Cheque sent!

It was with great trepidation that I filled in all the forms last night, added any extra information I thought would be interesting to the team at The Russia Experience and signed the cheque for Nikki’s and my deposits and then posted the whole lot.

There’s no going back now - not that I could anyway because people have already sponsored me!

For those of you who have just happened upon this blog and don’t know much about my charity challenge, the plan is to get as many people as possible to sponsor me to write AT LEAST 100 A5 pages whilst on an 18-day trip from Beijing to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

If you would like to sponsor me, all money goes directly to the Earl Mountbatten Hospice on the Isle Of Wight and my fundraising target is £10,000.

There are two ways you can sponsor me: either online via the secure site www.justgiving.com/transsibwriter or by writing a cheque made payable to the Earl Mountbatten Hospice and sending it to: Trans-Siberian Writing Challenge, Fundraising Office, Earl Mountbatten Hospice, Halberry Lane, Newport, Isle Of Wight, UK. PO30 2ER.

Many thanks for your support.

Exciting Times

As I entered the house at almost 9pm last night, the phone was ringing.
I picked it up and it was Nikki. We are finally ready to finish the booking of our trip and last night we made all the final decisions about day-trips and stop-overs.
Nikki is now going to look for flights while I do all the booking, so I have spent quite a bit of time since the call filling out the forms etc.

The company we are using is called The Russia Experience. I discovered it whilst reading an article about the Trans-Sib in Wanderlust magazine and thought it sounded like the company for us because it is NOT a group tour, but runs independent travel packages - hence Nikki and I have spent some time thinking about where we want to go.

Also, the director actually lives in Moscow and although there is a London office, the company uses local guides and family-owned hotels or homestays across the whole route, so we should be able to maximise our understanding of the area and the people, which will really help with the quality of our writing.

If anyone is inspired to take a Trans-Sib trip in the future, take a look at The Russia Experience’s website at www.trans-siberian.co.uk

Countdown to Walk The Wight

I suddenly realised this morning that it is only about a month until Walk The Wight. For those of you not familiar with this event, it is a large charity walk in aid of the Earl Mountbatten Hospice, which takes place each May.

There is the full route from Bembridge on the east of the Island to Alum Bay in the west, which is 26 miles, or you can do a half - Bembridge to Carisbrooke is 12 miles and Carisbrooke to Alum Bay is 14 miles.

New for this year, there is also an eight-mile Flat Walk, which has been proving popular amongst those who felt they would struggle with the hills on the traditional route.

Hugh and I have opted to do the Full Monty, the 26-mile route. I have done the full route seven or eight times in the past and this will be Hugh’s first attempt, but he is a very good walker.

The walk raises vital funds for the hospice (some £217,000 last year) and more than 6,500 walkers have signed up this year, making it the biggest walk yet!

You can find out more about the walk on the website at www.walkthewight.org.uk

I am just hoping I don’t still have a sore derriere by the time of the walk on May 18! Otherwise I will be hopping (literally) mad!

Fortune favours the brave!

Despite hardly being able to walk, I hauled my (bruised) behind onto my novice horse, Zack, yesterday (Sunday) to do his showjumping championship.

He won the award for most points during the winter league (a series of several shows) and we jumped round the course to be third in the Novice Horse Championships, so I was very, very pleased with him - particularly as I wasn’t particularly capable in the saddle.

Let this be a lesson to you all - I will not be beaten!

Now all I’ve got to do is to drop half a stone to ride my (tiny) pony Twiglet in his showjumping championship next week. So no chocolate for me for a few days! No wine either!

Ups and downs

My colleagues are finally beginning to realise something is going on! Better still, it has been suggested that I can write a story about the challenge to go in the newspaper, which I did yesterday and will go in this Friday or next.

Also, I have been in touch with the hospice because I was terrified of people giving me cheques or money because I don’t trust my own accounting. They happily agreed to act as an admin base, so anyone reading this blog who wants to donate, but is nervous of doing so online (it is 100 per cent certified safe), can instead write a cheque made payable to the Earl Mountbatten Hospice and send it to: Trans-Siberian Writing Challenge, Fundraising Team, Earl Mountbatten Hospice, Halberry Lane, Newport, Isle Of Wight, UK. PO30 2ER.

Apart from that, a riding organisation that I am a member of has also agreed to put an article in their newsletter, which will come out later this month, so that’s great news too.

On the downside, I am currently preparing my novice horse, Zack, for a showjumping championship this Sunday and I went to do some practice last night and came off rather hard in classical Barnes-Wallis Bouncing Bomb style! There is always a point when you fall off a horse when you wonder which way is up and in this case, it took me ages to work it out! Ouch!

Never mind - better now than in September!

Bah-Humbug!

