Wednesday 29th June

A tumultuous night – we were in bed before sundown (10:30pm) and dad snored all night. It rained heavily and the guides were still sleeping (snoring) outside. I got a little bit of sleep, but not much. I was very grateful for the –10degree C sleeping bags got us though. I wasn’t cold at all.

If my bum and legs were sore yesterday, there’s no way to describe the lethargy I felt today. It was of course, worth the pain. Though I can’t help but thing how much more comfortable we’d have been in a 4WD ute.

Nutella on bread for breakfast and we were off. Through fairy harbouring forests and meadows of snow and wildflowers (think: the beginning of Hansel & Gretel before they meet the mean witch). A few ducklings/signets in the lake and lots more wild spring onions.

Lunch was 2minute noodles – we had to share 5 packets between 7 because we’d only bargained for 5 on our trip. We had an extra guide and some random deaf-mute who happily woofed down his food and jumped back on his bike to go home.

It was from our camp, a 25km ride home. And man-o-man did we feel it! The sun was hot and we were all worn to the bone. Nice as it was, it was no longer a holiday.

Closer and closer to home….. my horse – the wild fast one, doesn’t take much coaxing to get into a gallop. The transition from a canter to a gallop isn’t entirely smooth at the best of times and you have to be prepared to hold on for dear life.

I was prepared until we hit a bump, right on that transition mark. Wobbly in the saddle, I tried my best to remain IN the saddle. The force of him going forwards was too much to help me back INTO the saddle, even with all the strength I could muster.

He didn’t respond to my ‘slow down’ pulls on the reins (yeah, okay, they were definite life-depending-on-it TUGS) and I bumped completely out of the saddle, onto his neck. He freaked out and went faster. I’d accidentally let go of the reins so had no control. We were approaching the forest at galloping speed. My feet were still in the stirrups and I was still wrapped around his neck. The feeling I had was of pure and utter fear. Lots of people get hurt on horses. I had no helmet (I know, I know), I was galloping on the neck of a psycho horse with no reins and I was sure I’d end up flying over his head and being trampled.

Everyone else was plodding along behind as I had chosen to go faster. I had no one to help me.

I had to stop the horse but I couldn’t escape at all with my feet in the stirrups. To my surprise and with hardly any jiggling, my feet were freed from the stirrups and I could focus on finding the reins (with one hand because the other was focussing on falling off at pace of a bloody race car).

I fumbled around and got them in one hand and yanked. Doubled them over and yanked. Then yanked harder and harder and harder. Thank Christ – he stopped quite suddenly and I rolled off his neck onto the ground with the reins in my hand.

He was mighty pissed off and I was in total disbelief that I’d managed to come off him totally unscathed.

By this point, everyone had realised I was in strife and eventually made an effort to catch up to me. I had a bit of a tear up, mainly at how close I had come to being seriously hurt and how I’d somehow managed to get out of it.

After some deep breaths I was back on the horse and walking home. It couldn’t come soon enough.

Back to our ger – I had a cold shower and then some delicious pasta for dinner. Post-dinner I spotted a lady in her deel, milking her yaks. Dad and I went for a wander over to the yards. There were a few babies – so cute! The calves were penned and the females (heifers?) were in the big yard. She’d get a yak, tie its front hooves together, bring over her little seat and bucket, and milk the yak. Once she’d finished, she’d let the baby of that yak out to have a go at the remaining milk. The milk was SO thick.

She was quite friendly and let us just watch. Dad didn’t have a go at milking because he was wearing his last pair of socks with his sandals (faux pas) and didn’t want to dirty them. It wasn’t til we were walking back to our ger that he realised we could have just washed them…

The lady’s grandchildren came to help herd the yaks. Her grandson did the work and the 2yo granddaughter played. They boy wanted his little sister’s photo taken, so showed her how to pose. Hands by your side, no smile, feet together, looking straight at the camera. I showed her the photos – she loved it! So I took a video. She watched it 6 times before I took another. It took four videos to finally crack a smile out of her – it’s just not what’s done here!

The yaks had gone and the grandmother came and watched too. Dad was busy counting teeth in yaks to figure out how old they were.

There’s a group of people here – they were playing volleyball this afternoon and this evening they had a presentation. We’re sincerely hoping they don’t crank the karaoke tonight. We are SO tired!

I really surprised myself today. It was by no word of exaggeration the nearest to epic injury/death I’ve ever come. Here’s to hoping that’s the closest I’ll get. Because now a few hours after, I’m feeling fine and not dwelling at all. I handled the whole thing pretty well and still can’t believe I only broke a fingernail in the process.

Re: reindeer, we decided against it. It’d be like eating watermelon in winter. you know it’s not going to be very yummy and you know it’s not grown naturally  and has been trucked too many kilometres. But you eat it anyway. Today our morals won and we didn’t buy the winter watermelon. Supporting a cruel and unsustainable practice is not cool.