Be Professional. Look Cool.

02/12/2025

Much much works gone into having vet friendly horses. Bloods done, vaccines up to date, 100% vet clear and both boys as healthy as Italian pizza store cockroaches. As usual we show their condition, hide nothing, nor the fact they are without rugs, choose not to use shelter, and spend their days grazing in the snow or munching unrestricted on organic hay.

And… as usual, I’ve got Karen’s commenting garbage. But meh, we know full well they’d be lucky to last 24 hours doing what we do if that, and a horse as tough as these bastards is a rare gem in a world of mollycoddling and “feelings”. It “might” bother me if I felt finances or location held us back from giving these boys the best in life… but… the boys health proves the haters wrong.

02/12/2025

We’ve ridden a lot of Europe over the last few years and the pins on maps me only hint at what we’ve covered. Our gear is better than ever, we have BAD ARSED horses, and I’m currently trying to convince Luisa that we go out for 120 days this year. But it’s never that simple, especially coming off a dam near flawless ride given the challenges we faced.

The big issue is timing. Summers fine up high, but brutal down low “IN PLACES” and grass and water make or break a ride. I’m not afraid of the cold, but the heat is hard on the horses who do better in the cold anyway. And timing the start means we will hit areas we just “have to cross” that suck and chew up the horses, time, and money. So… what to do?

Ok so we have reached a point where our ability, our gear, and our horses are of such a standard I think it would take a pretty bold Karen to call us on our ability to ethically complete 3,000+km in 120 days. But we are still broke as FAAARRRRK and bleed about 2000€ a month in rent and insurance before we even think about a budget for the road.

So… I think we need to be smart, and truck the horses a few little hops between sexy sections. I’d love to cross from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic bouncing along between Spain and Frogland. Why? Because it’s CHEAP. But that leaves us way way way far from home. Then maybe truck up to Holland and ride the Ardennes and Black Forest? I dunno… I just feel we are dumb not to knock off these epic locations before digital IDs and more modern s**te takes the last of our freedoms.

Thoughts?????

02/12/2025

WHY KAZAKHSTAN IS AWESOME… and we still haven’t got to the horses yet!

Kazakhstan feels like it should be scary and dangerous… but it’s not. Almaty is just UNBELIEVABLE in how modern and western it is. It’s like a suburb of Switzerland with mountains and s**t and yet… Kazakhstan. If you want to do a fully sick ski trip consider Almaty for its 11€ hotel rooms that would cost you 400€ in Switzerland.

There’s old Soviet stuff, and then… modern stuff. It’s absolutely safe, DIRT CHEAP and world class beautiful. Sure… the PM is a bit of a loose unit and there’s a few issues but overall it’s crazy how awesome Kazakhstan is. It’s COMPLETELY SAFE COMPARED TO EUROPEAN CITIES.

Paris after dark… yeah nah I’m good. Almaty after dark… no seriously, you ARE SAFE!

Forget the word “Stan” for a minute and start googling what’s on offer. Look at the price of a flight, then look at the cost of doing that stuff elsewhere. Kazakhstan RULES!

01/12/2025

LOTS of testing and development but we’ve got our FINAL version of our Cavalry Saddles ready for next years ride. These are really similar to what we’ve b en using all along, but these are simply a more “bare bones and go fast” version. When I say this is EVERYTHING I mean that exactly. They are both under 20kg including the saddle blankets, stove, cooking gear, rain gear, warm gears, power banks, tent, sleeping bags, tethers, HOOF CARE! This is EVERYTHING except water and food and that generally is a MAXIMUM of 5kg. This puts Luisa at 80kg +/- in the saddle and me at 90kg +/- and these are not “I’m a hero on Facebook” weights, they are REAL and even includes my fishing rod, my med kits, EVERYTHING! It’s almost like… I’m planning an epic ride for next year… 🤔 hmmm

01/12/2025

Luisa and I want to use the best gear we can, and that’s meant making most of our own gear and testing things to not just destruction, but repairing it on the road and then pushing it further still. During these repairs we discovered just how good a piece of electrical tape glued down with superglue can be. I also find it to be the best way to seal seams too, much better than seam tape or the paint on stuff.

01/12/2025

Do any of you guys follow this guy and if so what are your thoughts? I keep most of my opinions about other riders to myself and acknowledge all of the challenges and hardships a life on the road present. Some journeys are selfish, others selfless. Some are all about Instagram likes and “followers”, some are about connecting with others old school and face to face. But whatever your reasons, I think you must have the means and knowledge to care adequately for yourself and your horse. I think we need to be VERY careful not to give long riding an image of “ride your horses into the ground” and sadly there just so many rides I know off that have DESTROYED horses 🤦

Looking for a mule to replace this mule in the picture. She's a Belgian draft weighs close to 1400 lbs. Stands 16 hands tall. 24 years old.

01/12/2025

KAZAKHSTAN AND ITS WOLVES!!!

