Where Are They Now? are video and audio updates on where ramblers, roamers and free spirits are right now.
In our first update, Gin Szagola reports on what it’s like to ride her horse Fable across Australia, including crossing the parched Nullarbor Desert.
One Wild Brumby, 2,700 Miles, Zero Support
Fable started as a wild brumby—one helicopter away from being machine-gunned by a culling crew. Gin put a few rides on him and took off on an epic 2,700-mile journey across the continent. They’ve dodged brown snakes, road trains, and hungry emus while spending two months walking across one of the driest deserts in the world. In doing so, Gin has become the first person in modern times to cross the Nullarbor on horseback.
Right now, they’re in Ravensthorpe, Western Australia. They hope to finish their voyage in the next few weeks.
Click the on the video to watch Gin describe how she and Fable crossed the Nullarbor. Yes, you’ll get to me Fable. Transcript available at bottom of post.
What is The Difference Between Where Are They Now? and the Travel Grit Podcast?
Where Are They Now? audio and video episodes are ten to twenty minute updates. The podcast is much longer – from ninety minutes to over two hours. Here’s the latest podcast featuring Webb Chiles, who sailed six times around the world and floated for 26 hours in the Gulf Stream without a life jacket after his sailboat sank.
Plywood and Cattle Guards
Read how Gin and Fable crossed cattle guards, those things that cars can drive across but cattle and horses can’t, here.
Follow Gin and Fable’s Voyage
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- GinandFaith.com
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To support via PayPal: gin and faith at gmail dot com.
Gin and Fable’s Route
Here is Gin and Fable’s route across southern Australia and the Nullarbor Desert.
(Illustrations and photos by Gin Szagola. Maps by Gin Szagola and Google Maps)
Transcript
Gin and Fable – Long Riding Across Southern Australia and the Nullarbor Desert
Chapter 1: Meet Fable – A Brumby’s Second Chance (00:05 – 02:44)
Chapter 2: Taking the Leap – Starting with 10 Rides (02:44 – 05:05)
Chapter 3: Conquering the Nullarbor – 800 Miles of Desert (05:05 – 09:38)
Chapter 4: Nights in the Desert – Snakes, Safety, and Solitude (10:24 – 14:01)
Chapter 5: Doubts and Transformations (14:01 – 16:38)
Chapter 6: From Co-workers to Roommates (16:38 – 18:38)
Chapter 7: The Bittersweet Ending (18:38 – 21:31)
Gin Szagola (00:05)
They take men up in helicopters and machine gun them from the sky. And so from his herd, about 8,000 have been killed in the last three years. And he’s one of a thousand that made it out. But out of those a thousand, an untold number would have went straight to the doggery or they also call it the knackery here, which is the meat man.
Fable and I are in Western Australia. We have about one month left in our journey. So we’re nearly to the finish line.
Bernie Harberts (00:36)
Wow. So where were you today? Are you going to head out today? Taking a day off?
Gin Szagola (00:41)
Yeah, now we’re in the small town of Ravensthorpe. We’ll leave today. We have four days to our next town. Yeah, so we will be traveling today. It’ll be a nice long 20 mile day, about eight hours or so. That’s about our average.
Bernie Harberts (00:59)
So Fable. There was a thing that you wrote about him, which was I just love. He said he’s a horse that would enjoy grabbing and throwing balls. Which I thought was awesome. That’s a great description. Introduce him.
Gin Szagola (01:14)
Yeah, this is my long riding horse fable. He’s a six year old Brumby gelding out of the snowy mountains, which is on the lower east coast of Australia, featured in the Man from Snowy River movie. And they actually have a crisis right now with the Brumbies because they’re overpopulated and invasive. And so they’ve been calling them.
