Brenda Harland is one tough cookie.
Giving her age as ''a good three-quarters of a century'', the Westwood horsewoman is a veteran of all 22 Otago Goldfields Heritage Trust cavalcades.
Nothing, not even broken bones, has been known to deter her from taking part in the annual event, traversing the Otago hinterland.
Riding since she was a toddler, Mrs Harland has been involved with horses all her life and in most facets - from breeding and showing, at rodeos, mustering and training racehorses.
Pre-cavalcade bad luck has dogged her in recent years but despite nursing hefty injuries, she is not fazed.
Two years ago, she hobbled along with a broken, but unplastered foot, and lamented her inability to dance in the woolsheds at night.
Then there was the time she had to have CPR performed on her during a cavalcade.
Before this year's event, Murphy's law struck again. She had an accident around Christmas - nothing to do with horses, she quickly added - tearing the ligaments in her knee and foot when she slipped on moss.
Despite hearing ''crack, crack, crack'' and suggestions of a hospital visit, she did not seek treatment for several weeks.
''I said, `I'll be all right' so I just kept going. I iced it and I put it in long socks and things like that,'' she said matter-of-factly.
Mrs Harland is accompanied on this year's cavalcade by her son Gavin Fox and daughter-in-law Vicky, taking part in the Tussock Creek light wagon trail.
Yesterday, on the ride from El Dorado, inland from Waikouaiti, to Shag Valley Station, she was riding on a cart pulled by Lily but she hoped to ''ride when I can''.
Asked whether she intended putting her dancing shoes on at night, she said: ''They'll have to give me petrol down my throat and I'll be right.''
She has a more comfortable cart this year than her usual model, dubbed ''the Rickshaw''.
The best part about the cavalcade was the people she met, the comradeship, and the country she got to ride through.
''I love just getting out. There's no telephone, there's no TV, and it's nice and it's social because you haven't got those distractions,'' she said.
However, she missed her partner, the late Gordy McCraw, a legend on the light wagon trail.