Firstly, when I think of wolves I think of an overweight woman in her 50s that owns cats, is single, who wears sloppy Tshirts with Native American designs including a wolf howling at the moon with dream catchers and s**t. Because it’s always someone like this who refers to wolves as their “spirt animal” and knows everything about wolves because she’s “watched a documentary”. Lady… you don’t know S**T about wolves!

Ok so wolves absolutely fu***ng kill people. You just don’t hear about it. For example, in just ONE village on Gaudalcanal we killed a croc that had eaten THIRTEEN CHILDREN THAT YEAR! Did you hear about that? Nope. Didn’t even make the local paper because that’s just life there. And for much of the steppe, if you get p**s drunk and fall over in the snow you become wolf s**t. Not only that, my mate in Mongolia lost his grandkids to a wolf. They were looking after the goats and a wolf came off the hill going flat out over the snow, they ran, and before he could get his gun both kids were red stains on the snow. These are NOT Disney wolves, they are real.

So anyways… Kazakh steppe is epic. It’s just empty at a glance, but so full of life in reality. We’d found a beautiful lake to camp by, and hid in a sheltered fold of land behind it where the grass was better. As the sun set, Luisa tended a small fire by the tent as she prepared dinner, and I checked the horses. As I turned back towards Lu… we both heard a gentle “whooshing“ noise on a par with say a swan flapping its wings as a mercury silver disc “think CLASSIC UFO” went straight over Lu and my horse at a height of no more than 35meters and hit the horizon in a second. Now do the math… as you can see, visibility is perfect. So it covered a MINIMUM of 5km in my visual range in a second. So… it was hypersonic and yet no sonic boom??? It was IMPOSSIBLE to film even if I was aiming dead on it, and Lu simply looked up and said “what was that?”

No s**t. That was 100% alien technology or some reverse engineering from it.

So we go to bed, and Luisa sleeps like a kid after a play date at McDonald’s, but I was restless… oh I dunno why… maybe because A FU***NG UFO JUST FLEW OVER US! Anyway, horses get restless to and as I notch an arrow on my bow and try and wake Luisa I consider my options for self defence against a grey alien. The horses start making some real noise, so I give up on Lu and her dog who is now hiding at the bottom of her sleeping bag and consider the possibility of being the first dude ever to get a confirmed alien kill with a 55lb Mongolian horse bow.

Head torch on, I step out and begin to check the horses only to immediately catch the grey ghosts of the steppe right at the end of the torch’s reach. Fu***ng wolves, 3 of the bastards all around 50-60kg standing over 1m at the shoulder just waiting for the last of the campfire to die before striking. Wolves present a near impossible target for the bow, but I did stick one with a dart at another undisclosed location only to have the horse killer promptly run into an unrecoverable location. So, somewhat disappointed I didn’t get to kill an alien, I stoked up the fire, and retired knowing the ghosts knew full well there was an armed hunter all to eager to skin anything that entered his camp.

Just another day in the adventures of Pete. Hot German side kick, big b***s, a shaved head with Bluey the cartoon dog and I’m off trying to kill aliens and wolves with arrows 🤣😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣

30/11/2025

KAZAKHS!!! The nicest of all the Steppe people.

Kazakhstan is full of GOOD PEOPLE. It was, and also felt… SAFE. Everywhere we went we were welcomed in, fed until we could eat no more, and were CARED FOR. These people are the best, but make SURE you stay with KAZAKHS. Because Kazakhstan has other ethnic groups. Namely… Russians and Afghans…

So… we were in a coal mining district and it looked SKETCHY AS F**K. We clipped the edge of it, got a bad vibe, got the basics, and disappeared into the steppe finding a nice fold of swampy land that hid us and the horses from view. We needed an iPhone cable because although we can put a man on the moon “allegedly” we can’t make an iPhone cable that lasts 6 fu***ng weeks! So… the following morning I ran the 3km in to find one.

It went ok, a black BMW stopped, offered me a ride and took me to a shop where I got the cable. He then offered me vodka and said to come drink at his place. So… I did. Only to find myself now drinking with the local Russian mafia who had been kicked out of Russia for being to violent. No s**t, these guys did 40ounce bottles in 3 swigs then started playing with an M249 light machine gun captured from a dead US grunt in neighbouring Afghanistan. So, in a cigarette hazed Soviet era apartment building I’m smoking ci******es and chopping vodka with the mafia and I think… huh… might try and ease my way out of this one. So I go for a p**s in the courtyard… and just gap it.

I’m flying down the road on foot when I see the black BMW heading after me only to have an Afghan say “mafia, quick, in my shop.” So yeah… I’m now p**s drunk hiding from the mafia in an Afghan veggie shop. He says… come for lunch, I’ll keep you safe. So… 5 mins later he’s cutting up w**d on a 1984 pl***oy featuring Madonna as the centre fold. We do some bucket bongs as he tells me all about his time fighting the Americans and how sad he is that the mafia stole his machine gun. Ok cool… so I went from vodka with the mafia to bucket bongs with the Taliban. Noice… also… f**k.