I am slightly perturbed by the response of my colleagues at work to my madcap challenge. I put posters up all over the building more than two weeks ago to tell everyone what I was doing.

To date, not one of my colleagues has sponsored me, I don’t think anyone has read the blog and certainly no-one has commented. In addition, some of the posters have gone missing, while someone else has defaced one as being the Caspian Sea as the largest lake on Earth and the Sahara as the largest desert.

Let me make a few points. Firstly, it is possible that Lake Baikal and the Gobi Desert are not the largest, but amongst the largest on Earth and I have been misinformed. I was told Lake Baikal was the most voluminous by virtue of the fact the lake is recognised as being the deepest on Earth and containing over a fifth of the Earth’s fresh water. Secondly, while the Sahara is a very big desert, it contains several other deserts, notably the Libyan, Arabian and Nubian deserts, so it is not officially one entitity, as the Gobi is. I should have just said in true County Press style “one of the biggest” in both cases.

Besides which, I’ve already been to the Sahara!

I believe my colleagues are still missing the point. The whole idea of this challenge is not to prove whether Lake Baikal or the Gobi are the biggest, but to raise money for the Earl Mountbatten Hospice. So c’mon guys, give a girl a break! 

Okay, so I know nothing about blogging!

A technically-minded friend of mine has just told me that WordPress is not usable in China either (oh blast!) but apparently I should be able to email new posts to my blog with just a little bit of practice.

Why didn’t I think of this?

Many people have also asked me why I have decided to write  a book whilst on my trip, rather than after it. The answer is very simple. I spend all my working day writing and when I get home from work, the very last thing I want to do is MORE writing! I will have to go straight back to work when I come home from my Trans-Sib adventure, so I am going to make sure I write at least 100 pages while I am away. How about that for a deadline! 

Greetings from Turkey - well almost!

It’s April 1st and yesterday I returned from my first ever trip to Turkey. I was keen to get blogging whilst in Turkey, but unfortunately when I asked for the WordPress site to start a new post, all I got was a Turkish message which I roughly translated as sorry, but the government has made a ruling that you cannot use this site here!
I didn’t know that, but never mind!
This blogging thing is pretty new to me - although I work with computers all the time as a journalist, all I do is write stories, so it’s basic word-processing type of stuff.
To update you, when I returned to the UK, I found a letter from Nikki with the go-ahead to book our trip, so I will be doing that in the next couple of days.
I am very excited about the challenge ahead and also by the fact that some of my friends have already made a donation. Keep it coming guys.

March 19, 2008 - Official challenge launch!

Hello!

My name is Kate and today I am launching my latest charity challenge. Here’s the details:

The Trans-Siberian Writing Challenge

September 21 to October 10, 2008.

A BIG JOURNEY…
- Travelling through the largest country on Earth (Russia)
- On the longest railway (the Trans-Siberian)
- Stopping off at the world’s largest lake (Lake Baikal)
- And travelling through the largest desert (the Gobi).

China- Mongolia - Siberia - Russia

Starting in Beijing less than one month after the end of the 2008 Olympics.
Visiting The Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, The Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and Tiananmen Square.
Travelling by train from Beijing, through the Gobi Desert and Mongolian steppes to the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar.
Exploring Ulaanbaatar, then going out into the lands of Ghenghis Khan to spend a night or two in a Mongolian ger (tent). I will ride a Mongolian horse too.
From Ulaanbaatar, it’s back on the train to Irkutsk, a well known city in Siberia. From here, we will be transported to Lake Baikal, the worldís biggest lake. We will be going to the remote Fisherman’s Cape to meet local fishermen and their families, eat smoked local fish and enjoy a traditional banya (sauna). We will also stay overnight in a nearby village.
We will explore Irkutsk, then it’s back on the train to our final destination, Moscow! Here we will see the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square and other iconic places before travelling home to the UK.

WHY THE TRANS-SIBERIAN?

- Whenever something was lost in my house as a child, the explanation was that it would “probably turn up in Outer Mongolia”. I wanted to find out what this magical country of my childhood really looked like.
- The journeys of Genghis Khan and Marco Polo fascinate me.
- I would love to see the Great Wall and the striking domes of St Basil’s Cathedral, as well as Lake Baikal, a.k.a The Pearl Of Siberia.
- This is an epic journey spanning around a third of the globe, which will give me plenty to talk about for years!
- I have never has a gap year and have had far too many commitments to get away for long since. I will be packing lots in to this 18-day trip.
- I am looking forward to meeting local people on their way to work/home on the train and staying with local families.

THE CHALLENGE…

- To raise money for the Earl Mountbatten Hospice by being sponsored to write AT LEAST 100 A5 pages during the 18-day trip. This is approximately five to six pages a day!
- This will take the form of a dairy/travelogue recounting my experiences, the people I meet and the history, beliefs and folklore from China, Mongolia, Siberia and Russia.
- I am keen to attract a book-publishing deal and if successful, a percentage of the sales will be given to charity.
- I want to raise AT LEAST £10,000.

