Stories from the Road

The Long Riders' Guild

Stories from The Road - page 4

More thrilling adventures from Long Riders, past and present, all over the world.

	Click on photograph of Ana Beker to read a eye-witness account of the little six-year-old girl who remembers meeting the Long Rider in 1954.
	Click on picture to read a terrifying story by Henry Coke of a death in a river during the California Gold Rush.
	Click on picture to read about the heartbreaking loss suffered by the Japanese Samurai, Baron Fukushima, on his amazing 14,000 kilometre journey from Berlin to Tokyo in 1892.
	Click on picture to read about Hugh Clapperton's amazing Long Ride across the Sahara.
	Italian Long Riders Dario Masarotti and Antonietta Spizzo spend as much time as possible in the saddle. Click on photo to read Antonietta's description of the horrors of crossing borders on horseback, balanced by the joys of travelling through Europe and enjoying the local hospitality.
	Kathrin Nienhaus has just returned to Germany from Mongolia. Click on photograph to read her fascinating description of her journey with Tim Cope, and her impressions of Mongolia.
	In 1950, CIA agent Douglas MacKiernan (left) and his young friend, former student turned espionage agent, Frank Bessec, found themselves being hunted across the Takla Makan desert by armed Chinese communists. Their daring horseback escape across Western China and into Tibet, which they thought had led them to safety, ended in tragedy. After fifty years, the Top Secret diary which Bessec kept during this amazing equestrian journey has been declassified by the American State Department and is offered to the public for the first time by The Long Riders' Guild. Click on picture to read these rare documents.
	Click on picture to read about the Overland Westerners. In 1912, four riders embarked on a 20,000 mile cross-country trip they hoped would bring them fortune and fame. It was called the ride of the century, a 20,000-mile, 3-year odyssey through desert, mountain, and swamp that four young horsemen dreamed would make them famous. Instead, they rode into oblivion.
	Though he is known today as "the father of evolution," famous English biologist Charles Darwin was also an avid equestrian traveler. During the five years in which he made his scientific journey around the world, Darwin took every opportunity to explore the continents of South America, Australia and Africa on horseback. The scientist-turned-Long Rider wrote of "the pleasure of living in the open air with the sky for a roof and the ground for a table." Click on picture to read about Charles Darwin's equestrian adventures on three continents during the 1830s.
	If you have ever complained about travelling by train or by coach, click on picture to see how truly horrendous such a journey could be back in the 1860s.
	Click on picture to read about Jean-Louis Gouraud's astonishing journey à la Turkmène from Paris to Moscow.
	The Khamba warlord in Tibet had given George Patterson a deadly mission - carry word to the outside world that the Chinese Communists were about to secretly invade the mountain kingdom. The problem was that the winter of 1949 had turned the mighty Himalayas into a wall of ice and the only trail leading to India had never been traveled by horsemen! Could George and his horse survive the snow covered journey and bring back help to his adopted homeland? Click on picture to read the unbelievable equestrian episode "To Save a Country."