Annals Of Adventure–Tim “Ghengis Khan” Cope: There’s something about Mongolia. First we checked in with the dude golfing his way across the steppes. And today we feature Australian adventurer Tim Cope, 25, who is in the midst of a 6,000-mile, 18-month trek from Mongolia to Hungary by horseback. Why? To follow in the footsteps, or hoofprints, of the Great Khan, of course. Tim’s journal is full of wacky adventures and misadventures (hail storms, horse thieves, fermented mare’s milk), but his main preoccupation for the moment is wolves. TWC reader Jody Robb, who first alerted me to Cope’s trans-Asia trek, sent in the following colorful report:

Having made his way into some desolate high country and met some armed wolf hunters, Tim’s aware that the odds of a meeting, and the risk to his horses, have increased.

So he did what any adventurer in a bind in Outer Mongolia would do – he rang the vet!

Sheila Greenwell is the consulting veterinarian to Horses & Horsemen, who are one of Tim’s sponsors and his horsemanship coach.

Sheila got a call in her Margaret River (South Western Australia) surgery from Tim, asking: “My horses are rubbing the hair from around their ears, do you think they have lice and, by the way, how do I keep wolves away from the camp at night?”

Sheila asks: “Are you guys eating much meat?”

Tim replies: “Dried beef and macaroni at every bloody meal!”

“Well,” says the Edinburgh educated and highly knowledgeable Dr Greenwell, “You need to urinate around the edge of the campsite every night before you go to bed. The wolves will smell the urine, identify it as that of serious carnivore and keep away.”

“All the way around the camp?” asks a gob-smacked Tim. “You’re joking! Oh well, I suppose I can do one side and Kathrin (his partner) can do the other.”

“Oh, no, no, no!” Sheila tells him. “A women’s urine contains oestrogen and will have quite the opposite effect. You’d probably wake up with a randy wolf in the tent with you.”

Uhh, not sure what even Ghengis Khan would do in that situation, but I’m sure the wolf wouldn’t like it…



Ghengis Tim: “Damn, I’m bored. I wonder when sacking and pillaging part begins…”

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