WHY? (Or why write all that?)

- As a journalist on a local newspaper, I write around 8,000 to 10,000 words a week on a wide range of commercial subjects, including motoring, bridal, home improvements, fashion and beauty, new businesses and shopping features!
- I have recently written 25,000 words for a 56-page supplement, so I know I am capable of writing a small book!
- In the past, I have done similar writing challenges to raise money for horse welfare charities, though never whilst I have been travelling.
- It may not be possible to blog much on the train and I wanted to get away from computers and shorthand, so I am going back to the traditional ways of using a pen and notebook (I just hope I can remember how to write in longhand!)
- I didn’t think I could face ploughing through Tolstoy’s War And Peace, which is what most people challenge themselves to do during the long hours on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
- I can’t play chess, which is another popular Trans-Sib activity.

THE CHARITY… The Earl Mountbatten Hospice (Reg charity no: 1039086)

- Based on the Isle of Wight, the Earl Mountbatten Hospice (EMH) provides care for those with life-shortening illnesses, including cancer, motor neurone disease, kidney failure and congestive heart failure.
- Hospice care is free, but although EMH receives a grant from the Isle of Wight Primary Care Trust for about a third of the cost of this care, the hospice still relies on fundraising to find substantial amounts of money each year to continue (currently around two million pounds per annum.)
- EMH provides care for more than 800 patients a year.
- The hospice is responsible for pallative care services for adults on the Isle of Wight and works closely with the island’s Marie Curie nurses and Macmillan Hospital and Community team.
- For those patients who want to spend their last days at home, surrounded by their family, EMH has developed the Hospice@Home team, who work with doctors, district nurses, Macmillan and Marie Curie nurses to provide pallative care and emotional support. Last year (2007), the Hospice@Home team looked after 200 families and 100 deaths. To help another 200 families will cost £300,000 each year.
- EMH is nothing like a hospital. It’s a tranquil, welcoming place where patients can expect understanding and comfortable, well-equipped rooms with garden views.
- There are less than 20 rooms at the hospice’s in-patient ward to cater for the most seriously ill.
- There is also a substantial outpatients service and some people may pop into EMH for up to four years.
- EMH has numerous celebrity friends and supporters: Esther Rantzen CBE is to give a talk on death and the taboos surrounding it in May, while Alan Titchmarsh is starring at a garden day in June.
- Find out more about EMH on the website at www.iwhospice.org

WHY THIS CHARITY?

Several people I knew have spent their last days being cared for by the team at EMH. Most of them left behind young families. One had recently started his own gym and died in 2002 aged 41, after a three-month battle with throat cancer. Another friend died last autumn, aged just 34, after an eight-year fight against a brain tumour.

WHO AM I? (VITAL STATISTICS)

NAME: Kate Young
AGE: 33
LIVES: Newport, Isle Of Wight, UK
OCCUPATION: Journalist for the island’s local newspaper, the Isle Of Wight County Press.
MARITAL STATUS: Engaged to long-term fiance, Hugh.
EDUCATION: Numerous GCSEs and A-Levels in subjects as diverse as sailing/boat-building and classics. HND in Journalism and BA (Hons) in Writing and Publishing with Political Studies.
CLAIMS TO FAME…
- Runner-up in the 1993 Independent Young Sports Writer of the Year competition (Winner Tom Chesshyre is now a travel writer on The Times.)
- I look a bit like sailor Dame Ellen MacArthur, who is also based on the Isle of Wight!
HOBBIES…
- Writing. I have had several short stories and poems published, in addition to my work as a journalist.
- Horse-riding. My family has horses and I am well known for showjumping, cross-country and side-saddle on the Isle of Wight.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN BEFORE?
I know England, Wales and Scotland well. I had never been abroad until about five years ago. Since then, I have been to France, Spain, Sardinia, Croatia, Tunisia, Morocco and most recently, Turkey.
This will be my first “big trip”.

WHO AM I GOING WITH?
Nikki Bennett-Willetts, who lives near Bath. Nikki is a poet and National President of Business and Professional Women UK Ltd (www.bpwuk.co.uk) which celebrates its 70th birthday this year (2008).
We met originally as a group of female writers from across the UK, who wanted to travel overland to China and write a book together. Unfortunately, we have dwindled from around seven/eight to just two. Nikki and I decided it might be really hard to produce a joint book between just two of us, so we agreed to travel together, but each work on our own separate writing projects.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE A DONATION?

Via the excellent secure website, justgiving.com.
Look for: www.justgiving.com/transsibwriter

CONTACT:
For press/promotion enquiries, please email kate.drom@googlemail.com
I will respond asap.

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