INTO THE WILDERNESS
It takes Iona Scobie three days to lead her ponies from the east to west coast crossing the wilderness in a remarkable biannual Highland migration. Cal Flyn investigates
Cal Flyn embarks on a pony trek like no other, from the east to the west coast, on a biannual migration
Iona Scobie and her partner Julien Legrand together run the Scobie family estate at East Rhidorroch, near Ullapool. East Rhidorroch is a special place: perfectly secluded at the end of a long and rutted driveway that traces the edge of Loch Achall, a glen hemmed in by dramatic cliffs and a waterfall. It’s a rough and ready Highland gem where in summer sika deer graze with their calves in woodland glades and sheepdogs cool off in the river.
As well as running the working sheep farm, the couple rent out the lodge and cottages and take a select number of clients stalking.
A changing cast of Highland ponies on site are expected to make themselves useful in sheep and cattle herding and on occasion by fetching deer from the hill, carrying them to the larder for hanging – the traditional method, which has less impact on the land than a quadbike or argocat.
These Highlands are descended from a line bred by Iona’s late grandmother at the Coulmore stud – Coulmore being the farm run by Iona’s parents and sister on the east coast, near North Kessock.
Every year, as the wet west coast winter sets in and the pastures grow waterlogged, Iona takes the ponies on a remarkable journey across country: from coast to coast between the two farms, to their winter grazing. Then, in May the following year, she rides them all back again.
Keeping the Highlands at Rhidorroch through the winter is problematic: the ground suffers if it doesn’t get time to rest, and they have to bring in feed and hay to supplement the poor grass. Conversely, over on the milder east coast farm, the grass can be too rich, especially in summer.
‘The rougher grazing here is good for laminitis control, and the rough grazing is good for their teeth,’ says Iona. ‘There are so many advantages.’
Iona’s fearless mother Maddy had made the journey farmto-farm on horseback before she did, so the concept had been proven. Then in 2012 Iona rode her pony Dana home after putting her to stud in Rogart, near Golspie. ‘I took the train there, carrying my saddle,’ remembers Iona, ‘and when I arrived, I just put it on her and rode west for a couple of days.
‘It was shearing time. At night I just found an empty barn and slept on a sheep sack. It was different to spend so much time alone with a horse. I really got to know her and like her. We bonded.’
After that time, the idea for a regular migration with the horses – between summer and winter grazings – took root.
Travel in either direction requires a trek of over 90km, taking in road, forestry track, sheep path and open heathland, and each time it takes around three days to complete.
I’ve known Iona since we were teenagers, and always admired the photographs and stories of her biannual expeditions. A couple of years ago I asked her if I might go with her and experience it for myself, and very kindly she agreed.
‘The first time, I pretty much drew a pencil line from A to B, and followed that line as closely as possible,’ she tells me. ‘It was hard. Neither we nor the ponies knew where we were going, and the weather was miserable. We got lost in mist when we came over the mountains – my sister was travelling on foot, and had to walk holding onto my stirrup so as not to get separated.’
Speed varies greatly depending on weather and ground conditions; often she finds herself riding for hours in the cold and the dark. But the experiences she’s had have been remarkable: riding through Glenbeg with the roaring of the rutting stags echoing down the glen with cliffs rising up alongside.
In mid-May, we began from Coulmore on the banks of the Beauly Firth. It was a sunny spring day, harpstring cirrus striating the sky and birdsong in the air.
We were three riders (me, Iona, my partner Richard) riding three handsome Highland ponies: Iona on Beinn, a white-grey 12-year-old gelding and her regular partner in crime; Rich on Honey, an 11-year-old fleabitten mare; and I on Klumpen, a puppyish six-year-old with a dappled face and dark dorsal stripe down his spine.
Also with us was Iona’s home-bred Highland-Thoroughbred cross Boo. Then a green five-year-old, Boo was coming along for the experience. He wore a rope halter and carried our sleeping bags tied to a soft saddle pad.
Highlands and Highland-crosses take longer to mature, says Iona. ‘So it’s good for us to spend time together without a focus on training. It’s more relaxed.’
On day one we followed the line of the old railway to Muir of Ord, then – after crossing the busy railway bridge in the
We got lost in the mist when we came over the mountains
centre of the village – the back road to Contin. Here we were forced to briefly join the busy A9 as it passed through the village – ‘no other way!’ – but after a tense ten minutes of lorries thundering by, we struck off into the woods near Rogie Falls, where forestry tracks lead us to our first pit stop.
A friend of Iona’s had agreed to let us stop overnight at his farm there. Two dozen delighted Highlands craned over the fence in welcome, before they dashed off on a celebratory circuit of their field. Our four got turned out in a picture-perfect paddock, complete with babbling brook, while we bedded down in the hayloft.
