Twenty eight year old Australian Tim Cope, ‘Australian Adventurer of the Year 2006’ set off three years ago on a journey by horse, foot and camel from Mongolia to Hungary on the Trail of Genghis Khan. …And he has now arrived in Hungary.
Tim undertook the 6,214-mile (10,000 km)
Odyssey from Mongolia to Hungary to learn more about the lives of the nomads still living today, and also to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Genghis Khan, whose Empire spanned all the way to Hungary.
The stretch of Tim’s Hungarian trail is coordinated by the
Hungarian Equestrian Tourism Association (
Magyar Lovasturisztikai Szovetseg), and upon arrival to Hungary, he was taken under the “protective wings” of the HNTO’s Northern Great Plain Regional Marketing Directorate.
A film was made of his entire journey, which
will be broadcast on the National Geographic channel, and thus viewers worldwide will see the Hungarian sights of his trail as well. According to Gergely Peszeki of the Northern Great Plain Regional Marketing Directorate, Tim was touched by the Hungarian hospitality, and said that he will spread the word far and wide about the warmth with which he was welcome in our country.
Tim will conclude his over three-year journey on
September 22, 2007, at the Opusztaszer National Memorial Park, where he will meet Scottish long-distance rider Gordon Naysmith, who rode 14,000 km from South Africa to Austria in the early 1970s.
…And to think of it, before setting out on this adventure, Tim first had to learn to ride a horse.
Sources
Turizmus Online [2007-09-03 23:50:26]
Preparing for Mongolia in Antarctica?
In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan: an introduction to the next adventure
Links
Opusztaszer Home Page -- most content in Hungarian; some links in English and German. (I rather liked the music. Click on the "Music" button, the second up from the bottom of the left hand column. May need to keep clicking Next for it not to replay the song just finished.)
Gordon Naysmith:
The Will to Win
"Explorer’s 8,000 mile horseback odyssey nears conclusion" in
Horse and Hound magazine
"Equestrian explorers to meet in Hungary" on
HorseTV News
"Famous long distance horsemen to meet" in
Horsetalk. Equine News & Views
Related articles
The End of the Journey: Opusztaszer
As Tim Cope rides the final moments of his epic journey with his three horses and dog Tigon, he will be honored at the most sacred and important historical site in Hungary (
Opusztaszer), where in the year 896 the modern nation of Hungary was born.
Opusztaszer National Memorial Hungary
According to legend, Opusztaszer is the place where Arpad and the chieftains of the
Magyar tribes gathered in 896 AD “to decide upon the laws and order of their new homeland”. The 136-acre Opusztaszer National Historical Memorial Park is a museum and exhibition area that commemorates this, and it allows visitors to
explore the history of Hungary as well as the
culture and life-style of people living on the Southern Great Plain.
Blog 24/09/2007
Musings Over Tim Cope’s Reception in Opusztaszer
He’s been on my mind for over three weeks now, since I first heard about
his arrival to Hungary, and Googled him, and browsed around on
his website to learn who he is. Later a Hungarian article called him a swashbuckler, and the negative connotations of the term seemed offensive to me…. Why? Who is Tim Cope? And why does he matter?
