Welcome to Alice Springs, globetrotters! While it might not win a beauty contest, there’s a lot more going on here than first meets the eye. Alice Springs serves as the gateway to some of central Australia’s most magical landscapes – you don’t have to venture far to find yourself among ochre red gorges, pastel-hued hills and ghostly white gum trees.

You’ll be picked up from either the airport or your hotel accommodation (should you choose to arrive the day before) at 12 noon by your host, Dr Brian Hampson, and begin the 4-hour overland transfer to Kings Creek Station (please make sure you’ve eaten lunch prior to being picked up). Keep your eyes peeled, globetrotters, because this may be your first chance to see Desert Brumbies in the wild in their raw and natural state. You’ll arrive at Kings Creek Station in the late afternoon. Kings Creek Station is a working cattle/camel station set amongst majestic desert oaks. It was established in 1982 by Ian and Lyn Conway and lies 36 kilometres from the magnificent Kings Canyon (Watarrka). You’ll have time to settle in and meet the brumbies you’ll be working with over the coming days before enjoying a hearty dinner and retiring to bed. You’ll no doubt want to get your beauty sleep tonight, as the next four days are going to be a truly eye-opening, exhausting, hugely rewarding and transformative experience.

Well, globetrotters, it’s time to meet the brumby you’re going to be working with over the coming days.

Throughout the next four days you’ll learn how to start and progress your very own brumby. Each day after breakfast (which will be served at 7am), you’ll receive a 90 minute one-on-one lesson with Brian, and continue training your horse for a further two or more hours per day. You’ll also have the opportunity to watch your fellow globetrotters start their horses as part of your learning experience – after all, each brumby will present differently, so you’ll learn new skills just through observing your fellow globetrotters.

At the end of each day after dinner, you will have the chance to debrief and discuss the day’s brumby starting experience and figure out the steps you need to take the following day to continue your progress. There will be plenty of time for yarn-telling around the campfire under a starry night sky.

Brian believes that ‘in many ways, leading a wild horse from an untamed state to the point where we can take our first few rides is much easier than starting a handled domestic horse. It is also much more fun and a far greater learning experience for you as the handler. When you step into a round yard with a young Brumby colt for the first time, you will see horse behaviour in its most raw and pure form. As you progress your colt, you will begin to understand how he thinks, why he does what he does and learn how to harness his flight, fright and fear behaviours to produce desired movement and behavioural responses.’

Brian (your guide and host) knows brumbies, and knows how to teach people to understand them and lead them down the path to becoming quiet, honest and safe riding companions. He has a method for teaching people that is safe and works. Anyone with a little horse experience can start a brumby with this method, and the skills learned will transfer to most activities with horses. Brian is not just a horse person, but an equine scientist who understands the ecology of brumbies. During the process of starting a brumby, you will not only learn how to progress a horse to saddle; you will also learn where and how brumbies live, what they eat, how far they travel and many more fascinating aspects of equine ecology.

Starting a brumby is managed through a multi-step program, each of which is achieved sequentially in order to gradually build the horse and handler’s trust, skills and confidence with the goal of creating a team relationship between the horse and handler. The stages are:

1. Getting the brumby relaxed in the round yard, then controlling horse movement by free lunging (no ropes); walk, trot, canter and stop are taught in both directions.

2. Join up: teaching the horse to follow the handler and accept the handler being at close range through a series of approach/retreat, pressure on/pressure off situations.

“Call that Australia? THIS is Australia!”  – it was Crocodile Dundee that brought the Australian outback to the world’s attention, and Australia’s epic heartland has been on the radar ever since. And YOU get to explore this wild and beautiful land tamed only by remote desert trails from the back of a desert brumby. To be clear, you won’t be riding the brumby you have trained the four days previously – instead you’ll ride brumbies that have been skilfully started to saddle and trained by your guide, Brian, alongside the Indigenous community local to the area, prior to your arrival. They will still be green and possibly spooky at times, so all guests need to be strong intermediate to advanced riders, confident on young horses.

Over the next three days you’ll be sleeping out under the stars at The Old Drovers Camp, a remote but comfortable campsite in the heart of Kings Creek Station with fantastic views of the nearby George Gill Ranges. Each morning, after a stomach-filling breakfast around the campfire, you’ll saddle up and head out for a two to four hour ride where you’ll be able to explore the outback at a leisurely pace. Your day’s ride might include a visit to Indigenous petroglyphs, wild brumby spotting from horseback (a huge thrill if ever there was one), sand dune riding and desert ecology interactions. You’ll be mesmerised by the sights and sounds of the Australian outback.

A saddlebag-packed lunch will be enjoyed in the heart of the desert, before you begin your ride back to camp for nights of campfire yarns, songs and lots of laughter. You’ll retire to your swag and fall asleep beneath a vast sky covered with twinkling stars.

The Australian outback offers a strange, mystical allure to all those who venture out into its midst, something spiritual that defies easy explanation. It might touch you as you first lay eyes on your desert brumby, or perhaps as the sun dips below the horizon at the end of the day, or even when you’re riding out in the middle of nowhere and find yourself enveloped by silence. In such moments lies the mysterious call of the Australian outback, one that will leave a mark on your soul.

Boo, it’s time to head home today, globetrotters. What an incredible few days you’ve had immersing yourself in this ancient land and learning to start and train a desert brumby. After a final breakfast, you’ll be transferred via 4WD back to Alice Springs for returning flights home. Please remember, if you’re planning to fly home today you need to book your flights for after 1pm.

