Woman, 80, rides pony 600 miles every year since 1972

By Sarah Ward via SWNS

This 80-year-old woman with an eyepatch takes a 600-mile trek every year with her pony, an epic adventure she's been doing since 1972.

Jane Dotchin packs her saddlebags onto her trusty pony’s back every year, heading from her home near Hexham, England to Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland.

She covers between 15 and 20 miles a day with her steed, Diamond, aged 13, and her disabled Jack Russell, Dinky for company, from the off-grid smallholding where she lives.

She carries everything she needs including her tent, food, a few belongings - and despite wearing an eyepatch is determined to continue the tradition as long as she can.

She first got a taste for long-distance trekking when she trotted off to the idyllic West Country around 40 years ago.

Jane said: “My mother would look after my other ponies but she wasn’t that keen on looking after my Haflinger stallion, so I rode him down to Somerset to see a friend, which is about 300 miles.

"It was a bit of a hard slog, but it was good.”

After that initial journey, she caught the taste for the open road and has traveled to visit friends near Fort Augustus, near Loch Ness, Highlands, every fall since.

The journey takes around seven weeks depending on the weather and Jane tries to drop in to see people she has met over the years.

She lives on oatmeal, oatcakes and cheese, and carries an old mobile phone which has a battery that lasts six weeks - although getting a signal can be a problem.

Jane said: “I refuse to go slogging on through pouring wet rain.

"There are a few different routes I can take depending on the weather.

"I don’t want to go over hilltops in foul weather, but I work it out on the way.

“I don’t bother with maps I just keep to the routes I know."

Her disabled Jack Russell Dinky, who has deformed front legs, travels in a saddlebag.

Jane said: "She manages fine, when there is a nice grassy track she gets out and has a run, she doesn’t like stony ground but she is a nice hot water bottle for me in the tent.”

The pony is tethered on a long rope at night to graze and is shod with tungsten carbide welded onto her shoes to help reduce wear and tear.

Jane's bathroom habits are alfresco while she's on the road.

“I dig a hole," she said.

The superfit senior is devastated by the littering she has seen over the years - and said Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, is somewhere she finds "shameful" due to the amount of trash.

She said: "It's appalling, in particular single used barbecues which are left lying all over the place.

"There are some lovely people there who let me camp, but some of it is so disgusting and shameful.”

Campervans on single-track roads have also become a more persistent problem.

Jane said: “Drivers just didn’t seem to know how wide they were, I was forever just about getting swept off the roads by them.”

The UK right to roam law has helped with countryside access but, she said: "There are still some locked gates or little side gates that you can’t get a horse with packs on through.”

In recognition of her independent spirit, and many years of long-distance trekking, she received The British Horse Society lifetime achievement award last year, which she said was “a bit of a surprise.”

During the foot and mouth crisis in 2001 she went on a bicycle instead.

She said: “ I covered many more miles with the dog in a pannier but it was not the same, I missed my horse.”

During her travels, she witnesses rutting deer, stags fighting and many foxes.

She said: "There is always something interesting happening and there is never a dull moment."

Last year Jane set off on August 31.