TAKING THE REINS 'THE ADVENTURE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE'

THE EPIC RIDE HELPED HER FIND LOVE AND

- Leena Tailor

Larissa Mueller took a leap of faith when she proposed to her partner Alex McFarlane in Kerikeri on Leap Day last year. The happy couple first met through friends 12 years ago, and dated for four years before breaking up and eventually reconnecting.

But proposing to her man is not the gutsiest thing Larissa has done. The 33-year-old has circumnavigated New Zealand on horseback, a journey that took six years, two horses and notched up 9075 kilometres.

Through it all, Larissa has gone from experiencing bouts of depression to being more content than ever, and from feeling like a failure to learning it’s giving things a go that ultimately matters.

“I’m such a different person to when I started,” Larissa reflects, before sharing the deeply personal motivation which drove her to set off around the South Island on horseback with friend Kendall Waugh in 2014.

“When I started with Kendall, I said, ‘If I quit this, it’s going to be bad, because it’ll be yet another thing I’ve quit.’

“I was getting into depressive episodes because I’ve often felt like a quitter, whether it’s taking up paragliding lessons, trying to learn guitar or quitting jobs. It made me feel hopeless. So, there was a huge drive to finish this, but ironically, the trip taught me that it’s only if you don’t try that you fail! If it doesn’t work out, you learn from it – every experience is valuable.”