We’d made nearly 28km so far: slow but steady. ‘They just keep going,’ says Iona of the Highlands. ‘Day after day, over hard terrain, they plod on through.’
The ponies are used to move livestock, and on gathering days they spend long, hard days outside in all weathers. Beinn, particularly, is a drover’s dream: ‘He’ll gallop along steep hillsides after a sheep, pushing himself to catch them without any encouragement. Something switches in his brain. He’s like a different horse.’
As day two dawned, we dawdled in the watery light, frying bacon on a tiny alcohol stove.
We forded the river at Inchbae and paused for a quick cuppa at the farmhouse with Daphne Grant before heading north up Strathrannoch. Here the landscape changed: transforming from lush east coast arable land to the bare, deer-tracked hillscape of the west. Lone sheep wandered the heather, rocks and blanket bog.
Iona unclipped Boo’s rope and he ran loose alongside us like a dog, picking his own route through the bogs and over ditches, sure-footed as a mountain goat. ‘I like to have young horses out running naked,’
says Iona. ‘They learn about the bogs without being interfered with. They grow in confidence by learning from the older horses.’
The dusk began to close in around us just as we came across an abandoned cottage on the shore of Loch Vaich, and we made a snap decision to stop for the night, turning the horses loose to graze on a strip of scrappy pasture at the water’s edge. That day we’d made 31km. We warmed our hands by a campfire until rain forced us to take shelter.
Inside the cottage was dark and damp, half-filled with earth, and as we entered, the ghostly shape of an adult barn owl burst from a hole in the roof and vanished into a darkening sky.
The weather had closed in for good. We woke to relentless rain which kept up for the entirety of the last day. In this final stretch of around 34km, we followed a track past Deanich Lodge then picked our way through peat hags hairy with reeds and dead grasses to the bothy tucked in Glenbeg.
Here, we stopped for a quick discussion before the last and hardest leg of the trip. ‘One time, four ponies got badly bogged up to their necks in the space of a few seconds,’ Iona warned us.
Often the horses manage to drag themselves out without help, but not always: in a pinch, Iona advised, we should take the saddle off and let the horse use it as a stepping stone – it spreads their weight.
Her partnership with Beinn, a louche and headstrong character, has grown over the years into one of mutual respect. ‘The first time, he really struggled. He’d not long been broken in, and got hopelessly bogged and stressed close to home. But then, as we came down the hill to the house, and saw the other horses in the field, I saw it click.
‘He understood what we’d done. Now he knows the route inside out and picks his way around the worst bogs – which teaches the others.’ He is short and wide, a natural 4x4, excelling in the most difficult terrain. ‘I feel hopeless doing this journey on another horse. I rely on his judgment.’
Honey, a quietly opinionated mare, also comes into her own as we rise into the clouds. We skirted the peak of Eididh nan Clach Geala, and its crown of gleaming white quartz, and the horses stepped gingerly over slick rockfaces and peatbogs which were melting away in the rain like icing on a hot cake.
Visibility shrank and shrank to five or ten metres. ‘Be careful,’ warned Iona – a wrong turn and we might find ourselves facing a precipitous drop. I began to grow uneasy. Then, Honey pricked her ears and picked up her pace. ‘Give her her head,’ said Iona, and sure enough, after a tense 15 minutes’ march, a cairn emerged in the gloom. She had found the way.
Iona’s route is seriously off-road, and that can bring problems. Honey once lost her footing while travelling through a boulder field and flipped onto her back and was stuck there, like a tortoise upturned.
‘It was awful,’ says Iona. ‘Her breathing was heavy and her head was twisted. I thought she’d broken something, and hadn’t a clue how to get her out.’ Just as she was losing hope – wondering how she might have the horse euthanised in such a remote spot – a RAF plane zoomed over at low altitude, shocking the pony into a final, successful effort to right herself.
All this experience means that Iona’s Highlands are extremely self-sufficient and stolid. ‘If they get into a problem, I know they won’t panic. That’s something you don’t have with most horses.’
Self-sufficiency is something she prizes in herself too. ‘People have to stop relying on trailers and back-up,’ she says. ‘When I travel, I travel with Beinn. That’s enough. I know he’ll get me home.’
We passed north up Glen Douchary and into the home straight. We’d seen no other people all day, but alarmed a number of red grouse, which flew up gabbling protests, their brows flashing scarlet amidst the moor.
Then it was Beinn’s turn to pick up the pace, breaking into trot and then a short-legged canter. He swung off the track and up a bank. We turned a corner and a great waterfall came into view, and – a few minutes later – the cliffs that overlook the lodge at Rhidorroch. We were soaked through and shivering but undefeated. Just as Iona had promised, Beinn had got us all home in the end.
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If they get into a roblem, they won’t panic