I’ve been recapping on what I actually did to prepare for this trip. Coming soon, a few photos. Happy to give guidance to anyone else preparing. Just get in touch.

Riding Kit

Mostly* I wore my everyday hacking-out in the UK stuff and it did the job well out in Patagonia. So…

• Noble Riding Tights (love the thigh pocket for my phone, but the GPS was too heavy to live in there). I had all kinds of back-up tights to wear underneath to prevent rubs, but didn’t need them, as the sheepskins we had on the saddles were fab.
• Ariat Telluride Boots (waterproof, great for walking as well as riding) and paired with the right socks my feet never felt cold. Although a few riders were in lighter trainer-type trekking shoes with closed stirrups and I think they might be more comfortable in hot conditions.
• Shires suede half chaps – a budget option, years old, which have been around the world with me and repaired more than once.
• A Buff neck-thingie/hair-accessory and a cotton scarf (which doubled as a towel on more than one occasion)
• Musto winter riding coat – years old, re-proofed. Good for wearing and sleeping under.
• Musto Primaloft jacket a had a bit of a splurge on this one for the trip but WORTH EVERY PENNY. It packs up small and light into it’s own pocket and I kept it stuffed in a my backpack for when I needed an extra layer to keep warm. It is absolutely windproof and as it turned out, very comfortable to sleep in. The Musto clothing really is fabulous quality and fits me really well. I don’t go out intending to buy it, but it keeps being the best option.
• I wore a Troxel hat for this trip, it’s light, comfy and has air vents. Perfect for me on this trip.
• Roekle gloves. I was also given some MacWet gloves to try out and to take. Both would have been great. I just took my old favourites.
• Waterproof trousers – again, budget – found in them in the hall cupboard, they belong to one of the kids – wore them most days. Even though they aren’t thick they trap air and definitely kept me warm in the wind or in the bad weather during the first half of the race.
• Sealskins woolly hat (waterproof). I have a problem with their sizing – the large hat kept popping off my head, but that aside it was warm, kept my head dry in the bad weather at Vet Station 2 and my head warm at night in my tent.

*I had intended to take my Icebreaker merino base layers, but in the madness of packing for the trip and the unexpected heat in El Calafate managed to leave them behind and ended up borrowing a sports top from Annie – which I lived in. And which was fabulous. Thank you Annie! I also made an emergency waterproof jacket purchase in El Calafate – which I wore most days, even though we didn’t get lots of driving rain.

More on camping kit, food and stuff medical kit to come…

I made it back!

I did the race and I got out before Argentina went into lock down.

Thanks for all your support leading up to the challenge, your messages of support and knowing that you’d pledged money – I raised over £3000 for Autism Angels and Cool Earth! – kept me going through hard times.

WARNING – LONG READ…

Before I left the UK my life had become totally consumed with thinking about the race, what I needed for the race, practising and training and imagining scenarios that might happen in the race (thanks to lots of you who were part of this!). (How to get ready for a Gaucho Derby)

I travelled out to El Calafate and met the other riders, then as a group we travelled by truck up to start camp – an Argentine sheep station deep in the emptiness of Patagonia.

Of the 20 or so riders quite a number were in pairs or knew others in the group who were riding, for those of us taking the challenge on on our own I think we were doing a lot of figuring things out for ourselves. Or at least I was. We spent a couple of days getting our riding kit and pack saddles, trying it on random horses and weighing our personal items so we were ready for the start on March 5^th.  It was constant. We slept in a shed on camp beds. Our stuff piled on the floor around us.

Horses all wore numbered headcollars and competitors drew numbers out of a hat (an Argentine boina… cross between a beret and a flat cap) to see who they would start out with. I picked 2 sensible types, a typical dun coloured Gaucho horse and a more thoroughbred-type chestnut.

Those first days I planned to ride with a Canadian called Nichole. We camped with our 4 horses on night 1, half-way up a mountainside on a shelf big enough to be small paddock, were used local hobbles to keep our horses nearby. The following day one of Nichole’s horses decided to make a break for freedom and she had to wait at co-ordinates supplied by HQ for help. I had the choice to ride on to vet station 2 and remain in the competition or to stay with N.  It was an awful decision to have to make, but N was happy, the weather was good and I had 2 decent horses, so I decided to ride on to VS2 on my own.  

About 8 hours later, I had ridden through some of the toughest terrain I’ve ever been in, lost saddle bags with my sleeping bag, spare clothes and food inside, had to walk, scrabble and lead one horse at a time down a sliding slate mountainside, been stuck in a bog with a horse fallen on top of me, navigated goodness knows how far – crow flying gps distances bear no resemblance to the actual lengths of the wild rocky valleys we travelled), been blown around, rained, hailed and sleeted on, run, led and talked to my horses like a half-crazy person to coax them along into weather they resented and directions they did not agree with. Finally, just after 8pm as night fell I arrived at vet station 2.

