We want to share their stories of success on the land, and belonging to our local communities.

From the merchant navy and ship building to accomplished horseman and all-round bush larrikin, Glen Innes local Steve Langley has no shortage of tales to tell.

Mr Langley moved to the region decades ago, after deciding he wanted to make a living out of his love of horses.

He arrived in Glen Innes in the late 1970s swapping a house on the Hawksbury River for a bush block in the hills after picking up a news paper one day and reading an ad about a 1656 acre property for sale called "Bullock Mountain". 

While working for a company called 3M, Mr Langley had passed through Glen Innes a number of times and fallen in love with the country.

"I was working in sales and management and horses were just a hobby, but then I decided to turn it into a living," Mr Langley said.

"I moved with my then partner and a 10-month-old baby boy to Bullock Mountain.

"It had an old house and we spent a lot of time and money to turn it into a lovely place to live," he said.

It became a horse-riding holiday farm and the base for Mr Langley’s business – pub crawls on horseback – taking visitors on horses over 140km between his home and the villages of Deep Water, Torrington and Emmaville.

He ran the business for 10 years and did 44,000km on a horse.

"And I lost count of the number of schooners as we stayed in pubs each night," he said.

In the 1990s he sold the business, horses and all, as a going concern and bought a neighbour's place.

Unable to go back into trekking due to requirements in the sale contract, Mr Langley decided to set up his new farm – around 1200 acres – as a naturists' retreat, or in other words a nudist holiday stay.

While it was okay in the warmer months, "in the winter it was a shrinking business", he said.

However, after five years were up Mr Langley was itching to get back into the saddle officially.

His next venture was ride the divide – 10 day horse treks from Glen Innes to South Ballina, Coffs Harbour or Dorrigo.

"Hundreds of people have done this over the years," he said.

More recently Mr Langley has helped on a number of charity rides.

Most notably, the Crackin Cancer fundraisers, where he has been the trail leader for all the rides until this year.

But now in his 80s, Mr Langley has decided it's time to call it a day.

After literally thousands of kilometres spent on horse back, taking holiday trekkers all over the region and leading many charity events, he officially hung up his spurs.

He still has a team of about 25 horses, but said in the future he plans to sell them along with his property.

Mr Langley wants to stay in Glen Innes though, and is searching for a small place that will become his new home.

"I love this high country," he said.