Blog 3. Ben Freeth’s Ride for Hope across western Namibia Day 2.

19 September 2025

There is almost nothing more joyous than riding through the beauty of open country with a good horse and enough grazing and water along the way; and some good biltong to chew on as one rides.

The grass sings in the wind as we crunch through to the beat of the horse’s hooves.  The spring blossoms are all out, rejoicing in the exceptional rain of last year: the yellow bauble of the camel thorn acacias;  white balls of other acacias, looking like popcorn; the feather yellow blossoms of the paperbark euphorbias. 

The miles stretch behind in our wake.  Ahead there is a hill far in the distance that gradually, imperceptibly, moves slowly closer.  As we keep going, it draws slowly close to us and then we are alongside it and it is starting to draw away behind us again. 

The bond that develops with horse and rider is something truly unique.  It doesn’t take long.  Spending the whole day together, battling through the heat, finding grazing and water, chatting with horse language (and plain English), discussing traumas and happy times of the past and dreams of the future, these are wonderful things for me out under the great open sky. 

In Warrior there is not a bad bone in his body.  He is a giving horse and nothing really phases him very much.  I put hobbles on for the first time today and he was totally unphased by that.  He simply carried on grazing as though nothing was different. 

I was under a railway line at the time in a culvert sheltering from the heat whilst Warrior grazed.  I then heard a very low hum that was increasing in volume and suddenly realised that a train was on its way.  I ran out and took the hobbles off and ran Warrior a little way from the track in case he panicked; but even a great train appearing out of the desert like a giant monster with a lot of noise and black smoke belching from its diesel stack, didn’t phase Warrior very much.  We have developed a fabulous bond of mutual trust which is very special.

We travelled about 35 km today and I have been invited in by a wonderful family that has been farming here since 1908.  Amazing!