trade-off between the cost of buying bedding and the labour of cutting and drying it - somewhat illustrating the difference between modern farming and its peasant predecessor. Yet this is an outlying region, and not every animal keeper is flush with money, so the old way has its merits too.

On our own, Doru and I negotiated a tract of sheep country followed by a sharp descent to a stream. After crossing a tiny bridge, we set off up a stony track, almost a seasonal watercourse, that would not have been out of place in our old Transylvanian haunts. The end of that vertiginous rocky way led straight into a farmyard, the very farm where we (and Danielle) would be spending the night. It was a welcome arrival.

Doru spent a welcome couple of hours grazing before being put in a stable for the night where he ate a good feed of alfalfa and barley then slept like a foal, on his side with all four legs stretched out together. For my part, I slept in a room overlooking the stable where, for the first time in my life, I could see my horse whilst I lay in bed. That was a rare pleasure. And when the great horse awoke, Danielle and I could hear his whinneys too, and the replies of the farmer's two geldings.

Lying still at last, I reflected. It is the day after the midsummer solstice, a day blessed by long hours of daylight. For the first time in a decade, I am riding alone: no group of tourists to look after, no-one who has paid me anything for a service. Just Doru and I , and the green hill country of southeast Wales (and, of course, Danielle driving my truck by road). Eastward the near sandstone hills rear up, westward the valley falls away to the feet of more distant hills, above the sky is crowded with marching, metamorphosing cloud ramparts. I am away on another journey.

What a joy it is to be amongst the mountains again! Not my familiar old mountains, but nevertheless a friendly inhabited landscape of small farms, thick hedges, gnarled trees, and smooth sweeping hill pastures. Save for calling sheep and chirping birds - and occasional whinneys from Doru - all is silent. There are no aeroplanes and, high up here, no vehicles disturb us. At last I can unwind, forget the work that has paid for this excursion, appreciate the extensive view and clean air, the wide sky and varied horizon.

I am on the trail again with a good horse. There is much to be joyful about, many things to see, lessons to learn, people to meet, experiences to receive, reports to pass on. How wonderful this all is.

On the road

We shall be off in the morning - Danielle, Doru, Mina and I. Hence I shall bid farewell to readers for a week that, very likely, will fly past as good times tend to do - a flash of activity that leaves a happy memory.

The rolling mountains shall be as still waters to me, the springy meadows like a soft bed in which to sleep long and deeply, the tangled woods like strengthening food, the wide sky a draught of refreshing drink.

Now, to sleep so that I may be ready in the morning. My gear is packed (and what a pile it is!), vehicle and trailer prepared, Doru apparently fit, hay and feed awaiting. New horizons await, new trails, and new people. I am excited.

Friends in the forest

I wrote the text of this post back in 1994, when I was travelling on horseback from Transylvania eastward into Moldavia with a big bay gelding called Neagu. He was an sensible old horse, around twelve years old, a good thing as I had barely a year's riding experience at the time. It seems like another lifetime now, when I was younger and more idealistic, the world bright and new. Back then, like a teenager, I imagined myself to be universally welcome. Meanwhile I was the first foreigner encountered by many of the people whom I met en route. At the time, I had no idea that later I would spend eight years riding over the neighbouring mountains.

The photos are more recent, but show a similar horse, my old gelding Marcu, and quite similar terrain. Neagu was a little larger, and had to carry a greater load of luggage.

A thickly forested wall of mountains separated me from the Moldavian lowlands. I had to cross them, and asked my youthful host Ion for directions. Guided by his pointing arm, I set my course and followed the dusty road back up the tributary valley. Weaving a serpentine trail, the road climbed through a fragrant pine forest, winding ever upward. From occasional clearings views opened up behind, whilst the faint sounds of chainsaws drifted intermittently from far-off slopes. The village in which I spent the night lay straggling at my feet, framed by a steep valley wall to each side and a deep blue fragment of Lake Bicaz beyond. We trotted on, quite alone, appreciating the shade. And then the road entered a ragged clearing scattered with logging debris and abruptly ended. I hadn't missed a turning, nor was I neglecting a hidden exit behind bushes or a pile of lumber. It was a puzzle, as the road was even flanked by milestones up to that point. A sheep track led onto alpine meadows beyond and seemed to head in the right direction, so I followed it across the springy turf. Spurs of the mountain came down from a long ridge like ribs. I felt awash in an ocean of mountains, amidst great waves and billows of peaks, rich green receding to a distant blue-grey. Behind, the rocky Ceahlau massif reared above the far bank of Lake Bicaz, on either side the Stînisoara range extended, over my right shoulder lay the Tarcau where the writer Sadoveanu had imagined the shepherd Nechifor Lipan to live. To my left the most distant peaks marked the Ukrainian border, which ones I couldn't tell.

