500 Miles

Senior Vice-President Mark Rossiter opened Tuesday's meeting by welcoming three Rotarian guests to our meeting. He then passed on the sad news that the speaker scheduled for the day, Olivia Giles of Charity 500 Miles, had unfortunately broken a femur and it will be some months before we will be able to hear her inspirational talk.

Secretary Jack Dempsey stepped into the breech with an illustrated talk entitled Extreme Safarishowing a slightly younger Jack who had come down from his day job in Saudi Arabia to join a group 16 others, of several nationalities, in a journey of 7500 kilometres through 5 African countries by rough and sometimes scary roads and by rivers which could be equally rough and scary in a canoe or white water inflatable. Overnight stops were in small tents and the travelers did all necessary catering and housework themselves. Baths were taken from river sandbanks in the Zambesi at spots sufficiently far from hippos and crocodiles.

The highlight of Jack’s holiday, perhaps literally, was a 340ft bungee jump from the viaduct close to the Victoria Falls down into the Zambesi gorge below. Lack of time prevented Jack taking us with him beyond the idyllic beaches near Dar-es-Salaam but David MacLauchlan accurately expressed the club's appreciation of a fascinating talk which shed new lights on Jack.