Speaking this month we have:

1. Brian Anderson – Tierra del Fuego – ‘The Land of Fire’

   ‘The Uttermost Part of the World’ – In 1519 Magellan became the first European to navigate a wild and remote channel linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Sailing in search of a westward route to the Spice Islands, Magellan sighted many fires along the coastline.  His sailors christened this uncharted area “Tierra del Fuego”, or ‘the Land of Fire’. Sailing the same waters in 1577, Sir Francis Drake described this southern tip of South America as “the uttermost part of the earth”. Charles Darwin visited the region in 1832 and 1833 and described the Fuegian tribes as the “most uncivilised savages” he had ever encountered. 

   Join Brian for the incredible story of Tierra Del Fuego and to view his stunning landscape and wildlife images from 4 expeditions to the region. You will see the Fuegian red fox, penguins, sealions, magnificent Caracas, skuas and shags, plus many other animals and plants which survive in this most remote and inhospitable region of the southern hemisphere.  

2. Richard Evans – Laid Back around the World in 180 Day.

   From the vast deserts of Kazakhstan to the Pyrenees via the monsoons of Southeast Asia, the Australian Nullarbor, the Canadian Rockies and Great Lakes, this is Richard Evans’s travelogue of his six-month journey around the world by recumbent bicycle in 2014.

   Averaging around 1,000km per week, Richard shared treacherously potholed highways with speeding juggernauts, faced freezing nights and scorching days, and battled headwinds strong enough to blow him off the road. Having lost 7kg in the first seven weeks and with 19 weeks still to go, it was important to stabilise the weight loss. A cure was found in beer and dumplings.

   Find out more at http://laidbackaroundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here

Speaking this month we have:

1. Tom Fremantle – A thousand mile walk along the US-Mexico border – and other stories!

   Tom Fremantle talks about lessons from the road with a focus on the US-Mexico border. His latest book – just launched – is called Pancho’s Song, a young adult novel set on the US-Mexico border.

   Tom’s website is https://booksandblisters.com

   Tom is also speaking to support the amazing work of Shiksha Rath, at The Troubadour, 263-267 Old Brompton Rd, Earls Court, London SW5 9JA on Friday, 14 October 2016

   

2. John Gimlette – Elephant Complex – Travels in Sri Lanka

   John Gimlette describes his three months of travels in Sri Lanka. Few places are as contradictory. The island is home to over 7,300 wild elephants and yet it’s only the size of Ireland. For the last three decades, it’s hosted not only an alluring tourist industry but also the most savage civil war Asia has ever known (1983-2009). Venturing into the remotest corners of the country, John will be offering advice for those wishing to share in the beauty and strangeness of this remarkable country.

   

   

   

   

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here

Speaking this month we have:

1. Members Slides : Around the world in eighty minutes. 10 presentations of 10 slides This month we have a fast paced journey around the Globe..

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk session lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here.

There is no meeting this month.

Speaking this month we have:

1. Jeanie Copland – on to Ho Chi Min (Trans Siberian Part 2).

   Having travelled the Trans Siberian railway from Moscow, via Mongolia, to Beijing; now continue on China’s railways to Nanning, crossing into Vietnam to connect with their reunification rail network – “adventuring en route!!”.

2. Russell Maddicks – Ecuador: Where to Visit After April’s Earthquake

   Ecuador is one of the most interesting and rewarding countries to visit in the Americas. A small country blessed with a hugely varied geography – encompassing Andean peaks, Amazon rainforest, Pacific beaches, and the wildlife-wonderland of the Galapagos Islands – it has been described as a microcosm of South America. On 16 April a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated communities along the northern Pacific coast and a massive relief effort is still underway. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is operating normally and more than ever needs tourism revenue to help fund the rebuilding on the coast.

   Russell Maddicks, the author of the “Culture Smart! Guide to Ecuador” will give an illustrated presentation explaining the current situation on the ground, why you should visit now, and a taste of the country’s main tourism highlights.

3. Olie Hunter Smart – Kayaking the Amazon.

   Olie has a passion for travel, culture, adventure and photography, stemming from a trip to Belize in 2002. Since then he has continued to explore the world, spending two months in a village on a remote island in Indonesia, as well as travelling through parts of Northern African and Europe. In 2013 he took a break from the advertising world, backpacking his way overland through 16 countries across four continents, exploring and photographing different environments, cultures and landscapes along the way.

   In 2015, Olie and travel companion Tarran Kent-Hume completed an expedition to walk and kayak the length of the Amazon River, from its most distant source high up in the Peruvian Andes to where it enters the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil. The pair travelled over 4,000 miles fully unsupported, carrying all their own gear, food and supplies for the four and a half month journey.

