Training Weekend Approaching

Would you like to join us for our 48 hour training weekend on 3rd May?
It is over the Bank Holiday. You arrive at 1.00 p.m. on Saturday and leave at 1.00 p.m. on Monday. We can collect you from Newark station. It is not too late to join and it is not only informative but a great camping weekend in the countryside and a chance to meet experienced expeditioners.

Just go to the Training Weekend page and then go through to the Contact Us page. We will call you to confirm availability and give you full details.

Our next Nyika expedition departs on 27 July. We are looking to fill the last place. It could be you. Just contact us now.

Training Programme

Bringing together a team of 26 people, all of which had different aspirations, and organising them for an expedition for a month is a considerable challenge. However, as with most things in life, the secret is in the preparation. It was not practical to assemble everyone in the UK in advance, since seven of the team members were Malawian. However, we had met three of the Malawian team before and the remainder, being National Parks staff, did not have the same sort of challenge as our UK team members, although learning our way of operating was challenge enough!

The UK team assembled for a training weekend in May. This was a useful opportunity for them to get to know each other better, although most had in fact met in early January at a party organised for this purpose. The weekend was very popular and worked successfully, introducing the team to some of the skills that they were to use in the bush. The training programme is made available to others who are interested, with a view to possibly joining a later team, or indeed have plans to travel in remote areas elsewhere in the world. It is therefore published below for the first time in our expedition report, since it is such an important part of the whole expedition and is in fact more or less compulsory for those who wish to join us.

We have run training along these lines for some time now and our feedback suggests that people thoroughly enjoy the experience. In 2007 we had the added advantage of climatic conditions to suit. The warm dry conditions that prevailed in April continued until the very hour when the team left camp - at which point the heavens started to open and the summer became a memorable one, for the long run of torrential downpours. Our camps attempt to mimic the real conditions of bush living but the climate, the season and the daylength are likely to remain, for the foreseeable future, outside our control!