SARA MAITLAND
For a long-distance walker, a pack donkey is one of the best companions on the trail
The perks of trekking with a donkey.
My son, Adam, who is now in his late 30s, has been a longdistance walker for years, in the UK and abroad. He has covered a lot of ground, alone and with friends.
Some years ago, he returned from 600-odd solo miles of the Pamir Highway in Central Asia with a ‘problem’: the walking, the views, the adventures were wonderful but carrying the requisite kit for such a long walk was wearing and reduced some of his sense of freedom. So, inspired in part by Robert Louis Stevenson who walked with a donkey called Modestine, he decided that a pack donkey was the way forward. On the Wirral, he discovered Alwood Donkeys, where the owner Tom Tuohy generously taught Adam to teach a donkey to trek. In 2019, Martinthe-donkey and Adam walked the whole length of the UK from Cape Wrath to Weymouth.
As it turned out, Martin did his job very well (despite a few of the famous sulks that donkeys are known for); he was happily (most of the time!) and easily able to transport all the equipment that was needed, relieving the effort of his owner. But Adam also found that Martin conferred on him an extra advantage that he had not foreseen. People loved Martin. Children would run out of their houses as he passed; it became easy to enter into conversation with total strangers – and, indeed, to ask for help if needed and get it. Rough campers know that farmers can often be distinctly un-keen to have urban travellers pitch camp in their fields, but Martin was welcomed over and over again. And Adam was welcomed because of Martin.
A CHARMING PORTER
In part, this is probably about novelty and curiosity – people don’t often get to meet a pack animal. But, particularly in farming areas, he’s come to believe that people recognise and understand your needs. If you have a donkey, you need a gated field overnight, you need running water and something for the donkey to eat. All farmers know this, they work with animals every day of the year. It is so much easier to be generous when you understand what the need is and particularly when it’s one you are used to meeting. Immediately this walker is not a ‘townie’ stranger, fooling about where you have to work – they are a fellow human being with immediate needs quite similar to yours. And you have a common subject with which to begin.
This is helped by the fact that Martin – and I strongly suspect other donkeys, although I don’t know any – is intrinsically charming. I know donkeys can kick and I suspect they can and do bite, and they certainly behave appallingly, but their eyes are front-facing and of a height that permits the experience of a shared exchange; they have an apparent ‘expression’; their ears are amazing, huge and flexible. They come with touching memories
– of crib scenes at Christmas and rides on the beach in summer. They don’t carry connotations of rich posh people throwing their weight about in the way that horses can. Martin does his portering job, gives pleasure all round and allows Adam to walk further, more comfortably and with more social connection.
Obviously, 2020 was not a great year for long-distance walkers, although Martin and Adam and a friend had a few days walking in the Pennines during the lockdown loosening last summer. Like many of us, the two of them are hoping for a better walking year in 2021.
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