Your host, Dr Brian Hampson, will pick you up from either your hotel accommodation or the airport in Alice Springs between 12 midday and 1pm today (please ensure you’ve eaten lunch before being picked up) and you’ll begin the four-hour 4WD overland transfer to Kings Creek Station in the heart of the Australian outback. Crocodile Dundee’s infamous words, “Call that Australia? THIS is Australia” will ring true in your ears as you take in the sheer vastness of the outback with its ochre-red gorges, pastel-hued hills and ghostly white gum trees. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled on this drive, globetrotters, because this may be your first chance to see desert brumbies in the wild and observe them in their raw and natural state (don’t worry if you don’t see any, there will be plenty of opportunities later in the week).

You’ll arrive at Kings Creek Station, a working cattle/camel station established in 1982 by Ian and Lyn Conway, in the late afternoon. The station is set amongst majestic desert oaks and lies 36km from the magnificent Kings Canyon (Watarrka). You’ll have time to settle in and shower before enjoying a hearty dinner then retiring to bed. Hopefully sleep will come easily, even though you’ll be beside yourselves with excitement about the adventures that await over the next few days as you head out into the Australian outback astride desert brumbies.

After a stomach-slapping breakfast of bacon, eggs and everything in between, you’ll head to the yards to meet the brumby who will carry you across the Australian outback for the next four days. The brumbies used on this desert ride will have been passively trapped from the wild and skilfully started to saddle and trained in their desert habitat by your guide, Brian, and the local Indigenous community a few weeks prior to your arrival. They will still be very young and green, so all guests are expected to be confident riding a green horse newly broken in.

This morning’s ride will see you head out from the main camp on Kings Creek Station in the direction of the Old Drovers Camp. You’ll immerse yourself in this ancient land, passing majestic desert oaks, great sandstone escarpments and riding through vast stretches of sand dunes. It’s hard to escape the feeling that in this land lies eternity…
You’ll reach Drovers Camp just in time for lunch, after which you’ll head out for another ride in the afternoon, slowly becoming more confident astride your desert brumby, who will astound you with his level-headed nature and willingness to learn. Tonight will be spent spinning yarns around the campfire underneath a clear, pin-pricked sky.

Over the next two days you’ll discover the mysterious call of the outback, which will touch you when you least expect it – whether that be as you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, astride your desert brumby and enveloped by silence, or perhaps as the sun sinks below the horizon at the end of the day. No matter when it happens, you’ll come to understand the strange, mystical allure the Australian outback offers.

Each morning, after a stomach-filling breakfast around the campfire, you’ll saddle up and head out for a two to four hour ride where you’ll be able to explore the outback at a leisurely pace. Your day’s ride might include a visit to Indigenous petroglyphs, wild brumby spotting from horseback (a huge thrill if ever there was one), sand dune riding and desert ecology interactions. You’ll be mesmerised by the sights and sounds of the Australian outback. A saddlebag-packed lunch will be enjoyed in the heart of the desert, before you begin your ride back to camp for the evening meal. You’ll fall asleep at night to the sound of your Desert Brumby munching on grass nearby.

After this morning’s ride through your magical surroundings (rest assured, you won’t ride the same trail twice – the desert is a vast place and is now your oyster, after all), you’ll return to Drovers Camp for lunch. After you’ve eaten your fill, you’ll bid a final farewell to the campsite and ride back to Kings Creek Station’s main camp. You’ll be staying in the safari cabins here again tonight. And as night falls, around a crackling campfire under a blanket of stars, you’ll enjoy one final evening of campfire sing-alongs and yarn-spinning, before your head hits the pillow and your mind is filled with images of the epic arid landscape you’ve been riding across the past few days.

After a final breakfast in the Bough Shed Restaurant on site at Kings Creek Station, Brian will drive you the four hours back to Alice Springs, arriving at around 12 noon. Should you wish to fly home today, you’ll need to book departing flights for after 1pm.

The ride price includes a 4WD transfer to/from Alice Springs to Kings Creek Station on the first and last days of the itinerary. If you choose to fly into Alice Springs on Day 1, please ensure you arrive no later than 11.30am in order to account for any unexpected travel delays. You’ll be picked up at 12 midday on Day 1 from either the airport or hotel accommodation (should you arrive the day before) to begin the four-hour overland transfer. You’ll arrive at Kings Creek Station in time to settle in, meet the brumbies, and enjoy dinner. Departing flights on the last day of the ride can be booked anytime after 1pm.

As part of the package rate, you’ll have ownership of your very own desert brumby (seriously, pinch yourself!) that Brian has purchased directly from the local Indigenous community. Keep in mind, the package price does NOT include transport of your horse back to your home. Understandably so, horse transport from Alice Springs to Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne is costly, but still possible. Please be advised, Brian has offered to transport a limited number of brumbies back to Brisbane when he heads back following Brumby Week in mid-September (at an additional cost). Places are limited. There is also a horse transport company based out of Alice Springs that offer this service and we can put you in touch with them. To give you an idea of pricing, transport for one horse from Alice Springs to Adelaide costs $660 AUD. Otherwise, if you won’t be bringing your desert brumby home, he will either be released back to the desert or used for stock work at the station. Generally, Brian will select 10 to 15 desert brumbies from a mob of 80 to 100 that have been passively trapped on a nearby station near a watering hole. Your desert brumby will be a colt ranging from two to four years in age. Mares are avoided as they’re either in foal or have a foal under foot. In saying that, there may be some two-year old mares in the mix. If someone would like a weanling or yearling to handle and not ride, this is also possible. The colts range from 14 to 15hh; the average six-year-old brumby stands at 15hh, with a range of colours seen including bay, palomino, pinto, grey, chestnut, buckskin and black. These desert brumbies are mostly very quiet once well handled, are surefooted and rugged, quick learners and easier to train than a domestic horse due to their natural socialisation in the wild horse band. They’re brave, have great feet, are good doers and their body type ranges from a stockhorse type to stockhorse/heavy horse cross.