The Long Riders' Guild

Harry and Lisa Adshead are riding from their home in Wales to Jordan - and back!

This page has their earlier emails to The Guild.

Harry and Lisa contacted The Long Riders' Guild in November 2003. 

"Harry, myself and three of our horses are hoping to ride from our home in west Wales down into Europe and across to Turkey or hopefully Syria/Jordan (and back)...   We've been around horses long enough to know to leave our plans flexible!  While we have had in mind to do a ride like this for many, many years, and have done some 'long' trips here in Wales, we only discovered your site a few weeks ago.  It has been a wonderful resource and extremely interesting - thank you.  Cheers, Lisa and Harry."

29th January 2004

"I can't tell you what a help your site has been.  Jeremy James has contacted us and been very supportive and encouraging.  We have got the Custom Pack Rigging adjustable pack-saddle, which appears to be ideal.  Kelly from Custom Pack Rigging has been extremely helpful and generous with advice.  Cheers, Lisa and Harry."

18th May 2004

"Hi Long Riders!  Sorry, we haven't got a photo yet - but we are well on our way!  We have ridden down from our home in west Wales to Plymouth (400 miles most on open mountain or good bridle ways, very little on big roads).  We and our three horses, Hannah (pack mare extraordinaire), Audin (my riding horse) and Sealeah (Harry's) are all very well and very happy and waiting for the ferry to France.  Cheers, Lisa. "

The Long Riders' Guild has just received another email from this intrepid pair.

20th July 2004

"Since my wife Lisa  sent you a message about our progress from our home in Llandeilo in Wales
to Plymouth in England (approx 400 miles), we have ridden from the north west coast of Brittany, down to the Loire, up the Loire for a few days, then followed the Vienne and Creuse rivers up to the edge of the Massif Central.  We're now just on the border with the Auvergne region.  Will send an update soon!  Cheers, Harry."

31st August 2004

Another email has come in from Harry, with an update on their progress.  It seems like he and Lisa are doing well and having a fabulous time!

"After 1,400 fun-filled miles from home, we’re now down in the south east of France, not far from Montélimar in the Rhone-Alpes region. 

We had some great riding across the Massif Central in the Auvergne.  From the Puy de Dome we turned south for a while through the Parc des Volcans, across the high plateaux of the Monts de Cézallier and down to the beautiful Monts du Cantal.  After riding over the Plomb du Cantal (1855m) we turned east again, across Haute Loire and up to the source of the River Loire at Mont Gerbier de Jonc.  The good scenery continued through the Ardèche, as did the exceptional hospitality - being invited in for a five course dinner with red wine does wonders for the spirit after twenty miles in solid rain and some very near-miss lightning strikes.  We dropped down to the Rhone Valley, crossed the mighty river at La Voulte and rode up the other side through orchards dripping with peaches and nectarines.  Cheers, Harry."

 

As Harry and Lisa have ridden for more than a thousand miles, they qualify to become full Members of The Long Riders' Guild.  We bid them a hearty welcome!

 

21st November 2004

Harry and Lisa have been welcomed and helped by Italian Long Riders Antonietta Spizzo and Dario Masarotti.

Click on photograph to see (left to right) Dario, Antonietta, Hannah, Lisa, Audin, Harry and Sealeah.

Harry has sent another email to The Guild:

"We've just arrived at Orjahovo in Bulgaria after a ferry ride over the Danube from Romania.  I think my last message was from Italy - that now seems like a different world after the past three months through Slovenia, Hungary and Romania.  Slovenia was fantastic, beautiful mountains and the friendliest people you could imagine.  There's now a diary update about Slovenia on our website so I won't say anymore.  Hungary was a bit harder and a bit colder.  We didn't see the sun for a few weeks but there was some good riding along sandy forest tracks and across the grasslands of the Great Plain.  We crossed into Romania at Nadlac just before New Year and it has been an amazing experience - hard to believe sometimes that we were still in Europe.  Thanks to a very dry winter so far, we were able to cross the Carpathians on small dirt roads between villages and paths up and over ridges between neighbouring valleys.  Most of the other traffic on the roads was horse carts or bullock carts. 

Plenty of horses around so no problems finding horse food and our three companions are all going well (now over 3,000 miles from home).  We had a superb spell of weather through the mountains, cold at night but bright and sunny in the day and fantastic views of snow covered Transylvanian peaks.  The villages were medieval; hay stooks, pigs, geese, turkeys, ducks, carts, wells etc and beautiful houses with vine covered verandahs.  We had very warm welcomes everywhere and were given more cheese, sausages, eggs, jam, bread, milk and plum brandy than we could eat/drink/carry.  After the mountains, the weather turned bitterly cold for a spell, water freezing in buckets very fast, tent poles snapping etc. We also had a few worries in some places where we were warned about horse thieves.  That meant a couple of stops staying up all night - better to be a bit sleepy the next day than wake up and find our three companions gone.  Yesterday morning, we woke up to 4 inches of snow for our crossing into Bulgaria but luckily Audin, Hannah and Sealeah behaved themselves on the ferry and we had no problems at the border. Now looking forward to another few weeks in another country.  Better go now and learn some more Bulgarian words...

All the best,
Harry

Click here to return to Harry and Lisa's main page.

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