Steven and I have been dabbling with Super 8 film for over a year now, we love the richness and colour saturation that this vintage form of film creates. In August last year we took the Super 8 on a horse riding safari into the Masai Mara, Kenya, and this is the result. It’s a behind-the-scenes peak into one of our guided group rides that we offer every year to Kenya.
Enjoy.
I was privy to watch this documentary on ABC a couple of weeks ago and as an expectant mother, a person who craves the simple life and a lover of horses, this documentary really struck a chord.
Shot over four years, This Way of Life is an intimate portrait of Peter Karena and his family. Masterful in the saddle and Hollywood handsome, Peter lives by an internal code of values and honor largely lost in modern times. Though European, Peter was adopted into a Maori family and is Maori in all but skin. He is a horse-whisperer, philosopher, hunter, and builder, a husband and father. Despite seemingly overwhelming challenges, Peter refuses to compromise. In their early 30’s, Peter and Colleen have six kids and 50 horses. We follow them up into the rugged Ruahine ranges and down to their hidden beach camp. Against these isolated backdrops we explore family relationships, their connection to nature, their keen survival skills and their absolute intimacy with each other and their horses. Regardless of their hardships, the Karenas manage to never lose sight of the magic in the everyday. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the Karena children. Untamed and unafraid, the idea of risk is alien to them. To watch seven-year-old Aurora expertly ride a massive stallion bareback with no more than a rope halter asks us to reexamine our ideas of what children are capable of.
This documentary wraps around you like a warm hug and forces you to question life as you know it.
Watch the trailer here.
Mobile Menders
This article appeared in salt magazine, a Sunshine Coast lifestyle publication.
words & photos kate johns
The screaming child clings protectively to his mother’s back, wrapped in a dirty patterned shuka. The child’s hair is dreaded together with ochre-coloured mud. He wears no clothes except for a red beaded necklace below his belly button and one shoe; his skin is covered in dirt. His mother is a young Maasai woman with sad, almond-shaped eyes; her breathing is shallow and she’s painfully thin. Reluctantly, she hands over her child to the driver as the nurse discretely slides a cold stethoscope under her shuka.
The treatment room is on a remote, deteriorated dirt road in the East Laikipia district in Kenya where the nearest town is a six-hour walk and water, a three-hour walk. The medical supply cupboard is the back of a Land Rover.
The long-limbed woman takes the bottle of green liquid medicine accompanied with a packet of pills and listens to the instructions from the nurse. She opens a knot on the corner of her shuka, hands over a fifty shilling note and reaches to take her screaming child back.
The nurse has diagnosed the woman with upper respiratory tract infection, which can be fatal when coupled with AIDS. This is one of the most common illnesses found amongst the rural communities of Kenya due to their traditional living conditions.
I’ve been living and working at Borana Lodge for six months helping guide guests on horse riding safaris into the wilds of the Kenyan bush. Borana Lodge is a 35,000-acre property owned by the Dyer family and Nicky Dyer established and manages the Borana mobile health clinic, which treats communities in the East Laikipia district of Kenya.
In remote areas throughout Kenya there is a lack of government and non-governmental health care support for rural communities. More than 60 per cent of Africans reside in rural areas and there is a severe shortage of hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses to fight illnesses.
Fortunately, a handful of philanthropists have donated their time, money and hearts into establishing and running mobile health clinics to treat and more importantly educate rural communities.
I accompany Pauline Kawap, a trained nurse with a perfect smile and driver Jackson, a shiny, moon-faced counsellor on their once-a-fortnight visit to a Maasai community in Tassia. The community is forty kilometres from Borana, with a crumbling road in between. We creep patiently over huge rocks, sink into dry, sandy riverbeds, swerve fallen trees and stop on the side of the road to treat patients. One African mama shyly runs out from her manyatta, shushing her children away, when she hears the noise of the vehicle. Pauline secretly meets her behind the vehicle to inject her with a three-month contraceptive drug.
We arrive at our destination after travelling the forty kilometres in three hours. It’s early in the day and the sun is Tabasco hot: not even the vocal African birdlife is singing. Jackson and Pauline select the shade of a scrappy, olive tree and swiftly set up the make-shift treatment area. After a short time, the solitary, desert landscape with its salmon pink sand transforms into a colourful melting pot of people, donkeys, dogs and children.
The Maasai women squeeze together under the shade of the tree and the sounds of laughter, crying babies and the quick Maasai tongue echo across the land. The women are beautifully adorned.
I ask Jackson how the people remember clinic day with no calendars or diaries.
“A lot of them will count down from fourteen days since last time we were here. And we know a mzee (means old man in Kiswahili) who is respected in the community that often sends messages to this community to remind them,” says Jackson.