It was great to see other people at VS2. I would have really struggled with just my tent and emergency rations in my backpack if I hadn’t made it. We were all there a little longer than planned due to bad weather. It snowed overnight and continued into a blizzard the next day… in due course we were joined by some other riders who had tried to get to VS3 but couldn’t. We dealt with our hypothermic arrivals, stoking up the fire and drying their sodden clothes. We shared food (I didn’t have any), tried to keep dry (a large chunk of roof was missing on our little ‘puesto’ – shepherds’ hut and so it was wet inside and out) and warm, I slept on a wooden bench in an emergency foil blanket in borrowed dry trousers. Our horses shivered outside in the snow. Others had an even tougher time of it and we discovered four were airlifted off the mountain with hypothermia.

After two nights in the puesto, HQ messaged to say that we should evacuate out the way we had come. So we used our numbed swollen fingers and hands to tack up the horses we still had – unsurprisingly some had banded together and had dispersed into the woods and down the valley. The raw-hide bridles were soaked through, in any case mine didn’t fit the chestnut and I rode in just the halter. We rounded up and were joined by our spare horses as we moved steadily past the lake and onto the wide bog-strewn valley floor, making our way back to Vet Station 1.

Amazingly my saddle bags were retrieved along the way and we all made it back. We even picked up Nichole’s horse who had made a run for it 3 days previously.

It was about now that I thought about stopping racing and just joy-riding-hanging-with-the-crew to the finish line. But there was nothing physically wrong with me. I just felt so pleased that I’d navigated to vet station 2 on my own with my two horses, and felt lucky to have made it out, that I thought maybe that was enough for me.

Not wanting to let down my good and generous sponsors, I got a good night’s sleep, had a word with myself and carried on.

On day 5, test-riding an Arab pulled from a hat, didn’t go as planned, as it became clear within seconds of getting on that I didn’t have any brakes. Being run away with over unfamiliar terrain at speed was not fun. I won’t go into the details, but I held on a fair while, and finally shuffled out of the side door and landed squarely on my back. The medics were fab and gave me lots of pain killers from that moment on right until the end of the ride.

By the end of the race the bruising – after another 5 days of riding and 5 nights sleeping on the ground – was just beginning to show, my lower back and bottom went black. Anyway, so creaking in pain, and with a right leg that didn’t now seem to work very well, I rode on. Some lovely competitors – some dealing with their own injuries – kept me company and kept me motivated.

Days passed. Riding, packing up kit, unpacking kit, eating great Argentine food at vet station camps and rubbish freeze-dried food at small mountainside night-stops. I wore my waterproof trousers nearly all the time so I didn’t get wet kneeling on the ground. I wore my jacket to sleep in. Walls or fences are so grossly under-rated here in the UK, I would so have loved either to be able to hang a saddle or bridle on something, anything, instead of hefting everything around from the floor to 5ft high horse. Time was either spent riding/leading horses up/down rocky mountain-sides, or grovelling around in the dirt on your knees putting up or taking down camp.

On the penultimate day I had linked up with a group of faster riders, we were all desperate to make the finish with one last hard push. We’d been told it was possible and we were going for it. As the lame duck of the pack, still suffering with my bad back, I had to work so hard to keep up – especially as I’d lost my gps and would be utterly lost myself if I didn’t keep up with the group. It wasn’t an easy route, we couldn’t find a way up and over the ridge and finally called it a day and camped by an isolated cattle coral. The following morning – buoyed up by the thought that this HAD to be the last day, I woke at 5 to make sure I was packed and had eaten something to get me through and ready for a 7.30am departure. It was a long long long way up.

After riding, walking and walking and scrabbling to crest the ridge for a few hours, at around 9am we crested the top – it was a special view of Mount Fitroy and the glaciers edging down the valleys dead head.

I’ll let you take a moment just to appreciate that. We did. Although apparently not long enough for me to get a good picture of myself and my horse, before we moved on.

Almost better than the view was, waaaaaay down, in the valley bottom to the South… a small town. I exhaled slowly, no matter what happened today, I was pretty sure I could find my way to civilisation now.

