Alienor le Gouvello chronicles horse trek in new book Wild At Heart

Alienor le Gouvello rode Australia’s 5330km Bicentennial National Trail with three brumbies, finding love on the way.

Alienor le Gouvello has documented her journey on Australia’s 5330km Bicentennial National Trail in her new book, Wild at Heart Australia. Picture: Cat Vinton

MOVIES are generally made about people like Alienor le Gouvello.

Having completed a horseback trek in Mongolia and a sidecar motorbike expedition from Siberia to Paris, the French-born adventurer and horse lover decided to take on Australia’s 5330km Bicentennial National Trail.

She rescued and trained three brumbies and set out from Healesville in November 2015, headed for Cooktown in far north Queensland. Battling mind, body and weather, Alienor completed the marathon trek in July 2017, suffering Ross River fever in the final weeks and at completion falling into the arms of cattle station owner and helicopter pilot, Mitch Ballantyne.

Speaking on the phone from that 4050ha outback cattle station, with Mitch — now her husband — and her two-year-old son Raphael babbling in the background, Alienor talks about the journey documented in her new book, Wild at Heart, released on Tuesday. “I don’t like to turn it into a soapy romance, although the media loves to do that,” says the 36-year-old.

“I was months on my own on the trail and we were not together while I was on the trail.

“But when I got sick towards the end with Ross River and wasn’t sure whether I’d finish it he was able to come and help me with a support vehicle. That’s when I fell for him.”

As much as the book is a tale of romance and fearlessness, Alienor says the main desire in writing it was to highlight the plight of wild brumbies in Australia.

Pre-journey, she worked with the Guy Fawkes Heritage Horse Association who mentored her for six months to train three brumbies rescued from the NSW Guy Fawkes River National Park.

Alienor le Gouvello with her three rescued brumbies. Picture: Cat Vinton

Roxanne, Cooper and River — who now live on the cattle station — are the co-stars of Wild at Heart.

“I have a unique relationship with them. They became my family,” says Alienor, who competed in eventing growing up in France.

“The trek was about showcasing these animals who have beautiful temperaments. Along the way I’d visit schools and families to educate about them.

“I chose Guy Fawkes brumbies because they have humane methods of trapping, rehoming and sending to the abattoir those that can’t be rehomed, but across Australia aerial killing is often the method used, which is cruel, with the horses often bleeding to death.”

Alienor volunteers for Riding for the Disabled in Bundaberg and has just started an equine therapy course.

She says the other theme to emerge from the book — which was written with the help of her journalist mother and featuring pictures shot by adventure photographer Cat Vinton — is the need to respect and treasure Australia’s environment.

“I travelled through 18 national parks, 53 state forests and four states and the diversity of the flora and fauna is mind-blowing.

“Yet the pace of life now is so hectic and we’re disconnected from nature and animals, which is so simple and grounding. I want to inspire people to reconnect with nature and take care of it.

“The environment here is so special that’s why I’ve chosen to live in Australia.”

Growing up in France she says she was always the adventurous and rebellious one, leaving home at 17 to travel the world, arriving in Australia in 2006 on a three-week holiday to meet a French love interest.

“But I never got my flight back. I had an amazing feeling here.”

She has worked on and off as a social care youth worker in a remote Aboriginal community and says the decision to go on the Bicentennial National Trail was not a “soul-searching journey”.

“I love adventure, it’s the kind of thing I love doing,” she says, although admitting the Ross River fever almost “broke me”.

Now married with a child, Alienor says “settling down” is not a word that resonates and she and Mitch are renovating an old bus to take around Australia.

COVID-19 aside, Alienor visits her family each year in France and she plans to move the family to France for a decade so Raphael can absorb the culture.

“I was ready to feel like I belonged somewhere and put down roots, but there’s more adventures to come for sure.”

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