Libby Price once again shares her riding holiday experience with EQ

Where were you when Hawthorn beat Geelong in the Grand Final?

I was having an experience far more incredible, astonishing, and unbelievable.

Me … and seven other women. Alone together on a ten thousand hectare game reserve, on the bushveld of the Waterberg near Nylstroom, three hours drive north of Johannesburg.

When I told the editor of this magazine, Annie Lever, that I was going on yet another horse riding holiday, she scoffed, ‘Most riders couldn’t think of anything worse! The last thing most pro’s would want to do is spend more time with them on holidays’. But that’s the beauty of horses, yes, being an obsession; but a hobby and not a career.

So put together seven great friends, all on horseback, on a game reserve in South Africa with no other tourists and two very learned guides, and you have the holiday of a lifetime.

This is now our fourth horse riding holiday. Not all of us make it every time, but most of us do. So far we’ve done crossing the North Island of New Zealand, the Great Australian Cattle Drive, crossing the Andalusian mountains of Spain (on Andalusian horses of course) and now, and by far the most exciting and exhilarating, the Dinaka Game Reserve.

We’re all very close to or over 50, so we’ve had enough of roughing it too much and chose Dinaka because it’s very civilised. Beautiful African style thatched roof cottages accommodating two people each, nestled on the banks of a superb dam. The view across the reserve was astonishing and ever changing. There was always something to watch: various antelope grazing, ostriches guarding their chicks, warthog snuffling through the undergrowth, springbok having an afternoon kip in the shade. The small lake was even home to several hippopotami for a few days.

What really made Dinaka the most extraordinary experience is the fact that it’s a maximum of just eight tourists on horse back, with two guides and the wildlife: and these really are wild. Because there’s not busload after busload of tourists driving around the reserve every day, the animals are unused to humans. So they take a fair bit of tracking down, and a little while to get used to the horses as well.

The advantage of being on horseback is the riders can let their horses graze alongside the wildlife, which tends to make all the animals relax. The main problem is containing the human exuberance and desire to shout, ‘Oh my God, look at that!’

The days start early as the animals are most active at sunrise and sunset, not in the heat of the day. We were at Dinaka in September (yes we watched the Grand final on TV one lunchtime!) so it’s just before the wet season starts. Dry, hot and dusty. We spend a few hours riding in the morning, returning home for lunch, siesta and then an afternoon ride starting at around 4:00pm and going ’til dark.

The Game Reserves in Africa tend to specialise in two or three of the so called ‘big five’ of Africa: lions, elephants, rhinos, cape buffalo and giraffe. Or is it hippos and leopards? Anyway, Dinaka doesn’t have lions or elephants. For that we went to another game reserve: Entibeni. It is a stunning setting with a landscape that reminded me very much of the Kimberley in Western Australia. But this is a reserve that has several jeep loads of tourists doing game drives at any one time.

The wildlife is far from wild, although the guide would disagree about the lions. Of course it was me who threw caution to the wind and stood up in the back of the jeep to take photos. Not even a threatening roar from the lion put me off. But the shouts, ‘will the lady in the back of the jeep please sit down’, did!

The rhinos were enjoying a nice sunbake on the hot bitumen road and didn’t even bat an eyelid as we stopped to take photos. Which reminds me, if you’re going to Africa, treat yourself to a decent digital camera and take plenty of memory cards!

Quite frankly, the Entibeni reserve, stunningly beautiful as the landscape was, just didn’t have the same magical feel about it as Dinaka and having to track the animals on horseback and to join the real world of wild animals.

One thing that amazed me was how quiet it was. I expected to hear the huge animals crashing through the bush. But the giraffe and rhino lead a very quiet and peaceful life with few predators to trouble them. I’m not sure which was my highlight. Was it watching two male giraffe trying to assert dominance by alternately thrashing at each other’s neck, so it’s literally ‘neck to neck combat’? Was it cantering around a comer to find ourselves in the middle of a herd of galloping wildebeest and zebra? Or was it an evening barbecue on the bushveld alongside a family of rhino who seemed more curious about our loud singing and drinking than we were of their evening delights!

The most dangerous animal in Africa, the hippo, which kills more humans a year than any other, were a lot harder to see. They spend most of their time in the water, coming out only in the cool of the evening to eat. We were quite happy to stand on the banks of the dams 20 metres away from the hippo family with presumably daddy hippo watching our every move with a very threatening glare. They are however, the noisiest of the animals on Dinaka after the ever-chattering baboons. To witness a hippo open its huge jaws literally 180 degrees to let out an almighty hippo ‘bark’ is something to behold.

Another rarity at Dinaka are the ‘albino’ blesboks. Blesbok are one of the more common antelope, but they’re usually similar colours to the springbok after which the Rugby team is named. Dinaka has a herd of white blesbok, that although called albino, aren’t strictly so as they don’t have pink skin and eyes. We also saw many eland, the largest african antelope, hartebeest, duikers, impala (one of the most common deer), the large eared kudu and of course the blue gnus, or wildebeest.

The rhinos at Dinaka are the renowned white rhinos. Again, strictly speaking, they’re not white, but rather have whiter lips than the black rhino.

You’re probably thinking, enough about the wildlife, what were the horses like?

Most of them are part ‘boerperd’, the local breed preferred by the ‘boer’ or Dutch immigrant farmers. They’re not unlike a whaler or stock horse and very hardy, though some were very lacking in the shoulder and a bit light behind, but good for the job. I have to admit many had pretty uncomfortable canters, which took a fair bit of getting used to and I was the only rider to fall off!

Barry Roycroft will be laughing. I have a reputation for unplanned dismounts and have broken the record for the most number of falls per person in a Barry Roycroft lesson. So it’s hardly surprising, just a little embarrassing as I was the most experienced horsewoman in our group.

So, did I fall when my horse was charged by a hippo, startled by a giraffe or attacked by a zebra? No, I fell when my horse stopped at a logjump on the custom made cross-country course! I did a very slow motion dismount via my boerperd’s ears.

The saddles also took some getting used to. The fibreglass tree trail riding saddle is a favourite in South Africa. It was a very high pommel which was a great handle for either hanging onto during a bumpy canter or putting the reins over to facilitate frantic photography. They’re a little wide in the gullet and hard in the seat, but we had very few saddle sores considering we spent seven days in the saddle. And the horses were all pretty well educated and responsive. There’s always going to be one with a hard mouth, one that’s lazy, one that keeps tossing its head. Horses across the world develop bad habits. These had fewer than most.

It wasn’t just walking along dusty tracks. There was plenty of picking our way delicately through the African acacia, which are similar to the acacia here only with thorns up to ten centimetres long! We crossed several watercourses and climbed up many a stony slope to try to get closer to the baboon who were noisy but shy, and the even shyer mountain zebra.

It was wonderful to dismount each evening, hand the horse over to a local groom to collapse on the veranda with a gin and tonic to watch the sun go down before tucking into another wonderful home cooked meal, itself another adventure as all the meat was local game, everything from imapala lasagne to blesbok steak and warthog schnitzel.

Now we just have to decide where to go to next. It’s going to be damned near impossible to beat the Africa experience.