So, the end! I feel a little strange writing my final Racing the Swift, the last 10 days have made me feel like it wasn’t really me who did it but a totally different person had completed that challenge! I now feel as unfit and lazy as ever, pretty well normal again.
As promised I am going to write a few final thoughts and some more ‘general observations’, the most frustrating thing about writing this blog, is one, I forget everything I want to write, and two, if I remembered it all I could just go on and on and on. There really is so much to write, Africa, is a fascinating continent (and I barely even scraped the surface!). Feeling quite relaxed and melancholy right now, so sorry if I’m not as absolutely hilarious as Mertesacker....
But first. A quick return to the reason I took this safari.
So far I have raised around eleven thousand pounds (around one pound for every kilometre travelled – including hitches, have a look at my 'Final Route'), the vast majority of which will go to the Rhinos, Asian and African. I am unbelievably chuffed with this, I know my target was 30,000 but, I really only set that so I wouldn’t get there too easily...
There is no way I can express my gratitude to the support I have been shown over the last 4 months. It has been flabbergasting. A block capitals THANK YOU +8 ! by email really doesn’t do the job. I have been so touched and honoured by the friendship and generosity shown by you all. I just don’t know what to say - THANK YOU!!!!!!!, ?
I would like to make one final appeal, as donations are still very much being taken. I have avoided going into the drastic state of the Ocean, and the dire dire straits that Rhinos are in. I will keep avoiding it, you read the papers, you know. We are in trouble. The rhino is a milestone mammal, when he goes, the rest will follow. The big 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Boom.
Doom.
The Ocean is so unfathomably (nice) important to us and yet we ignore what we are doing to it. I really think it would be well worth your whiles going on the TerraMar and the SavetheRhino websites and reading up on their work and what needs to be done. Especially those who have donated - you should know how important your donation has been, it is not my thanks that you should acknowledge, but the hope and help you have created and the knowledge you have joined a mammoth (nice) fight.
Now, to those of you who haven’t donated and have been reading this ‘blog’! If you have enjoyed it, please get your wallet out! We (us all) need it. It’s a little like walking past a busker and catching yourself dancing or humming, once that has happened you are obliged to pay him! If you haven’t been enjoying it, then I am sure you won’t have read this far. Many of you have been waiting for pay day, or haven’t got round to it yet. NOW IS THAT TIME!!!
A message for very close friends who haven't donated: I am a skint Scottish Spurs fan, a combination of some very stingy stereotypes. An anteater never forgets.
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/www.racingtheswift.com
Finally, as you all know, I am one of the world’s biggest attention seekers, I have secretly (I think probably not such a secret) really enjoyed writing this blog, despite my feeble claims against it. I am now working on a conservancy in Northern Kenya for the next two months (Borana is one of the projects partially funded by Save the Rhino. An amazing full circle for me, having volunteered in their London office, raised funds, and now on the ground), after that I am working on Kipling Camp, a camp in the jungle in India dedicated to Tiger and wildlife preservation.
I plan to write the occasional update/’blog’, I think both places will be fascinating. I also hope to post more photos. In this age of Post-Modemism it is so easy. I know that it will me nowhere close to as original as the bike ride, and you are all sick of my self-indulgent writing style, but if you would like to know when I have written one, please send me a tiny email to ivandeklee@gmail.com, just saying yes! Please don’t worry if you don’t email me, I won’t notice, and I understand!
One final thank you, goes to my whole extended family. They have been out of this world. But, especially my parents and siblings. As I have told them, their constant support, made me cry on more than one occasion! I am a lucky lucky man.
(Oh! To anyone who got last week’s title well done! Eye, van, L, knot, Bee, bikes, Tanzania.
Ivan-(b)likes-Tanzania.)
As promised I am going to write a few final thoughts and some more ‘general observations’, the most frustrating thing about writing this blog, is one, I forget everything I want to write, and two, if I remembered it all I could just go on and on and on. There really is so much to write, Africa, is a fascinating continent (and I barely even scraped the surface!). Feeling quite relaxed and melancholy right now, so sorry if I’m not as absolutely hilarious as Mertesacker....
But first. A quick return to the reason I took this safari.
So far I have raised around eleven thousand pounds (around one pound for every kilometre travelled – including hitches, have a look at my 'Final Route'), the vast majority of which will go to the Rhinos, Asian and African. I am unbelievably chuffed with this, I know my target was 30,000 but, I really only set that so I wouldn’t get there too easily...
There is no way I can express my gratitude to the support I have been shown over the last 4 months. It has been flabbergasting. A block capitals THANK YOU +8 ! by email really doesn’t do the job. I have been so touched and honoured by the friendship and generosity shown by you all. I just don’t know what to say - THANK YOU!!!!!!!, ?
I would like to make one final appeal, as donations are still very much being taken. I have avoided going into the drastic state of the Ocean, and the dire dire straits that Rhinos are in. I will keep avoiding it, you read the papers, you know. We are in trouble. The rhino is a milestone mammal, when he goes, the rest will follow. The big 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Boom.
Doom.
The Ocean is so unfathomably (nice) important to us and yet we ignore what we are doing to it. I really think it would be well worth your whiles going on the TerraMar and the SavetheRhino websites and reading up on their work and what needs to be done. Especially those who have donated - you should know how important your donation has been, it is not my thanks that you should acknowledge, but the hope and help you have created and the knowledge you have joined a mammoth (nice) fight.
Now, to those of you who haven’t donated and have been reading this ‘blog’! If you have enjoyed it, please get your wallet out! We (us all) need it. It’s a little like walking past a busker and catching yourself dancing or humming, once that has happened you are obliged to pay him! If you haven’t been enjoying it, then I am sure you won’t have read this far. Many of you have been waiting for pay day, or haven’t got round to it yet. NOW IS THAT TIME!!!
A message for very close friends who haven't donated: I am a skint Scottish Spurs fan, a combination of some very stingy stereotypes. An anteater never forgets.
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/www.racingtheswift.com
Finally, as you all know, I am one of the world’s biggest attention seekers, I have secretly (I think probably not such a secret) really enjoyed writing this blog, despite my feeble claims against it. I am now working on a conservancy in Northern Kenya for the next two months (Borana is one of the projects partially funded by Save the Rhino. An amazing full circle for me, having volunteered in their London office, raised funds, and now on the ground), after that I am working on Kipling Camp, a camp in the jungle in India dedicated to Tiger and wildlife preservation.
I plan to write the occasional update/’blog’, I think both places will be fascinating. I also hope to post more photos. In this age of Post-Modemism it is so easy. I know that it will me nowhere close to as original as the bike ride, and you are all sick of my self-indulgent writing style, but if you would like to know when I have written one, please send me a tiny email to ivandeklee@gmail.com, just saying yes! Please don’t worry if you don’t email me, I won’t notice, and I understand!
One final thank you, goes to my whole extended family. They have been out of this world. But, especially my parents and siblings. As I have told them, their constant support, made me cry on more than one occasion! I am a lucky lucky man.
(Oh! To anyone who got last week’s title well done! Eye, van, L, knot, Bee, bikes, Tanzania.
Ivan-(b)likes-Tanzania.)