It always seems impossible until it's done

Our last night on the steppe was freezing, the fire had gone out during the night but I woke up excited to start the day. Our last time stuffing all our gear back in our bags, attaching our saddle bags securely to the saddles and having rice pudding for breakfast. I'd actually started to enjoy the sweet rice/milk soup that we got but I was craving some fruit and fresh vegetables. Two more legs to go! We had already chosen our horses the night before. We took two bay horses that the herders recommended, again, I got a slightly smaller horse but he seemed eager.

The first part of the leg was beautiful, we rode through a gorgeous valley. It was early so it was still cool but the sky promised a nice final day of riding. A herder was on his way to check his cows and a family waved at us from the old campervan they were driving down the rode. We followed the trail up the hill with a beautiful view of the next valley. That’s where it got confusing. We rode down into the valley on a road that seemed to curve away from where we wanted to go. We had promised ourselves we wouldn’t take any risks today: we weren’t going to get injured on our last day of riding. A herder rode up to us on his bike, gesturing wildly towards a few gers. It seemed like he was trying to tell us where to go but we weren’t sure if he was a part of the Derby or just some guy who wanted to feed two lost riders. After some debate, Esther convinced me to listen to the herder and we left the road to ride cross-country towards the gers.

Thankfully my horse seemed really sure-footed and there weren’t many marmot holes so we cantered along at a steady pace until we hit another trail. We rode past herds of sheep and cows and ruins that could have been a church. At one point we saw a car stopped with someone holding a horse next to it. We thought for a second that it was Mike, who might have stayed the night on the steppe after leaving HS27 late, but it turned out to be a herder. We continued towards the station, but it wasn’t the easiest leg to navigate. At one point we saw Tag, Katie, Francis and Catherine to our far left. They had taken a totally different route from us. Just when we were debating whether or not to change course, some of the crew showed up in a van and pointed us in the right direction. By this point Esther’s knee got really bad but she pushed on and we made it to the station around 9.30.

All through the race, we were told that the last leg was a really short one so we could sprint to the finish. As with a lot of things, nobody seemed to know exactly how ‘short’ it was. At one point we heard 15 km but it turned out to be a little over 25 km. It was a frustrating last stretch. The vet told us all we had to do was ride around the bog and stay in the valley. That proved a lot harder than we thought. We ended up in the marshland, which really slowed us down. We took the time to enjoy the scenery and chat about country music. Suddenly, we saw Catherine, Francis and Tag cantering up on our right. We figured they must have found a trail so we rode towards them but it turned out there was no trail there either, just more bog. The sense of urgency returned as we tried to get to a trail and after crossing a little stream, we finally found one. We all cantered together for a bit but Esther and I tried to stick to our 15 minute schedule when the other three slowed down, so we rode ahead.

My horse for the last leg was a big, strong grey that wouldn’t listen to me trying to steer but seemed keen enough to go. He was very comfy and had a nice stride. Unfortunately the bog had made him tired and the last few kilometres it was hard to keep him cantering. Of course the last part of the leg was the hardest, as always. We kept seeing gers in the distance that we thought must be the finish camp but they never were. We almost went up into the hills, but remembered the advice not to leave the valley. We were unsure which trails to take and our horses were tired. This was definitely not a sprint to the finish but rather a repeat of the entire race, which seemed fitting. We gave our horses a little break and walked a bit so we could canter them across the finish line. We didn’t see the actual finish camp until we were about 500 metres away from it, it was just over a hill. Our canter turned into a walk as our horses were scared of the finish flags but we crossed the finish line hand in hand at noon. After ten days of crazy weather, crazy horses and crazy adventures, Esther and I had finished the longest, toughest horse race in the world!