   Find out more at www.oliehuntersmart.com or @oliehs

   

   

   

   

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here.

Speaking this month we have:

1. Elizabeth Gowing – The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife: an unlikely friendship in Kosovo.

   This is the story of living and learning – being confused and comforted – with the excluded Ashkali people of Kosovo; an account of the challenges and delights of what happens when you find your community but it’s a long way from home.

   Hatemja, a rubbish-picker’s wife, lives in the poorest community in the poorest country in Europe. When Elizabeth Gowing is befriended by her, the women learn with, from and about one another. How can you find the best rubbish pastures for scavenging? How can you free children to go to school rather than to go out begging? How do you then convince the local school to accept them? Can mayonnaise deal with head lice? How best to teach the 36 letters of the Albanian alphabet? How would Facebook help evacuate a family from a rat-infested hovel? How do you make baklava? And through it all, how do you maintain a precious friendship that’s helped you find out the best you can be?

   To find out more visit Elizabeth’s website www.elizabethgowing.com or Twitter.

   The Ideas Partnership’s is the charity, which Elizabeth co-founded to work with the rubbish-pickers and their families and whose work is included in the talk: visit their website The Ideas Partnership or their Facebook page.

   Elisabeth’s book is The Rubbish-Picker’s Wife; an unlikely friendship in Kosovo.

   

   

2. John Pilkington – Europe & Russia: What Next?

   Our president reports that passions are running high in Ukraine and the breakaway states of the Caucasus. Vladimir Putin’s adventures in Ukraine took the West by surprise. But John thinks in some ways they followed a pattern that goes back more than a century to the legendary ‘Great Game’ between Russia and Britain in Victorian times. Since the Soviet Union’s break-up, Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have become Russia’s ‘forgotten’ satellite states – unrecognised and unheard of by most outsiders. Now Donetsk and Luhansk have joined the list, and Russia has full control of Crimea.

   In 2015 John met people on both sides of these disputed borders, and promises some surprising insights.

   More at http://www.pilk.net

   

   

   

   

   

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here.

Speaking this month we have:

1. John Hare – Three wild camel surveys in the Gobi desert undertaken in 1999, 2005 and 2011.

   The first survey traversed some hitherto unexplored sand dunes near the northern Tibet escarpment that led John Hare into two undiscovered valleys and a fresh water spring that held pockets of wildlife that had no fear of man.

   In addition to observing 169 critically endangered wild camels, the expedition also observed the Tibetan ass, Argali wild sheep, wolves and bears at extraordinarily close quarters.

   On a return visit six years later, John Hare discovered that illegal miners had entered the area and in their search for gold had poisoned the spring and the vegetation with potassium cyanide and shot the wildlife.

   The third and most recent trek highlights what has happened since then The talk concludes with an illustration of the highly successful captive wild camel breeding programme which the charity that John Hare founded, the Wild Camel Protection Foundation, initiated in Mongolia.

   Find out more at www.wildcamels.com and johnhare.org.uk.

2. Charlie Walker – A Long Way Home

   In 2010 Charlie set off by bicycle and returned 4.5 years later with 43,000 miles behind him. His journey included walking 1,000 miles across the Gobi desert, horse-trekking 600 miles through the Mongolian steppe and descending a little known tributary of the Congo river by dugout canoe. His talks recount some of the highlights and challenges of his adventure.

   Find out more at Charlie’ss Website: www.cwexplore.com, Twitter and Facebook.

   

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here.

This month we have:

1. AGM : The clubs AGM starts at 1:00pm (card carrying members only), then at 2.30 the meeting begins

Speaking this month we have:

2. Jeremy Perrin – All you need to know about the Camino de Santiago

3. Jon Beardmore – The Great Game – 30,000 miles across Central Asia

   In 2013 Jon set out to retrace the 200 years immortalised in “The Great Game” – a term for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia.

   Through interaction with the local people and landscapes, the aim was to compare the historical version with the modern day. He travelled from London to Russia along the Silk Road, through the “Stans”, China and SE Asia returning via India, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey and finally back to Europe.

   His aim: to find out if Central Asia is really as dangerous as we’re led to believe.

   Links to the film website: www.thegreatgamemovie.com, https://www.facebook.com/TheGreatGameMovie/ and https://twitter.com/TheGreatGame30k

   Charity Links: Charity Fundraising Page

   

   

   

   

   

   

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here

Speaking this month we have:

1. Daniel Evans – Footsteps Beyond the Pond

   Daniel has a special interest in the cryosphere (cold environments) and received a scholarship from the Royal Geographical Society when he was just 17 to travel and study in Alaska.

