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.

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