So we went to lunch, and midway through his wives started having a massive fight. One looks at me and says… RUN. So yeah, I’m going to be on Aljazeera tonight 🤦 F**k it… I grab my bag and gap it. I make the steppe with a black bema and a swarm of Lada nivas following and cut through the roughest land I could so they would have to follow on foot. Remember… I am still P**S DRUNK and very very very high. I start doing fish hook shaped escape and evasion manoeuvres and at one point used my hands as pretend binoculars while saying things like “scanning for hostiles beep beep beep”. Somehow… I made it back to Lu. Night fell soon after, and we were the f**k outta there.

Next… wolf attacks and UFOs

29/11/2025

We live in a winter wonderland!!!

For those “like me” who didn’t grow up in Germany let me tell ya a little bit about “Christmas” in Germany. It is EPIC! Very different traditions and one is the “advents” which is basically each of the prominent families in our village host a part each weekend prior to Christmas. The first one is tonight, and next weekend it’s Luisa and me. So we are doing something special that mixes Kiwi, Aussie, and German.

Lu is cooking street food from her chef days, and together we’ve made a scavenger hunt with puzzles through our forest to collect ingredients and the recipe for a cocktail 🤣😂🤣 Germans are GOOD PEOPLE! They have a great sense of community in rural areas, and it’s an honour to live here!

29/11/2025

KAZAKHSTAN 🇰🇿 PART 2. WE SUCK AT LONG RIDING!!!

Shout out to the long riders guild… you guys are FULL OF S**T! Your book… bulls**t. 2nd hand knowledge compiled by a could have been champion. The more stories I hear about them the more I realise it’s all fake. Everyone that makes it sound easy is lying and that’s the dam problem. Hey internet… yeah you’re all full of s**t to! Pretty much EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT ADVISED ME WAS FULL OF S**T! Gear… yeah that was all s**t too!

MOST SO CALLED “LONG RIDERS” ARE LYING!

How do we know this? Well, because now we EFFORTLESSLY do 1750km in 55days doing up to 60km a day riding no more than 7hours per day looking like photo number 1. Back in Kazakhstan it took us a week to get ourselves looking like photo number 2. You don’t just “magically” chuck stuff on a horse and suddenly your a “long rider”. So where did we go wrong?

Firstly… we were over confident. We were WAY overloaded too and carried so much “essential” gear that wasn’t needed. And most “adventure gear” is honestly better off labeled “Instagram gear”.

We were also OVER CONFIDENT in our ability to manage 3 horses we’d just bought and to ride them off into the sunset.

We had also failed to do our homework regarding carrying capacity, calorie consumption etc etc… oh wait… we had! ITS JUST ALL THE INFORMATION WAS WRONG.

But ignorance is bliss right? Yeah. Actually it is. It really is! And despite loosing our pack horse day three along with a heap of gear we just gave good old Gunter a call and he came and helped once more. We ditched a heap of gear he would take back to Germany and in a “f**k it, let’s make it work” moment we went for the first time from listening to others, to listening to our guts.

I had prepared for years. I had listened to all the experts 🤦 but Luisa and I learned more in three days actually doing what we did than I’d learned in the three years prior. Keep it LIGHT, keep it SIMPLE, and trust your gut. From here… magic happened.

28/11/2025

Back in the DIIIIZAY. We all made $10 an hour in a little place called Tauranga, and every Friday and Saturday student loan money as well as the $7 or so we had after tax per hour went into $12 “Illusion Shakers” at a little old night spot we affectionately referred to as the “Bahama Slut”. The Bahama Hut was a meat market that resulted in more illegitimate children than anyone could count. But hey… young wild and free right? Well poor little Lu was only 5 back then so let’s crank so Alice DJ and Venga Boys and take her to the “Bahama Slut” 🤦😂😂🤣😂🤣

28/11/2025

KAZAKHSTAN PART 1. First impressions.

After 17 amazing days with Günter we had crossed from the White lakes to Pavlodar covering o around 3,000km and sleeping rough beside 6 lakes only one of which we went skinny dipping in. Günter was a legend, and the reliability of his 5 speed Toyota with only 4 gears was exceptional even if the gear box sump plug fell out and I had to hammer a bit of wood into it and fill it with engine oil.

It was sad to leave Russia so soon. And after a last night eating cheese, bread, caviar and of course vodka by a lake, we crossed into our first “Scary Stan”. Border. No issues. Nice as, 30 day visa on entry, absolutely a piece of p**s. That was the standard that would follow for the rest of the trip. Kazakh people are REALLY GOOD. But… there’s the odd bad egg but we’ll get to that. And… there’s heaps of BASTARD WOLVES! But we’ll get to that too.

We needed to find and buy horses which would have been impossible without Günter, and with his help during an 11 hour day driving in circles we purchased 3 horses for around $3000usd and set up by a lovely little river for the last night before we rode off into legendary horse gangster s**t.