We ambled and ate Haribo down the other side of the mountain, following hoof prints that turned into cattle and horse tracks. Soon we were galloping through the lower slopes, meeting up with other riders, all making their way to the finish line. My horse was tired, so was I, he was whinnying to his four-legged friends to wait for him as we trotted and cantered a couple of hundred yards behind everyone else, just trying to keep them in view. Then all of a sudden, we broke through trees and saw the river, wide and fast-flowing. There were people on the other side, people I knew, recognise the shapes of their bodies and the colours of their jackets, relief flooded through me. It was over. I held back my tears.

Well obviously I had to cross the river, but that was no biggie, even if it went wrong, they’d see me and fish me out. Somewhere behind them was a hotel, with a bed for me and a shower. I wouldn’t ever have to drag myself and aching back into the saddle again if I didn’t want to.

The end.

Again. Take a moment. Exhale. Feel my relief.

I did make it across the river – and there was a hotel and a shower. But there wasn’t any relaxing or shopping or birthday celebrating (sorry, Chris Maude) (there was a bit of relief beer and wine drinking); it was almost immediately usurped by onward travel panic.

Anecdotal stories of cancelled flights, coronavirus shut down and militia on the streets in Argentina were scary and accurate. I cut my losses (specifically 5 days with friends – our planned post-race holiday in Buenos Aires) and went to the airport, was very thankful for my limited Spanish language skills, and managed to get a standby seat on a flight out of El Calafate and up to Buenos Aires, and after that another to Sao Paulo, then London and finally Manchester. Relief flowing through me with every flight I got on. It was incredibly good to be home. And now I am staying at home to save lives. And that is fine by me.  

Thanks for sponsoring me. And no, I won’t be doing it again.

Product testing has been going on for a while, but yesterday was the first day out of the packet for some very special MacWet Climatec gloves (as favoured by golf pros, endurance riders and other very special Yorkshire folk – superstar International Eventer Ollie Townend.)

Bob very kindly sent me a 7 and a 7.5 to try, and yesterday was windy and cold so I set off out for 3 hours in the 7s.

The elasticated velcro fasting is comfy and snug around the wrist and they are a great fit for my hand. I have for many years worn Roeckl gloves, but the fit around the fingers of the MacWet glove is even better.

So much so, I was able to completely tack-up wearing the gloves. Yes, even the fiddly nose-band and throat latch.

They’re excellent for riding in. Very comfy and I can feel that they’re shaping to my hand and I expect they’ll get better with more wears.

Yesterday was about 6 degrees and there was a cold wind blowing – but it wasn’t raining, so I haven’t been able to try out the famous MacWet grip in the wet conditions yet. I’ll post again and with pictures when I have.

I’m going to try the 7.5s today, to see if that little extra bit of air trapped between the glove and my hand keeps me any warmer.

So far so good MacWet – Thank-you and thanks Bob!

I was interviewed by BBC Radio York and BBC Look North this week.

Both were actually, A) a lot less stressful and B) a lot easier to pack for, than a 10-day horse-race across mountains.

Amy, Harry and all the crew at the BBC were all very lovely.

Good of them to have me on the programme – it was actually fun.

And they let me stay on the sofa right to the end, so I got to watch the weather live… like really, Keeley was just a couple of steps away reading the weather and waving her arms around (it’s not a blue screen, it’s actual maps with isobars and stuff). I sat very still and hoped I was out of shot. I wasn’t as it happens.

Media-stardom (and media-anxiety) over, I got back to the real world and wet feet of navigation training…

BIG thanks go to TREC Trainer Evie O’Keeffe (not pictured) for some great tips on riding and navigating, plus much needed reminders of how to use a compass correctly and to look at the map detail CLOSELY!

It also gave me a chance to re-test some kit.

The wind and rain stopping mahusive poncho does blow about in the wind but in lieu of anything better is coming with me.

The boots really do have a hole in them. (It didn’t matter so much in mud, but in water, I definitely got wet feet). So I’ve ordered a replacement pair.

And the water bladder in my backpack sprang a leak.

Better to know this kind of stuff now.

Remember – if you want to support me please visit my just giving page

Made it out on the errant and wilful Tilly again, first time in 3 days. The overreach injury on her heel is dry and looks to be healing well. I hope the mucking out exercise is making up for the lack of riding.

It was hard finding somewhere dry to take her, so we went up and down the cycle path quite a bit, as all the fields are completely saturated and boggy in all kinds of places.

Got some more Gaucho information today – definitely camping for at least half of the trip; and need to take own food – that’s something that definitely hadn’t registered before. Will have to reconsider what I’m taking how heavy it is etc. again now. Hence I’m writing this whilst eating half a sachet of packet of porridge with hot water poured on it. It doesn’t taste of much. Watery oats. Think the sugar in this packet must be in the half I’m not eating. I suppose you’d call this gruel. Ironic as it is a little gruelling. So aside from being a hot-ish liquid with floaty bits to chew, it isn’t something that is a particularly rewarding breakfast, although after a night of camping and if the other option was nothing then, I suppose it will be okay.

