Wild Coast Horseback adventures

In reply to the comments that have been posted below, I would just like to state that this young lady stayed with us for 6 months during 2003/2004 and for some reason over the past few months has been venting her opinion on different place on the web some 7 years later!

Should anyone have any concerns about me or my company, please contact me directly, I will be happy to dispel any concerns and will provide you with a detailed list of people who you may contact who have ridden & stayed with us. You are also welcome to find us on Facebook - our page Wild Coast Horse Back Adventures has over 3120 fans of which most are regular followers. We also have a Facebook Group which you are welcome to join - most of the over 560 members have actually ridden with us or know me personally.

I would also like to state, that our Gap Year & Career break program is a horse riding program. We also do upmarket over night trails and horse safaris along the Wild Coast.
We abandoned the riding development program due to lack of support and enthusiasm in 2004 and developed our very successful working riding holiday.

Yours truly
Julie-Anne Gower
Wild Coast Horseback Adventures
South Africa

I Believe my daughter Kate did get emotional about the program in Kei mouth.. she went around the world to work with children and found herself in a situation where she had no emotional support and worked daily .. the privacy issue is as Kate stated.. the woman . Julie Ann listened in on our phone conversations and Kate did have her own private email address which Julie Ann hacked into. children would walk an hour to ride with Kate and she would try to find them rides home.. i am sure there are extremes vented here.. however Kate worked at another Horse Trail ride and didn't have the same problems..and Julie Ann was racist.. that much i know to be true.. i do believe she used the volunteers to do all the work and cared little about the well fare of the local children.. i don't think rascism is limited to american...

"dealt with less than five serious complaints"

lol

My name is Nicky Hoseck and I work as a freelance horse trails guide for Wild Coast Horse Trails. I met Julie-Anne, the owner, when I was volunteering for Willing Workers in South Africa and volunteered with her for three weeks to ascertain if the project was suitable for WWISA volunteers. As my experience was all good, they went on to send a couple of volunteers. I returned to Wild Coast Horse Trails in 2003 and volunteered there alongside Kate Spoon Burghley, doing very similar work to what she was doing.



Julie-Anne Gower forwarded me the message Kate sent to you and felt I needed to respond. I have been working alongside Julie-Anne for several years now and would not be doing so if any of the information Kate sent you was true.



Below are my comments, in red, on the statements Kate made:



“Wild Coast Horse Trails AKA Wild Coast Horseback Adventures is not
recommended. Volunteers will work more for the owner than volunteering with
the children of the local village and the development project.”



The volunteers as WCHT work with the horses, getting the opportunity to work with them, ride and assist with rides for clients. They get to work on the farm, at the beach and on the game reserve – giving them a wide range of riding experiences. The purpose of them being there is to keep the horses exercised, schooled and fit. The programme for teaching the local children to ride had to be abandoned as volunteers, such as Kate herself, failed to organise and manage the programme consistently, resulting in a lack of interest from the children. This aspect of the volunteer programme ran for about 6-12 months only. The work rider programme has been going for about 9 years.





“the Owner is racist and believes that the children in the riding development program
would not be missed if they got hurt and states that the children's parents"
don't care for them #@$% kids cause they just have more of them". “



I’ve known the owner for over eight years and have never heard her be racist to anyone. Obviously, standards may vary compared to the very politically correct cultures of England and the US, but I’ve never heard her be racist in any way and I am from England myself. I was primarily responsible for expanding the riding programme within the local area, alongside Kate, and at no time was the safety of any child compromised. We ran our lessons with the local children in the same way as we do our paying clients.





I and fellow volunteer were horrified by this as well as the owner hacking our
email accounts and listening in on personal phone calls. If you are into
personality disorders then this place is for you, if you want to make a
difference on the Wild Coast this place is NOT for you.
I felt this needed to be passed on, as I would not wish this placement on my
worst enemy.



Kate was extremely emotionally unstable and both the owner and myself were concerned about her well-being, especially as she arrived having a history of problems and rehab. Because of this, the owner contacted Kate’s mother to discuss her concerns regarding Kate. I believe Kate felt this was an invasion of her privacy. Kate chose to send and receive emails using the owners’ own, personal email address, meaning that all emails were open to the owner unless she deleted them after reading.

Please just let me know any information I may provide. The well known
organization WWISA ( Willing Workers in South Africa) pulled their funding
due to the shifty practices going on at this volunteer sight.



WWISA and WCHT parted company by mutual agreement and. WWISA also dropped all other remote projects in order to focus on the needs of their immediate community and environment. I have asked them to confirm this and will forward their email to you as soon as it arrives.



My safety was in question many times while volunteering with Wild Coat Horse Trails. This
guide has caused a woman's death due to careless and imprudent thinking. (
google it) I can also get you in touch with other volunteers that had
similar experiences.



Horse-riding is a dangerous sport and anyone who rides or works with horses has their safety questioned many times. The horses at Wild Coast Horse Trails are some of the easiest I have ever worked with and regularly take completely inexperienced clients out on rides. The other accident has been discussed and explained numerous times elsewhere so I won’t go into it but will say, as I have been guiding along the Wild Coast for over 3 years now, there are always dangers presented by the climate, the conditions, flooding, etc. I have now ridden over 5,000 km along the coast with about 100 guests and only one has fallen off – I have had no other serious incidents and I do all my guiding in accordance with the owner of WCHT trails advice and route planning.





The trails reputation speaks for itself in that the
only feedback found on the internet is posted by the guide, and their is no
advertisement on websites that have feedback from clients, as the feedback
would not be positive. I flew across the world to volunteer and was
devastated when I found out the woman I had began my project with was racist
and only in it for the monetary gain.





The trails have an excellent reputation, especially for our horses and the standard of our tack. We have a lot of positive feedback and have dealt with less than five serious complaints in the past three years. We all have to work hard to earn enough money around here but want everyone to enjoy our beauty part of South Africa so would never jeopardise anyone’s holiday in any way.





I hope this helps to clear up a few things and reassure you that Wild Coast Horse Trails is a professional company that takes excellent care of all its clients.



Kind regards,





Nicky Hoseck





Mpetukop Farm,

PO Box 179,

Kei Mouth 5260