48 Quotes by Tim Cope

This is to certify that in addition to the permit of the 29th November Australian traveler Tim Cope can transport his three horses by riding them. His one dog can be carried by its four legs.

The Finns are part of the Finno-Ugric group of peoples, and are related to many different indigenous peoples that stretch right across the belt of forest and tundra regions of Russia and Siberia, as far as the Pacific.

Marco Polo, who wrote that Mongol couriers could cover 250 or even 300 miles in a single day. Reading historical tales about such exploits, one could be forgiven for imagining the steppe as a single flat grassland through which horsemen moved with a sense of freedom and ease. Here on horseback, though, it was clear the cavalry were negotiating deserts, mountains, rivers, swamps, heat, and frosts, and somehow keeping their horses fed and healthy, even before leaving Mongolia.

Just as it was hard to say precisely when the summer came to an end and when autumn fully took hold, my journey did not come to close in one time in one place. There were, rather, many endings, and later many new beginnings.

I have brought many artifacts back with me from the steppe. My favourite is a 90-year-old Kazakh saddle decorated with silverwork in traditional motifs. It symbolises the deep relationship between man and horse on the Eurasian Steppe.

I don't think patience is something that any of us grow up with in a large dose. It's a world of instant gratification.

Perhaps most important for nomads was the belief in the symbiosis that existed between wolf and humans on the steppe. Wolves were an integral part of keeping the balance of nature, ensuring that plagues of rabbits and rodents didn't break out, which in turn protected the all-important pasture for the nomads' herds.

In the initial stages of my journey, I was trying to travel too fast by horse by sticking to a 'five days on and two off' schedule. On the steppe, time is not measured by days, weeks or hours but the fall of the seasons and condition of the animals.

When you hear that howl alone at night in the forest, it's one of the most frightening sounds you'll ever hear.