   After two months working as a field assistant at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, he undertook a tour of the US West Coast, absorbing the culture of Washington State, Oregon and California before heading up to Canada.

   Daniel has always had a passion for Geography, fostered no doubt from being brought up exploring his home county of Norfolk. With a desire to learn more about how the planet operates, Daniel is currently in the third year of his BSc Physical Geography degree programme and aspires to go on to achieve a Masters and PhD.

   Daniel is a keynote and after-dinner speaker to Rotary Clubs, the Woman’s Institute, schools and colleges across the country. He has also lectured at the Royal Geographical Society and many conferences. Recently, he was awarded the Ivan Palfrey Trophy for services towards the wider geographical community.

   Additionally, in his own time, he produces documentaries to inspire young people to study the landscape around them, writes essays and publishes all of this work on his blog: geographywithdan.blogspot.co.uk

2. Jacqui Trotter – Israel.
3. Unfortunately Alan Palmer has had to cancel.

   Alan Palmer – Diverse encounters in India's North-East Frontier Agency – Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Assam.

   Alan Palmer previously presented for us at The Globetrotters Club three years ago when he delivered an illustrated talk about his experiences of trekking through the High Atlas and Ant-Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Having first visited the country in 1979 and having regularly trekked there since 1986, he was in a good position to do so. More recently, he has focused upon the rich cultural diversity of North East India.

   During the course of two seasons in 2015, first through the deluge of the summer monsoon and then under the clear, blue skies of winter, Alan crossed the mountainous tribal regions of Arunachal Pradesh (inadvertently almost straying into Bhutan), traversed the plains of northern Assam, and then sought out remote traditional villages in Nagaland (accidentally wandering across the border into Myanmar, Burma).

   Alan will present an illustrated talk to us about his recent travels, focusing upon the remarkable ethnic and cultural diversity of the people he met in this remote corner of North East India.

   Alan is author of “Moroccan Atlas – The Trekking Guide” (Trailblazer Publications 2010, second edition 2014).He has also contributed to Pakistan and The Silk Road (both by Insight Guides). In 2012 he formed his own company, Yak Travel Limited, planning and organising fully personalised treks and 4×4 tours for individuals and small groups in Morocco and North East India.

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here.

Speaking this month we have:

1. Nathan Millward – From Sydney to London and beyond. Dorothy Revisited

   English traveller and author from Mansfield in the Midlands having ridden across the world by 105cc motorcycle named Dorothy and now back home in England, living in suburbia.

   Married last September in Las Vegas during another impromptu motorcycle adventure, proving that it’s not about the number of countries you visit or amount of miles that you cover. It’s instead about moving forward in life, however that happens to be represented.Talking about the trials and tribulations of the road and what travelling and adventure means to me now that I have two women in my life.

2. Adam Lang – Sea and Sardinia – D.H. Lawrence’s Hidden Sardinia

   Five years ago I discovered ” Sea and Sardinia ” by DH Lawrence on an untidy shelf at Scriveners bookshop in Buxton, Derbyshire. Although I was not aware of the book it proved a very sound investment for just a pound. It coupled well my interests in Lawrence and Sardinia .

   In January 1921 DH Lawrence decided to take a break from living in Sicily and visited Sardinia with Frieda,his wife, whom he called the QB ( Queen Bee).He found a ” strange stony Cagliari ” with a street ” like a corkscrew stairway”. It was only a 6 day trip starting in the capital Cagliari and travelling third class on a narrow gauge steam train through the rugged interior.

   Lawrence and Frieda saw and spoke to a diverse range of people enabling him to write this little known Travel book which gives an illuminating and fascinating account of Sardinia and its people post World War One.

   130 years on from Lawrence’s birth in 1885, I attempted to retrace his and Frieda’s journey in the much more agreeable month of June with my partner Elizabeth,a ceramicist. Our trip showed how in many ways the island,its scenery, its life are little changed in a century.

   I am a published freelance writer,a former London Secondary Headteacher on ” a mature gap year ” with a passion for travel, education, the arts, music, sport and history.

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

Admission costs, £3 for Members and £6.00 Non-members. You do not need to be a member to attend, and we do not sell advanced tickets, please just come on the day, the doors open at 2:15pm and the program starts around 2:30pm with each talk lasting approximately 40 minutes.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.

If you would like to keep up to date with what’s happening at the Globetrotters London meetings and to be sent email reminders prior to the meeting, please sign up here.