Pensioner sets off on 600-mile pony trek with pet dog in saddlebag
Jane Dotchin, 80, has been making the unusual journey from Northumberland to the Highlands since 1972. (Story from STV News)
An 80-year-old woman who wears an eyepatch is on an annual trek with her pony from England to the Highlands – on a seven-week adventure which began in 1972.
Jane Dotchin packs her saddlebags onto her trusty pony’s back every year, and heads to the hills from her home near Hexham, Northumberland, on an epic 600-mile trek to Inverness, covering between 15 and 20 miles a day.
She set off on August 31 with her steed, Diamond, aged 13, and her disabled Jack Russell named Dinky for company, from the off-grid smallholding where she lives.
She carries everything she needs including her tent, food and just a few belongings – and despite wearing an eyepatch is determined to continue as long as she can.
Ms Dotchin said: “My mother would look after my other ponies but she wasn’t that keen on looking after my Halfinger stallion, so I rode him down to Somerset to see a friend, which is about 300 miles.
“It was a bit of a hard slog, but it was good.”
After that initial journey, she caught the taste for the open road and travelled to visit friends near Fort Augustus, near Loch Ness, every autumn since.
The journey takes around seven weeks depending on weather and Ms Dotchin tries to stop off to see people she has met over the years.
She said: “I refuse to go slogging on through pouring wet rain.
“There are a few different routes I can take depending on the weather.
“I don’t want to go over hilltops in foul weather, but I work it out on the way.
“I don’t bother with maps, I just keep to the routes I know.
“It is nice to go and see [people] again – I ring them up in the morning to say I’m going to be there in the evening.
“I don’t warn them too far in advance, because if the weather suddenly changes or I decide to stop early then they can be left wondering where I’ve got to.”
Disabled Jack Russell Dinky, who has deformed front legs, travels in a saddle bag.
Ms Dotchin said: “She manages fine, when there is a nice grassy track she gets out and has a run, but she doesn’t like stoney ground but she is a nice hot water bottle for me in the tent.”
She said: “I asked for something good and solid in my old age and he got me a cob from Ireland. I struggle to get on her half the time, but otherwise I manage fine.”
Her diet consists of porridge oats, oatcakes and cheese which is bought at local shops.
She prefers to make porridge with milk, but water will suffice.
Ms Dotchin added: “You can always boil it from a stream.”
Her bathroom habits are equally DIY, and she said: “I dig a hole.”
Ms Dotchin is devastated by the littering she has seen over the years and said Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, is somewhere she finds “shameful” due to the amount of rubbish.
She said: “It’s appalling, in particular single used barbecues which are left lying all over the place.
“Cumbernauld is the fly-tipping capital of Britain.
“There are some lovely people there who let me camp, but some of it is so disgusting and shameful.”
Campervans on single track roads have also become a more persistent problem.
She said: “Drivers just didn’t seem to know how wide they were, I was forever just about getting swept off the roads by them.”
The right to roam has helped with countryside access, but she said: “There are still some locked gates or little side gates that you can’t get a horse with packs on through.”
For emergencies she carries an old mobile phone as the battery lasts six weeks.
Ms Dotchin said: “I keep it switched off and just ring out to ring up landowners to get gates unlocked or to warn people when I’m coming but sometimes the trouble is getting a signal.”
During the foot and mouth crisis in 2001 she went on bicycle instead.
She said: “I covered many more miles with the dog in a pannier but it was not the same, I missed my horse.”
In recognition of her independent spirit, and many years of long distance trekking, she received The British Horse Society lifetime achievement award last year, which she said was “a bit of a surprise.”
During her travels she witnesses rutting deer and stags fighting in the autumn, and foxes.
She said: “There is always something interesting happening and there is never a dull moment.
Back to Hartley! We left even earlier after noticing a class on break outside everyday. So this time we did our kid ride with time for Jr. to get in on a game of catch befor his class started.
Lieblings had to work so I hit the trails solo. In just a few days I’ve gotten a lot faster and better at them and I’ve been adding up the miles from the map and doing just over four on challenging terrain. It’s not that much, I used to ride 7 miles through the city when we lived in town, but that was also on streets and flat paved bike trails. I was carrying my satchel across my body and getting tired of it banging around and creating a hot patch of sweat on my side/back so I took an old Duluth Pack shell bag that had the strap removed and cliped it to my waist carabiners. It makes a sweet chaos bag and is big enough to hold my sketchbook, writing tools, and various odds and ends. I keep my metal waterbottle on my key clip on the other side. It was hilarious to take a break and watch the spandex-wearing bro dudes go by on expensive bikes and giving me weird looks, but I’m managing the same trails as them in Doc Martens and cut-off workpants on my old Rock Hopper. :P
I’m REALLY liking mountain biking, it’s a ton of fun and feels like a full-body workout. My favourite part of the trails is the Root Canal (lots of turns and rocks) and then it opens into a beautiful swampy meadow with a boardwalk through. It’s absolutely elating to glide out into this beautful sunny open area and catch your breath as you gaze around after bombing down the shaded trails.
Hitting the trails again at Hartley! Small Friend likes going over the damn bridge.
We kept going while he was in day camp. Liebling’s fat bike is really sweet, I can see why they’ve gotten so popular around here. I’m riding his old mountain bike he gave me years ago (I love it and switched back to it after trying a fancy new one) and it’s pretty capable, but I find myself worried about bending rims on the jutting rocks and other obstacles if I beat too hard on the trails.
The Hartley trails are a BLAST. I used to ride in this park when I was a kid (either here or Lester, depending on whih relative I was with) but I think they’ve done a lot more with them since then and now everything is mapped and rated for diffuclty like the ski trails. The whole Nature Center and related school and acitvities is very new. It’s a pretty sweet place. I brought Jr. here for a parent/child reading group for a while before we took the plunge with day camp.
“How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.” ― Jostein Gaarder, The Solitaire Mystery {June 2017}