Coming to the far side of the high, empty meadow, a path enticed me into the forest. I hadn't expected beech so high, maybe five thousand feet up, above the Pines. The path quickly reached the crest of the ridge, bare rock showing through like bones and making the going tricky, Neagu's shod hooves clattering and scraping. It reminded me of a walk I'd once done along Hadrian's Wall as a student, when we'd seemed to go up and down all the time, stuck on the roller-coaster of the Whin Sill. Only Hadrian's Wall had a view, and here I was stuck under a great canopy. I began passing red spots daubed on the trees every hundred yards, so perhaps I was on a waymarked hiking trail, not that I saw a hiker or even a boot print. By comparison the English Lakeland paths were veritable thoroughfares. A vague suspicion whispered that we still climbed, however faintly, and still the ridge went on. An hour passed, two, three. It was like perpetual motion. Twigs cracked beneath Neagu's hooves, stones crunched, rock scraped. Slopes fell on either side at thirty degree angles. Neagu kept a slow steady trot, good horse that he was, and I wished to find him water. But it was as dry as a desert up there.

Abruptly the ridge ended at a pulpit of rock surrounded by a packed flock of trees, below which my path skirted briefly before plummeting. The canopy remained so thick that I could gain no clue regarding my course. The compass bearing was north-west, but in the absence of a good map that meant little. There was no way on but down: I breathed deeply, dismounted, and began my descent with Neagu in tow. Fresh planting of young pines had confused the waymarking, and there were just the barest hints that someone had been that way during the preceding months - the occasional broken branch, the odd forced gap. On the face of it, my position was precarious. I was traversing a fractured zone, an impassable tangle of tilting and fallen beech to my left, a dense mass of young fir to my right. The ground dropped away at thirty degrees, the soil dry and crumbly. A stream of pebbles tumbled past my feet, reminding me moment by moment that half a ton of horse was perched close behind on a scanty footing. I was conscious that I had no idea of what was ahead, other than that eventually I must reach the valley floor. Neagu was superb, and on that slope I really came to appreciate him. Neagu faithfully followed, his balance excellent. As the going got tougher he followed closer, putting his nose on my right shoulder. At one point he caught a foreleg in the V of a sapling and stopped dead, letting me lift his foot out of the trap, then followed again once freed. Thankfully - some horses would have panicked. Vegetation became so thick that at times I could see no further than a couple of yards ahead, no further back than Neagu's head and shoulders. The risk of precipices was real, and I lived by my eyes and intuition. On we went, forcing our way forward against the twigs and branches. After an eternity the silver of a stream glittered between hoary trunks, and then the light brown of a dusty trackway showed too. The last ten feet was the worst, a rocky plane falling at forty-five degrees, the path a mere crevice with a right angle bend half way down. I looked at it with some trepidation, recalling reading somewhere that horses burst when dropped, but Neagu gently nudged me. He was more ready than I, stepping down deftly after me. I had been in a quandary, wanting to get down fast in case Neagu slipped but equally having no desire to invite him to rush or panic. Neagu, of course, managed it beautifully.

I let a hungry Neagu graze a square of grass below that mountain wall, and then led him to find a drink. There wasn't a well, a pool, even a stream we could reach. The brook I had seen, enticing us through the undergrowth, now laughed from a deep cleft. The best I could find for Neagu was a cool clear trickle running from a mossy outcrop of rock, tumbling into mid-air from an overhang and splashing into a crevice. I cupped my hands and held them to catch the flow. Neagu pressed his nose sideways into the receptacle formed by my fingers, sucking at the crystal clear liquid. He drank for long minutes, his soft muzzle and ticklish whiskers gently pressing into my hands. And that gave me time to reflect how much more closely we had become bonded, and how little I deserved it.

The text is drawn from my book "Travels in an Unknown Country" which may, if you would like to read more, be acquired via Amazon or the Long Riders Guild Press.