SB-issue59_digital

The Road to Patagonia
“If we were stressed or impatient, the horses would sense that
and become uncooperative and moody. If we were tired, then
they would have been tired too. We were all going through it
together.
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“After six months of living and sleeping alongside the horses, we
knew their personalities down to a tee. They could be so funny,
cheeky, defiant, and even dangerous. Blacky, our lead mare,
almost killed me early in the trip with a double barrel kick aimed
at my head.
“I jumped backwards at the same rate her kick was coming
towards my face, and everything went slow-motion in a full
matrix moment. I saw her hoofs two inches from my nose as I
flew through the air, before landing flat on my back, unharmed.
That taught me a lot.”
Near-death experiences aside, it was clear that by the end
of the journey the odd bunch of travellers were like a herd –
wherever one went, the rest followed. While the horses helped
carry Matty, Heather, and their things, the couple ensured they
were safe, fed, and cared for.
Due to their unpredictable temperament and strange (but
relatable) fear of surfboards, Heather was apprehensive of the
horses at first, but agreed they were the highlight of the entire
trip.
“They shrunk our perspective, which feels dangerously insular in
this age of data overload, when we’ve been told that the more
information we have, the better.
“The horses forced upon us a local dependency on the land
above all else, but also on the communities we passed through,
and each other.
“We were constantly aware of swales in the landscape, as a tiny
creek running through it might be our only water for the day.”
Completely reliant on each other, far from the conveniences of
modern life, and with no room for personal space, it’s certainly
impressive that Matty and Heather handled the journey as well
as they did.
Although it wouldn’t have been easy, it was uplifting to see the
pair have complete trust in one another throughout the film,
even when things didn’t go as planned. Maintaining a healthy
relationship is difficult enough, even without having to constantly
film each other and live out of a tent for two and a half years.
Matty said there were a lot of individuals who added something
special to the doco, but without a doubt it was Heather’s
tenacity that made it special.
“She’d never even been dinked on a motorcycle before she
sold her business and bought a 500cc bike in Mexico, rode into
South America with me, and said yes to a relatively dangerous
horse expedition.
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“She let me film really intimate moments of her, she learned how
to use a camera and interview people, and she put up with me
through the thick of it.”
The further Matty and Heather persevered, the more The Road
to Patagonia’s identity began to take shape, as for every scene
featuring lush rainforests and the vital connection between
humanity and nature, there is another revealing kilometres of
deforested, exploited land.
It’s a confronting perspective, which only hits harder when the
couple rides further south, passing through a myriad of seaside
and mountain villages filled with people far more in tune with the
earth and their ancestors than many of us would be used to.