A desire to check out the South Island on horseback has led to two women taking several months out of work to fulfil their dream.

Karolin Van Onna and Nicole Kumpfmueller met in Aotearoa New Zealand 5 years ago and struck up a friendship straight away.

The trek, to head from Stirling Point near Bluff to Cape Farewell (the northernmost point of the South Island) was in the pipeline and supposed to be completed last year but Covid meant that it was put on hold until 2023.

Up close with Nici's horse, Rasta. Photo: Jeanna Rodgers

They chose this time of the year due to the trekking business being busiest in school holidays and because some of the experts told them that the river crossings are better at the end of summer and this is really important to consider when you’re needing to think about the four-legged travellers as well as the two-legged ones.

Both women are from Germany originally but Karo has obtained her New Zealand permanent residency, set up her horse trekking business in Cromwell (Golden Hills Horse Treks), fell in love with Aotearoa New Zealand, and stayed (though not necessarily in that order).

Things haven’t been easy over the last couple of years for the business but she loves the horses and could never leave them so giving up was not an option.

Nicole has been based in Australia and has taken extended leave from her job as a Rope Access Technician to come to Aotearoa New Zealand on a visitor visa to join Karo on this trip.

Nicole’s partner, Sam Graves provides their support vehicle but doesn’t shadow them, only turns up at the end of the day when possible to make sure everything is ok.

Going through some areas the support vehicle won’t be able to follow as they aren’t public roads and cell phone reception is bad.

Their safety is never compromised, however, as they carry an emergency locator beacon at all times. 

Sam is also a Rope Access Technician which I suggest you Google. It sounds like a great job but you really must love heights! 

When asked “Why NZ?”, the women commented that, in Germany, you hear a lot about Aotearoa New Zealand and see photos of the countryside so they were keen to come.

Plus it is easy for Germans to get working holidays here.

Those who were here during Covid said that Aotearoa New Zealand was just amazing to backpackers and their visas were extended with no hassle at all.

The route up the South Island has been planned - to an extent!

They weren’t totally sure where they would stay or the exact route to take through Southland so they just had to put a request for horse-suitable accommodation up on local Facebook pages and the response was amazing!

One couple to respond to this request was Anna and Jeff Clearwater who farm near Balfour and are horse people themselves.

They were more than happy to offer space for the horses and comfortable digs for the human travellers.

They even cooked up a burger for Nicole and Sam and some home grown eggs for Karo who is vegetarian.

The plan, once they left the Clearwaters on 23rd February, was to head towards Cattle Flat, Nokomai, the Nevis and then to Cromwell for a few days to hopefully pick up some gear that hadn’t arrived before they set off, but after a long discussion with Jeff regarding the next leg of the journey, an earlier stop for the following day was sorted so that the horses didn’t have to travel so far.

It’s certainly a leisurely way to see the country as they average 4km/hr while riding.

They will walk faster if walked by the lead which sometimes needs to happen due to the terrain being too difficult for the horses with a rider, or if the women want a bit of respite from sitting on a saddle for so long!

Through Nokomai it was so steep that they had to walk for quite a while; they changed 1000m elevation in one day!

Back at the start of the journey on 14th February, they obtained permission to go on the Te Ara Taurapa cycle track from Bluff to avoid the traffic.

They were very grateful to be allowed to go on the cycle trail as horses are not normally allowed on the track.

These tracks can be very busy so safety is important and the tracks are often not wide enough for people to pass horses.

Horses generally aren’t considered much when roads and tracks are being made so the women are hopeful that things will be more accessible for horses in the future.

They made sure that they cleaned up any deposits that the horses left.

As they were travelling along this, both on phones to capture some of the journey and were pulled over by the police.

“We really thought we were going to get a ticket” but the kindly policeman was actually only concerned about the trucks travelling close to them.

He organised their first night’s accommodation and made sure they were all sorted for the night.

“We are overwhelmed by the hospitality we have seen,” both women commented.

They also noted that the traffic has been amazing with people moving out of the way or slowing down when they see them. 

They are filming parts of their ride and this will be turned into a documentary by Sam a bit down the track.

One experience that will definitely feature on this was when they were riding past a paddock where they saw a local farmer trying to move a mob of sheep on his own without any dogs.

They saw that he was struggling so asked if they could help him out.

They gave him a hand by rounding up the sheep on horseback and then ended up doing another couple of mobs just to help out. 

They had another section where they had travelled for 1 and a half hours only to discover that the bridge was closed to traffic.

Not a problem when you’re an adventurous pair of women on horseback, and they dismounted and encouraged the horses across.

The wooden barrier had a small gap you could walk through and two of the horses did this no trouble at all but the third one was just a bit nervous due to the size of the gap and had to have a bit of encouragement with food to get through.

This was their biggest day (34km / 11 hours and would have meant another 3 hours if they had needed to backtrack.

On any journey there’s always a bit of excitement. Just before reaching the Clearwater’s a small pony in the paddock beside the road spooked the horses and they took off.

Karo already had the phone out to capture the last leg of the day.

She had a split second to decide what she should do: get the foot back in the stirrup, hold the reins or capture video footage.

She went for the latter, which made for some rather hilarious viewing!

The four legged companions are Moose (pacer), Rasta and Alex (both trotters), they are all Standardbreds (ex-racers) and are perfectly suited for this sort of journey.

Alex is the pack horse and has all the essential supplies on him for the daily walk and overnight stay.

They try to use creeks for water for the horses but some aren't easy to get to so they have a collapsible bucket that travels with them. 

The journey from Balfour which started quite late on Friday (Anna Clearwater commented later that it really does take 3 hours for them to get ready!) took them through Cattleflat and Nokomai Stations before getting back to Cromwell.

At Nokomai they woke to hear several horses walking past and men yelling.

They were musterers heading off for a day’s work.

The women thought they would come across them but only got glimpses during the day. 

When walking across land like this Alex has been off lead and happily following the other two but at a river crossing on Nokomai, he decided to take his own route.

The water was wide but shallow.

They didn’t think it would be a problem but part way over Alex found some soft sand and started sinking.

The women raced into the water to help him get out.

Bags had to be lifted and lots of encouraging words dished out to help Alex emerge from the water and they decided he will stay on lead in the future if they need to do any river crossings.

His desire to make his own route has earned him the title of “Mountain Goat”.

He possibly knew when they were getting close to home as he decided to go in front of them and run a little on the last part of the journey to Cromwell.

They were aware that the Cavalcade was happening but all the evidence that they had been through was hoof prints on the ground.

“It would have been nice to see them” said Karo “but our horses would have had to trot to keep up.”

Past Cromwell they are hoping for more off road and large stations to go through and have been thrilled to get permission from landowners to travel through.

They have Doc hut passes so plan to use these and put a bit of a fence up at night for the horses. Peter Hurst is someone they have been gleaning advice from for the next part of the journey.

He’s been working tirelessly on making tracks more horse-friendly and has a Facebook page (Horse Trails South Trust) which people are encouraged to like and follow.

So what was the motivation for such an epic trip?

“We’re not doing it for any particular reason,” said Karo.

They commented that they have been asked so often that they think they might do it for some sort of awareness or a fundraiser for ESNZ equine relief fund after all the destruction that has happened in the North Island over the last few weeks.

You can follow their journey on Instagram @NZonhorseback