So Fable’s a really lucky horse being able to make it out. He got to the Victorian Brumby Association, which is a rescue for Brumbies. One of the best and one of the only ones in the country. And from there I adopted him and trained him up from scratch over three months from late February to late May. And then we began our journey. So yeah, he’s six years old. He’s 14 too. He weighs about 900 pounds. And when I first met him, he completely lacked confidence. He was a bit like the cowardly lion is how I would describe his personality. Just a complete, complete spaz. But he’s really come around, really gained confidence, really found himself. And so I’ve been very proud of him. He’s grown both in his desensitization and also physically too, he’s really muscled up. When I met him, he was scrawny and awkward. He didn’t know where to put his limbs and you could see his ribs a little bit. But he’s really come a long way to bulking up, being well muscled.
Bernie Harberts (02:44)
Describe the first day on the road. Are you walking? Are you riding? Are you freaking out? Is he freaking out? What’s it like?
Gin Szagola (02:53)
Yeah, so I knew at the beGin Szagolaning of our adventure, either in the first week everything was going to go tits up, it was going be a complete disaster, everything was going to go well for the most part. And I was going to know, okay, we can really do this. This journey can be a success. So it wasn’t guaranteed to start. And I knew everyone around me was kind of holding their breath. Some people, you know, distancing themselves from me a little bit because it seemed like a disaster in the making, which I understand. And in a way, I really like, I wanted to challenge myself with this adventure. I always want to do something that I feel like I’m capable of, but still is not guaranteed. And I particularly, I just love wild horses. I feel like everyone has their disciplines they fall into. And after long riding wild horses, training them, bonding with them from the ground up is mine.
And so with this journey, given that Fable only had a few rides under saddle, I started out leading him much like I did with my US long ride. I led him 100% the first day and then slowly decreased the percentage thereafter. I was actually riding him much sooner than I thought. At first I was like, okay, I’m not gonna ride him for the entire first week on the road, but I ended up riding him on just day three and he came around quickly, though I will say I wasn’t sure about whether our trip could be a success still until about two or three weeks in. It took a little longer than I thought, but then I was like, okay, we’ve got a good shot here.
Bernie Harberts (04:30)
So explain to people who might not be familiar with long riding what’s long riding?
Gin Szagola (04:36)
Long riding is traveling long distance on horseback and generally it’s doing a thousand miles or more continuously.
Bernie Harberts (04:46)
So how many rides did you have in them before you took off?
Gin Szagola (04:53)
10 to 20.
Bernie Harberts (04:57)
That’s not a lot to take off across southern Australia.
Gin Szagola (04:58)
Yeah. Mostly in the arena, only a few outside.
Bernie Harberts (05:05)
I’m just fascinated by the Nullarbor Desert. I don’t know of anyone who’s ridden across it. How did you just care for fable? Like, what did you do for water?
Gin Szagola (05:15)
Yes, the desert crossing was two months long and it was by far our biggest obstacle on the journey. In fact when I was planning for this ride I almost didn’t know if it would be possible because the Nullarbor felt so insurmountable and everyone was telling me, you know there’s nothing out there it’s just a wasteland barren and I was really worried too because there’s just a single highway that cuts across the Nullarbor and it’s full of road trains which are like semi trucks but with two or three, I’m not sure what you call the beds of the trucks where they hold the cargo but they’re like double or triple wide versus a regular US semi truck. And so I was really worried about on the highway dealing with no food or water.
But the Nullarbor ended up being different than I ever expected. It was actually, we kind of got to it at just the right time as far as the year and the seasons go. So it was more of a open grassland than an arid desert. There was a fair bit of pick along the way and a dirt gravel path that runs along the highway the entire time. So you have your own designated trail to stay away from traffic.
Bernie Harberts (06:28)
Really? Wow.
Gin Szagola (06:37)
Ultimately though I had supply caches put out, which is the first time I’ve ever done that in my life. The Nullarbor is split into two sections, the South Australia and the Western Australia section. And they’re about half and half timing wise. A month on one side, a month on the other.