Add to list*: find better breakfast option, post camping and test it out with the jet-fuel burner stove.

The list of kit I need is still not ticked off;

• Warm (life-savingly warm) jacket
• Waterproof, lightweight, pull-on trousers
• TEST: neon beanie (will it keep my head warm?) (will it fit under my riding hat)
• More meals for camping days
• 2lt water bladder
• Waterproof jacket, with long enough sleeves!
• 3 or 5 point breast plate (for horse)
• Better breast harness (aka sports bra) (for rider)
• Ziplock bags
• Emergency firestarter box?
• Test gloves for leading (Add to list – Ride and Lead with Casper in new gloves this week)

 

*Make a list

So today I’m feeling a bit down. Tilly (my horse) was especially challenging (would not go into the horse trailer) at the weekend and after various tactics and helpers were recruited I ended up run-walking her all the way back in the dark, through the woods, by the light of my head-torch. Good training for me, but not good for being able to take Tilly training to places with actual hills in the future.

And it’s raining, and she’s hurt her foot so is staying in for a few days.

So, I thought cos it’s raining it would be a great opportunity to try out some of my wet weather gear… but because I can’t find the waterproof pull on trousers I didn’t go for a ride so it hasn’t turned out quite like that.

Or if I were to turn today into a positive I could say…

Whilst mucking out I’ve learned that my waterproof coat has sleeves that are a bit too short, and leave an inch of bare wrist exposed between cuff and glove, exposed to get wet and cold. I bought a couple of sizes bigger than I need, but this jacket only just goes around my shoulders when I’m wearing a jumper underneath. Hrmph.

Obviously I’d tried it on and worn it around the house a bit to test it out before cutting the tags off, (El Gaucho is nothing if not expensive* and it pays to try things and reserve the right to exercise one’s statutory rights). But evidently I wasn’t paying attention to the key points when I did so.

As most things I need to buy seem to cost £200+ (Garmin 64S, super-light waterproof tent, 4-season synthetic sleeping bag etc.)

So, with the ¾ length Rydale Emley JacketI thought I was onto a winner, it was in stock and a snip at £49 – which as far as all-weather long-length riding gear is a good price. Sad then that the zip up the neck is too tight, the tag I’d just cut off had been attached there and I should have realised in my trying on that it wasn’t the tag getting in the way that made that part uncomfortable, it was a design flaw. Hmmm. We outdoorsy-types like to be able to hide from wind and wet stuff by shrugging our shoulders, shrinking and snuggling our chins down into a fluffy generous collar area leaving just our noses peeking out to grab some air and sadly this coat only just allows for the thinnest of buffs underneath, definitely not a scarf and not a polo neck or a hoodie, and absolutely no shrugging down into dry-jacket-warmth.

So, if you’re a short armed, thin-necked, narrow shouldered person then perhaps this jacket is more for you than for me.

Oh, and you should have short hair. Because, yes, there’s a hood (another tick I thought), but no, once the hood is opened out the Velcro which normally keeps the hood pouch all closed up is exposed, just left on the outside doing nothing. Did I mention the neck was tight? So, imagine a slightly too-tight jacket collar around your neck, then imagine your hair (pony-tailed or just sticking out of the bottom of your woolly hat) as you bend forward to muck out or reach up to put on a bridle … yes, that’s right it gets stuck uncomfortably on the velcro. Winner. Not.

If anyone else has any other suggestions – I’m thinking an Alton Towers style £1 rainproof poncho? – to keep me dry within budget, then please do comment below.

Onwards.

 

 

*The cost of entry is one thing (best forgotten about), then there’s the flights (I’ve gone for an option with an 8 hour wait in Barcelona airport to keep the price down) and then there’s the kit – which as this is the stuff that you’re relying to keep you alive in the elements for 10 days you don’t really want to skimp on. Key to staying alive in whatever weather (pouring rain, gale force winds, hail, sleet and maybe even slow, freezing at night and potentially sunny and even hot by day) is the right kit. And by “right” as far as I can work out it has to

1. Pack up to the size of a thong
2. Weigh less than a pair of ten denier tights
3. Be completely windproof and waterPROOF (not water-resistent – that is for townies or people whose idea of a trip is going from their house to car when it’s drizzly to do a 2-hour drive with heated seats and kids with headphones and screens in the back)

I suspect kit, the appropriateness, price and suitability of which will be a recurring theme.