The 5 Hull Freedom Trail vehicles plus Goliath arrived in Freetown in the early hours of this morning (Thursday 15 November).

Congratulations to all the drivers especially our Rotarians Bas, Chrissy and Steve.  District 1270 should be very proud of them all as the last week has been a long hard one for them.  See the blog www.hullfreedomtrail for details

The Rotary Club of Freetown and the Wilberforce Women (bras) we all alerted to their imminent arrival a couple of days ago.

Will post more news when we have it.

Another two phone calls with our "Man in the Dessert" has confirmed that the days are long and hot - as per the photo on the left.

On Wednesday at their Club Charter, the Rotary Club of Humberside proudly promoted the Hull Freedom Trail by having specially produced display pages of each of the days that the team had travelled. 

From an earlier phone call, Bas' greetings were delivered to President John and by the same token in the next phone greetings from President John and all the guests were passed on to the team wishing them a successful journey.

Bas commented on the fact that they have certainly seen severe poverty and have been told of the heart wrenching situations of some of the people they have met.  At the moment the young trailblazers seem to be taking it in their stride.

It is clear from the blog - www.hullfreedomtrail.com that it is now getting harder and certainly there was a delay at the border crossing in Mauritania.

After being interviewed by BBC Look North team on Wednesday night, Bas was again in contact on the telephone as the Rotary vehicle was proceeding through the Western Sahara.

He told of the exhilerating drive through the Atlas Mountains and reported high temperatures expected due to a heat wave - 47 degrees.  It was still only 20 degrees during our conversation as it was only 10am African time.

He could not believe that he was seeing people surviving in the desert with so little water.