Our rest day turned out to be a Game Drive in the Pilanesberg Nature Reserve which got all us excited, so we forgot all about being tired....at least for the time being! It was a great day in the African wilds and we saw many of the African wildlife in their own habitat. I have attached a few pictures to give you a flavor of what we saw.   
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 Finally……….. after months of preparation and anticipation, we are underway to destination: South Africa, District 9250! It was just 3 am and dark as my wife, Marti and I pulled out of our North Stonington driveway and headed down the road toward the highway. I was finally on my way toward a trip of a lifetime in South Africa and Marti was chauffeuring me on the first leg to New Haven. About 40 minutes later we arrived at our first stop on this long journey at the home of Frank Silva in New London where we bid our greetings to Franks’s parents and sister, loaded his bags and climbed back into the car with Frank. Our next stop would be the Connecticut Limousine terminal in New Haven. There we met Joedi Brown and Nicole Thomas, two more members of Team Nutmeg and after some good-byes to our families and friends, we boarded the shuttle and departed again toward JK Kennedy International airport in New York. Two and a half hours later we pulled up at terminal 4, and took in with Emirates Air and found a bite to eat while we waited for a few minutes for our final team member, Jaime Randle to arrive and check in. We were now all together at a team and ready for the first leg of our long flight to Dubai. At about 9:40 am we boarded for departure. And soon we were in the air. Emirates Air treated us very well on this long leg and we watched movies, did some reading and tried to get some sleep without too much success as we were feeling the adrenaline impact of our upcoming adventure. Our stopover and plane change in Dubai went smoothly and after about 2 hours we were airborne again of the final air leg to Johannesburg, South Africa. When we got to Johannesburg and cleared Immigration, retrieved our luggage and went through Customs, we were greeted by Rotary District 9250 Governor, Albie van de Vetner, his wife Elna, Group Study Exchange (GSE) Inbound Chair, Anton Meerkeeter, and Rotarians, President Johan Walker, Frank Seewald and Mike Volk from the Brits Rotary Club, our first hosts. After finding our cars in the cavernous parking garage below the air terminal, off we went to our first hosts, a motel-like B&B. There we were greeted by several of the Brits Rotary club members and their wives or husbands and by the aroma of steaks, lamb chops and sausages cooking on the ‘barbie”. The celebratory welcoming was called a Braai, which means a BBQ. Monday we go to Pilanesburg to experience a Game Drive and then we will get a glimpse of the resort called Sun City before returning to make our first presentations at the Brits RC.  | Meet John Hello!
My name is John Bradshaw. I will be the Team Leader for this year's District 7980 Outbound GSE Team to South Africa, District 9250. I am a Rotarian from District 7980 and a member of the Mystic, CT USA club. I am also an area leader for the Inbound GSE Teams coming to my district and I coordinate the activities for the GSE Team with the six clubs in my area, get host families and get vocational contacts. My wife, Marti, and I raised two sons, Peter (age 37) and William (age 36) who are married to Jen and Ellen and we are now the proud grandparents of three grandchildren: Bruce (age 4), Kyle (age 3) and Leah (8 months). I am a Chemical Engineer by training and worked as a production manager for Pfizer for 33 years before retiring at the end of the year 2000. My schooling was at Ohio State University where I earned B. Ch.E. and M.Sc. degrees. I also spent a year at the Phillips Universitait in Marburg, Germany. My interests have always been nature and the out-of-doors. I like sports, travel, cooking, reading, scouting, gardening and now golf. I live in rural North Stonington, CT. USA ArchivesApril 2010 Categories |
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