After cycling almost 1000 kilometres for charity with two ponies and a dog as passengers in her purpose-built trike in just over three weeks, Emma Massingale is now safely back in the UK.
Emma explains: “Percy, Stanley, Inca and I have had a great adventure, travelling back from Switzerland and roughly following the River Rhine through Germany, France and the Netherlands. I must say it was very different to how I had expected it to be and generally the roads and paths were much busier!
“Also, in Europe you don’t see many horses or ponies out hacking on the roads, so when people came across an English girl with two ponies and a dog as passengers, we tended to cause quite a stir!
“The ponies were amazing and soon took even fast moving freight trains in their stride, although when we started our journey they literally hadn’t been even been out on a road. Our routine was to cycle for an hour or so, then stop for two, so the ponies could get out, eat and have a walk around and I could recover!,” said Emma.
“They seemed to spend much of their travelling time eating their haynets or dozing. We also went on about 15 different ferries and it was always amusing to see the double-takes when I cycled onboard!
“Particular highlights of our trip included meeting the new friends who flew in from across the globe to come and ride with us for a day or so on this mad adventure; cycling past windmills in Holland; seeing the wild Konik ponies grazing the marshes and taking Percy, Stanley and Inca swimming in a man-made lake in the middle of an industrial area – quite an experience,” she added.
The trip was to raise money for Brooke, an international animal welfare charity dedicated to improving the lives of working horses, donkeys and mules operate in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The charity was started in 1934 for ex-war horses abandoned abroad.
Emma and her ‘helpers’ raised £2000 along the way.
Thank you. Yet again you prove using imagination, courage & an adventuring spirit along with the strongly loyal, trusting animal world can prove a point where words fail to get the attention they deserve! X