Bernie Harberts (06:54)
I’m sorry to interrupt, but what distance are we talking about?
Gin Szagola (06:57)
I would say about 400 miles on each side.
Bernie Harberts (07:00)
800 miles of desert.
Gin Szagola (07:01)
Yep. And you’re not allowed to bring hay from one side to the other. So I actually had supply drops with hay and water coordinated separately on either side. And so I had people drop hay and water off. There is seven or eight road houses along the Nullarbor and road houses are like combination gas station, motels and campgrounds. And so I had these big supply drops of hay and water dropped at designated roadhouses along the way and then from each roadhouse I would actually hire people on the fly, travelers. They have something called gray nomads here which is their term for retired RVers. And so yeah it was just a matter of finding people on the fly to take my supply caches ahead and drop them in between roadhouses a day’s length apart, which is about 20 miles each day. And I would mark like rest areas on my map for them to be left. And then I would ask them to send me a photo of where they put it so it was easier to find it then when we arrived. And then I just had to pray that they weren’t ravaged by emus or camels or anyone of them all found completely good to go.
Bernie Harberts (08:18)
How many were?
Gin Szagola (08:23)
And I believe part of the reason why is because, the Nullarbor had a really rich year as far as water goes. And so I think a lot of the camels and the emus and the wild horses and the kangaroos, really all of the wildlife were away from the highway, a little bit more inland because there was a good amount of water and feed out there for them.
Bernie Harberts (08:45)
Yeah. And you said you did the same with water.
Gin Szagola (08:49)
I did so with water I actually carried these collapsible water bladders they’re 20 liters each and I had 12 in total and I would put two out for every drop every night so 40 liters per day and those are really nice because after we were done using them I could collapse them down and put them in my saddlebags to carry ahead to the next roadhouse where I would then fill them up again and have them dropped back off so that’s how I did it.
To my knowledge, I think I’m the first person, at least in modern history, to do the Nullarbor via supply caches rather than having a designated support vehicle. So it was a bit nerve wracking, but it went so much better than I expected. It was just wonderful. Easily one of my favorite parts of the journey.
Bernie Harberts (09:38)
That’s incredible and congratulations for being the first to travel across the Nullarbor with supply caches and without a support or a chase team because that must be a whole different mindset having to set things up as opposed to have somebody just driving behind you or ahead of you in a van.
Gin Szagola (09:59)
Exactly. Yeah, there’s, you don’t have as much certainty as when you have a support vehicle. You know, the support vehicle, you have water and hay any moment of the day, you know, to moments notice and potentially have a bed to sleep in every night, you know, warm meals. If there’s an emergency, you can be picked up on the fly, carried ahead. And so, yeah.
Bernie Harberts (10:24)
So what were the nights like? Explain what it was like to be camping out in the Nullarbor away from a road house in the desert. What is that?
Gin Szagola (10:36)
Yeah, so luckily the temperatures were perfect when we crossed. The daily average was low to mid 70s and then nights were in the 50s generally. So good weather. We had a few days that were in the 90s, but we were generally able to take them off. Yeah, so camping out there, I was really worried about the safety factor that it would be dangerous for me as a single woman, but I honestly never felt unsafe. Since I followed near the highway the whole time, there’s always an RVer or what they call a caravan nearby. We saw a few dingoes out there, some snakes, two or three close calls in that. I didn’t realize how much of a personal bubble the snakes have out here. And so we got a little too close to them and they just, they shoot off like lightning. They are so fast. They just zip away from you. But out here they have brown snakes, which are the second most venomous in the world.
Bernie Harberts (11:38)
So how big is the personal bubble on a brown snake?
Gin Szagola (11:42)
Gosh, we would get maybe 20 feet away and then that’s when they would zip off. And the problem too is that the snakes, when they run off, they want to go back to wherever their burrow is. And so if you’re actually standing in that direction, they want to go around you or through you.
Bernie Harberts (12:02)
So how many snakes do you think you saw?