The first job for the morning is immunising the babies and children. An adolescent girl with a shy, downward gaze nurses her babe while her toddler bear hugs her leg and an older woman with a worn, tired face holds her tiny baby in a tattered cloth to her drooping breast.
A set of scales with a basket is set up on the ground to weigh the newborns and enter their details in Pauline’s register. Jackson takes a week-old squealing baby girl and carefully balances her in the basket.
As the sun shifts we move the table and chairs to follow the shade. Pauline and Jackson work tirelessly into the afternoon as the steady flow of people continue to line up.
A middle-aged woman with a baby on her hip starts speaking loudly at me in Maasai. Jackson translates for me.
“She says that they need mosquito nets here, the malaria is very bad. She said a western woman once promised to send mosquito nets but she never kept her promise.”
I promise the woman that I’ll bring the community mosquito nets even though I’m leaving the country in less than a week.
Throughout the day, Pauline and Jackson treat a variety of illnesses including eye infections amongst the children, malaria, upper respiratory tract infections and worms.
The last patient is treated as the sunsets behind the acacia trees and an amber glow haloes the sky. In total more than a hundred people were treated in the day – a remarkable effort considering the facilities and that there was only one nurse available.
A promise kept
Seven months after my initial visit to the mobile clinic I returned to the same Maasai community in Tassia and delivered over 200 treated mosquito nets.
photography by kate johns & steven pilcher
Can you imagine a time where mates were called Clancy and Banjo? The rivers shimmered with gold, and whiskey and tobacco were traded from bullock carts on the river flats; your life’s possessions consisted of a mountain pony equipped with saddle, bridle, oilskin, stock whip and swag.
Work was chasing cattle up rocky-edged mountain spurs within the heart of the alpine country in Victoria, Australia where the weather resembled a tempestuous lover, mesmerising one moment and unforgiving the next. It is home to valleys dense with Mountain Ash and Kurrajong, where mobs of wild-eyed brumbies reigned and dingoes cried lonely at night.
This is country where the echoes of Banjo Patterson’s poem The Man from Snowy River floats from the high mountain ranges and flows deeply through the alpine rivers.
It should be a rite of passage for any Australian worth their salt to mount a plucky mountain pony and ride deep into the Snowy Mountains. I road-tested this five day, four night ride in April two years ago and I’ve been sending keen globetrotters to Victoria’s High Country ever since with rave reviews. Michael Watson has formulated a riding itinerary dripping in early-settler history while replacing the swag and feral rabbit stew with comfortable beds and gourmet food.
Here are some photos of the ride – enjoy -
The experience of riding alongside mountain cattleman Graeme, whose forefathers pioneered the High Country, is thrilling. Tailing behind a mob of cattle, albeit small, one can grasp for a brief moment the life of a cattleman.
At one point where the river was wide and shallow we kicked our horses into a canter upstream. Shoulder to shoulder the horses plunged and leaped within the knee-deep water, resembling carousel horses in fast forward.
We passed through wide-stretching river flats named after the pioneering days: Wares Flat, Whisky Flat and Tobacco Flat.
We crossed the Howqua River up to sixty times in one day, which is the lifeblood of the valley ducking and weaving like a python squeezed between the mountain ranges.
Graeme Stoney greeted us on a gunmetal grey stock horse gelding, rabbit felt hat tipped at the front and stock whip slung over his shoulder.
The Howqua River is the fastest flowing river in Victoria and her waters are clear enough to see the riverstone bottom,resembling a glass coloured marble set.
Every meal was a gourmet feast of the highest standard that would put any reputable restaurant to shame.
“And the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are, and the Stockhorse snuffs the battle with delight.”
A.B (Banjo) Patterson
With the Boxing Day release of War Horse into Australian cinemas, I thought it was appropriate to compile a list of the best horse movies of all time and get your views on the topic. I’ve yet to watch War Horse, I saw the preview and instantly burst into tears when Albert the teenage boy is told that the horse Joey is being sent to war. I have a track record of crying hysterically when watching equine movies.
Here is a list of some of the best horse movies of all time – in no particular order.
4. Sea Biscuit
5. Black Beauty
6. Secretariat – The Impossible True Story
9. Hidalgo
10. Dreamer
11. Running Free
Be warned: crying, snivelling, bawling & howling is guaranteed in all of these horse movies.
Are there any horse movies I’ve missed?
My beloved corduroy bombachas, perfect for winter riding.
Ever since I was a little girl being ferried into the Dalby Pony Club while listening to Macca on a Sunday morning on the radio I’ve had a akward relationship with jodhpurs. Let me explain, I wasn’t a bean stalk of a child like the ‘My Little Pony’, horse loving posse of friends that I had. Side-note: My beautiful grandma, Marnie, used to describe me as ‘big boned’ which I now interpret as a polite way of saying ‘chubby’. So the beige jodhpurs that were prickly and scratchy from horse hair didn’t complement my ‘big boned’ figure to say the least. Fast-forward twenty years, during that time horses (and thankfully my jodhpurs) were sidelined with five years of boarding school, a university degree and a 9 month jaunt to Europe. In my mid-twenties I returned to horse riding and the dreaded beige jodhpurs.
