An Adventure with No Name

No Name, the horse that I was riding, finally stopped. I was still hanging on No Name, with both my arms tightly grabbed around his neck and my body hanging off on the right saddle in an awkward position. I looked at Alet, who arrived a second later on her horse, with polouring eyes, as if to gain some sympathy and also to ask “What next?”

“Chi, just let go!”

In a very Singaporean way, in my head, I immediately told myself, “Yah hor?!!!?” and felt really silly as I slowly lowered myself to the ground, and tried to rid No Name again.

I had requested for Alet to bring me and david for a two hour horse riding session. It was nice without riding with the tourists, as I could really experiment and learn how to control a horse, e.g. trotting and galloping. It was also great to have Alet around as she would also help to check my posture and commented on what I should really be doing. No Name is a very pleasant and easy to ride horse.

We went to the top of Cathedral Cave and actually tried to see the source of the waterfall. It was actually a really small stream that supplied water for the magnificent Cathedral Cave waterfall! Other than some individual antelopes, we also saw an entire herd of red hartebeast. I would estimate around 35 to 50 of them, including the really young ones.

It was my best animal sighting in Golden Gate so far.

When we were riding towards the valley, we saw around 12 to 15 young ones running up the slope away from us, followed by a group of adults. As the herd moved further up the mountain, we noticed four adults slowly walking cautiously up the slope towards the big herd, looking at us once in a while.

“Those are probably the alpha males,” Alet explained.

As we rode slowly towards the herd (not that we want to, but the trail is such that we had to), we could see that there was some confusion as to where they should now proceed – back to the valley or further up the mountain. After some thought, the herd decided to proceed towards the peak of the mountain. It was an amazing sight to see how they sprinted up the slopes with such energy! This time, the little ones were in the middle of the herd.

Wow! Have I mentioned that it was my best animal sighting in Golden Gate so far? =)

Thus, looking forward to return from Victoria Falls for another horse riding adventure with No Name before David goes back to Singapore!