About us

Elsa Wood-Gee

Hi. My name, as you may have gathered is Elsa, after the lioness in Born Free. Yes, my mum does say she really wanted a lion cub! (this bodes really well – you can’t blame me for thinking mum didn’t want me at the start, who knows what she’s going to think at the end of our trip!) I’m 13 years old and first sat on my pony Rowan the day I came out of hospital at three days old, but I didn’t start riding properly until I was about seven. In mum and dad’s view I’m lazy. In my view, I like reading books and don’t like rain, cold or midges. Which will probably make you wonder why I’m doing this ride. Determination, pride and all the stuff on the home page really. It’s been a lifelong dream to do it on Rowan, and I’m sick of every one telling me I’m lazy. Which, for the record, I’m not. Right now I’m in S2 at Moffat Academy, thinking of becoming a psychologist. By the time we return from this ride I’ll be going into S3. Who knows how my views on life and what I want to do with mine may have changed?

Vyv Wood-Gee

I started riding when I was about eight, and once bitten by the horse bug, spent every minute my parents would allow helping at the local riding school and working to pay for lessons, rides and holidays on horseback. My dream was to head off over the hills and far away with a pony and a tent, but every Christmas morning I was disappointed to find that the horse I longed for had not magically materialised. At 21 I bought my first pony, a Welsh cob. When I went away to college, no-one else was prepared to spend a month every time they wanted to catch him, so sadly he had to be sold. For the next few years, inbetween boyfriends, work and buying my first house, there was neither time nor money to buy another horse, but riding remained my real passion. I would dash home from work in Manchester, change out of my pin striped suit and together with a friend ride over the moors until darkness descended.

Eventually I managed to organise sufficient cash and grazing and was all set to go to a sale to buy my dream horse. The night before I set off, completely out of the blue, someone tried to kill me, prompting a radical change in my outlook on life, return to university as a mature student and change in career from investment broking to something I actually cared about. Since we moved to Scotland 15 years ago, I have worked as a freelance countryside management consultant, on the interface between farming, conservation and public access. Amongst other contracts, for the past five years I’ve been restoring old drove roads and setting up riding routes through South of Scotland Countryside Trails.

Whether it harks back to Black Beauty I’m not sure, but by the time I was in a position to have another horse, I knew it had to be a Fell pony. After months of frustrated searching and failing to find the perfect mare, I eventually tracked down Lancer, a two year old gelding (supposedly!), with whom I instantly fell in love. Chris, now my husband, bought him for me for my 30th birthday. Together Lancer and I have had endless escapades, my escape from children and work being annual pilgrimages with my pony exploring different parts of Britain. At the end of a week away, my dear friend Sarah is ready to return to her husband, offspring and civilisation, whereas I just long to keep riding into the sunset.

As well as various trips on horseback, as a family we have made numerous other epic journeys. With Jake and Elsa aged six and seven, we travelled with a horse and cart to the Lake District for no reason other than that it seemed a good idea at the time. During the foot and mouth crisis, when Elsa was seven, we headed north beyond its reach to cycle across Scotland onto Skye, hoiking our bikes up sheer rock faces to climb back over the mountains to Glen Affric. When we bought a gypsy caravan in Lancashire, it never crossed our minds to stick it on a trailer. Instead we persuaded Lancer to drive it home to Lanarkshire, dicing with death many times along the way, but a journey never to be forgotten. At the time all of these trips pushed us to the limit, but they seem nothing in comparison to the challenge we’ve set ourselves this year.

The trouble with challenges is that we like the idea, and the looking back, but not necessarily the near death and other experiences which happen along the way! One day we will look back and laugh at things which made us cry at the time. First we have to live through it ….