Thankfully, I had slimmed down since my Pony Club days and wearing jodhpurs didn’t expose my lardy bits like they once did. However I’ve never once found them comfortable to ride in. They were either too hot, too sticky, too short, too long or too crotchety! I dabbled in wearing jeans with half chaps but newly washed jeans resemble cardboard making it incredibly difficult to lift your foot into the stirrup. Not to mention riding in 40 degree plus heat in jeans – you feel as if you’re legs are in their very own sauna.
There is a happy ending to this tale of woe. When riding and working in Argentina in 2006 I discovered ‘Bombachas de Campo’ which are worn by the country folk of Argentina in particular the gauchos for riding and estancia work. They are the ‘ducks nuts’ in terms of riding trousers and are used by both men and women across Chile and Argentina. The pants are 100% cotton, sit on your hips (No Harry High Pants in sight!) and come in a range of fabric thickness depending on what you need.
Trust me: I have a cupboard full of bombachas that suit a range of terrains and climates. I have summer bombachas that are made from a thin, durable cotton that are lightweight and cool, I have another pair made from a thicker thread for riding in Kenya where you need a tougher fabric to fight against the hook thorns and I have a corduroy pair that are perfect for winter. And I play polo in a white pair of bombachas that have polo sticks embroidered above the pockets.
I generally buy the men’s because I prefer my bombachas to sit on the hips rather than the waist and also the women’s style generally have embroidered flowers on them which isn’t my cup of tea.
Front and back pockets
And the good news is you can buy your Bombachas online through Arandu, a well known Argentinean saddlery. I would love to hear your jodhpur story, feel free to share.
My well-loved and well-worn Chopper Bag.
After notching up a myriad of horse riding safaris to my belt, I’ve discovered the perfect bag to pack my safari kit into. There is no point taking a sleek, black suitcase equipped with wheels and its own micro-chip when on safari. Quite often, your luggage will be heaved and squeezed into 4WD’S, fixed wing planes and balanced precariously on top of heads throughout your journey. In these circumstances a suitcase with all the bells and whistles, that has no squash factor and gets bogged in gravel and performs spontaneous wheelies in the mud is pointless and often laughable. I discovered the Chopper Bag made from an Australian company called Dominant Leather Goods (the website isn’t much chop but their bags are) and since then I’ve never looked back. The bags are made from 12 oz waterproof canvas with chrome leather base and handles, they’re fully lined with a 9 oz waterproof canvas and have a leather buckle as extra security to the zip. They’re surprisingly deep (I’ve managed to squeeze a Masai chair into my bag) and they are durable while being ‘Out of Africa’ stylish.
My safari horse Samurai, a real trojan throughout the ten day safari.
The Namib Desert, the oldest desert in the world. Spare safari horses roam ahead, eager to reach camp.
Our guide Waldi, leads the way down a rocky mountain pass before reaching the desert.
It was a remarkable season for the desert. At times the desert plains resembled ripe, golden wheat fields.
One of the safari horses rolling on dusk.
We’ve just completed the longest day of the ten day ride – 72 kilometres on horseback – we left at 7.30 this morning and arrived into camp at 5.15pm. I’m slouching in a camp chair nursing a chilled cider watching a fiery African sun slip beneath the horizon. Pure Bliss. Every moment of every day these safari horses prove themselves beyond all expectations. Their endurance and stamina is mind-blowing, hard as rock feet scaling stony hillsides like mountain goats. My safari horse is called Samurai, he’s a bay gelding, I’ve adorned his bridle with a vulture feather and is one of the best safari horses I’ve ever ridden. He’s a great walker, fast in a gallop ( we won the bareback beach race on the last day of safari), sure footed and sensible, I would love to take this horse home and add him to my polo pony string.
Waldi our guide told us we were extremely lucky crossing the desert today due to the gentle breeze that cooled our brows and tickled beneath our armpits. The desert grass was snow white blanketing the salmon sand, at times it resembled a ripe wheat field rather than a desert.
To learn more about this ride click here or to see more photos of this ride click here.
Photos by Kate & Steven Pilcher.
My father forwarded this youtube video link onto me, and I’m so glad he did. It demonstrates a cherished relationship between Shag-Ra, a flighty Arab and his owner Phyllis Olson who had lost faith in the world. I had tears sliding down my cheeks when I first watched this video. So very special.
“This is just like a fairy tale – it really is.”
Phyllis Olson
“A Mongol without a horse is like a bird without wings.”