Gin Szagola (12:05)
Leave us off four or five in total yeah.
Bernie Harberts (12:09)
Wow. So what would you tell a woman who was wanting to travel alone through Australia? What would be your advice to her?
Gin Szagola (12:20)
Oh man, I would say do it. Do it in a heartbeat. I have never, I’ve almost never felt unsafe out here, especially when it comes to people. I will say that I felt safer here in Australia, just camping on the side of the road, as I am easily 95% of the time. I felt more safe here than in America, in all honesty. It’s an incredibly safe country. And even out on the Nullarbor as you’re approaching it, you feel like this desert stretch is going to be so remote. I guess whenever I’m on the road, it all just feels like home to me. I feel content. And even out there, it just didn’t feel so remote because you’re next to the highway. You can always flag down a car in an emergency. And they have something called the Royal Flying Doctors out here, which is a nonprofit. So where if you got bitten by a snake, it’s the Royal Flying Doctors who would come out in a plane. And on the Nullarbor it’ll only take them, I believe it’s one to two hours to come out depending on where you are. And so time is of the essence with the snake bite, but even still, help is not too far away. And the Royal Flying Doctors are actually, it’s all free. You don’t have to cover the cost of the emergency rescue, which is amazing. So there’s great resources out here in Australia. And it’s just a wonderful country, just the most amazing people. The landscape is so diverse. That’s one thing that has really shocked me, just how much it changes day to day, the plants and animals and just this general landscape.
Bernie Harberts (14:01)
What’s the biggest thing that you’re worried about before the trip that didn’t happen?
Gin Szagola (14:09)
That’s an amazing question. I always worry about my safety in general, especially when it comes to men. You know, I’ve not had any bad encounters there. And then really the Nullarbor was a big one. I wasn’t sure how we were going to run the Nullarbor, whether it was going to be possible. And now I look back and laugh a little bit because not only was it possible, but it was easily my favorite section and it was so much easier than I thought it was going to be. Beyond that, you know, how Fable was going to do was such a big unknown. I just wasn’t sure if he was capable. In fact, when I first met Fable, I actually immediately wrote him off. I felt like, no, he can’t do it. He’s not my horse.
Bernie Harberts (15:00)
Why?
Gin Szagola (15:01)
When I met him he was just, I thought he’s too small, he’s too scrawny, he’s too spooky. And yeah, I underestimated him. And so I genuinely completely wrote him off. I was like, not him. And so yeah, we’ve kind of done a full 180 there in terms of me falling in love with Fable and realizing his potential. In a way I feel like he believed in himself when no one else did, not even me. And in a way, sometimes I feel guilty and I look back and I think, gosh, Jen, if he realized you didn’t believe in him back then, how sad would that make him feel? Because he felt like I was his biggest advocate. I was really pushing for him. And I was, but at the same time, I had that doubt in the back of my mind. I’m not sure he can do it, which he never saw.
Bernie Harberts (15:51)
It sounds like you guys have come to a beautiful resolution because he sounds like he was genuinely scared and you probably had some pretty good reasons to think maybe he wasn’t going to be that horse. And it turns out it worked out brilliantly well. So tell me what’s how far have you come and how far do you have to go before you’re finished riding across the bottom of Australia? How many miles is that?
Gin Szagola (16:16)
We’ve done about 2,400 miles and we have a little over 300 left. So it’s a lot shorter to cross Australia than the US. The US you would add easily a thousand miles. When I crossed the US with Finlay that was about 3,700. So almost exactly a thousand more.
Bernie Harberts (16:38)
What’s the biggest change in your and Fable’s relationship between when you started and today?
Gin Szagola (16:46)
I’d say it’s a lot more easygoing now, you know, we’ve kind of fallen into the rhythm of things. At times I have to be careful that our relationship doesn’t dissolve into like a brother-sister sort of thing. I let boundaries slide and you know when you go from being co-workers with someone to roommates, you know, things just, you learn things about a person that you never knew.
