PORTFOLIO

A herd of wild horses roams the wetlands of the Overberg near Kleinmond. Photographer Bruce Boyd spent four months with them and took these beautiful photos.

Little is known about the origins of the wild horses of the Overberg, which roam the wetlands between the Bot River Lagoon and the town of Kleinmond near Hermanus. Some say the horses are descended from animals that served in the Anglo-Boer War; others believe they swam ashore from the HMS Birkenhead, a British troopship that sank off Danger Point on the other side of Walker Bay in 1852.

Photographer Bruce Boyd first heard of them while visiting family in Betty’s Bay. “I knew I had to investigate,” he says. “I visited Rooisand Nature Reserve on the lagoon and stumbled across the entire herd almost immediately. From that moment on, I was hooked.”

Bruce decided to move to Betty’s Bay for the next four months, so he could track and photograph the horses. “I would meet up with them at dawn, follow them around all day long, and then say my goodbyes at sunset,” he says. “Most of them are covered in scars and some limp from past accidents and injuries; one is even missing an eye! I’m attracted to them because they live by their own rules, free to do as they please.”