Bernie Harberts (17:18)
Like, what’s an example of that? Something you’d want to like, kind of clarify in your relationship?
Gin Szagola (17:23)
Gosh. Well, in regards to Fable’s and I relationship, you know, I just, like, he’ll start to push into my space when he shouldn’t. And yeah, just not really respect my boundaries, in part because I recognize any fault he has is really just a reflection of myself and poor training on my part. And it’s always good for me to self-reflect in those instances and think, I caused this, how can I fix it? And I like doing that because it helps me to not get angry at him then, you know, to recognize, to take self-responsibility there. But yeah, yeah, I would say living on the road with a horse for me is a lot like going from coworker to roommate, and you have to be careful there that boundaries don’t slide too much.
Bernie Harberts (18:22)
But you still have to share peanut butter sandwiches occasionally. I love that video.
Gin Szagola (18:25)
Exactly. If I ever have food I don’t want, for the most part, I can just give it to him.
Bernie Harberts (18:38)
Wonderful. Well, Jen, I know you’ve got to hit the road, I thank you so, so much. What’s today’s ride going to look like? You’re going to saddle up, you’re going to ride. What’s the land going to look like?
Gin Szagola (18:50)
Yeah, we’ll ride 20 miles today. We’re going to be along what’s called the South Coast Highway. I’m a bit nervous because it’s going to be busy with road trains. Not sure what the shoulder is going to look like. I’m going to look on Google satellite mode in advance to see if there’s any neighboring paths we can cut on to avoid the highway, like through farmers fields. Yeah, so and then we have a host tonight who has some cattle yards for us ahead where we’ll stay. Yeah.
Bernie Harberts (19:23)
Beautiful. Well, listen, thank you so, so much. I wish you guys an absolutely fantastic ride. I’d love to catch up a little bit farther up the road as you get closer to end of the trip to, you know, to drill down to some of these things we’ve talked about. But this was just a just a beautiful kind of a taste of what you guys are doing out there. It’s beautiful.
Gin Szagola (19:46)
Yeah, thank you, Bernie. It’s always wonderful to chat up with you. I mean, to catch up with you as well. Last week of my journey or so, it’s becoming increasingly bittersweet, the ending realizing that, you know, once it’s done, it’s done that I’ll never be riding across Australia with fable again. So it’s starting to make me a bit sad, but in a way it also just reminds me to cherish each moment.
Bernie Harberts (19:51)
Yeah! Yeah! What’s the saddest thing about ending a voyage like that?
Gin Szagola (20:18)
The hardest thing is having to give up fable. So my plan is once we finish, I’m going to take a few months off in Western Australia to save up some money working, but more so just to be with him longer. If I didn’t have fable, I would leave Western Australia and probably go to the Eastern States, maybe Tasmania or something. But I want to be in just to be able to have more time with him afterwards so I don’t feel rushed into rehoming him.
Bernie Harberts (20:48)
And for people that want to help you out either with a moral support or financial support, where can they help you out?
Gin Szagola (20:55)
I’ve got my Facebook page, it’s called Gin Szagola and Fable. Gin Szagola is spelled like Gin Szagola and Tonic and Fable is F-A-B-L-E. So you can check me out on there. My website is also Gin Szagolaandfable.com. I do have PayPal, that would be under my email which is Gin Szagolaandfaith at gmail.com if anyone wanted to chip in for the journey.
Bernie Harberts (21:19)
Gin Szagola, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. A lovely insight.
Gin Szagola (21:24)
Yeah.
Bernie Harberts (21:26)
Was there anything else you’d like to leave us with before you hit the road today?
Gin Szagola (21:31)
I would emphasize how much I love long riding and that I feel like it’s the only discipline that really lets you become part of your horse’s herd, you know, living together 24-7. And that’s really why I do it, just for the love of a horse.
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