By Jayne Jenkins
A cold day and strong winds did not stop our third Evening of Adventure for 2019 to be a sellout. Although a cold night it was wonderful to see our members and friends come and support our entertaining guest speakers. Once again we had the perfect Sydney setting with heaters blazing at The Balmoral Boat shed, our local venue for these events.
With our pioneering speakers sharing their adventures on two totally different topics and experiences the scene was set for an entertaining event.
It was great to also host Alex Rose, Explorer Club fellow from Chicago who attended the event during her visit to Sydney.
Our first adventurer was Laura Waters; a Melbourne based freelance travel writer and speaker. Laura took us on her five-month journey when she walked 3000km of raw, wild, mountainous trail, winding from the top of New Zealand’s North Island to the frosty tip of the South Island called the Te Araroa trail. After a decade in the corporate world this adventure was to change her life as the longest Laura had ever hiked previous to this was 65km. Laura’s inspiring story was about-facing your fears and the insight we can discover when we leave behind the comforts of the modern world. Talking of her fears, highs and lows and facing challenges we followed in the footsteps with wonderful imagery of her of her journey. Laura has just released a book on her journey titled “Bewildered” and we were lucky enough to have some of the first copies on hand. I can not wait to start reading.
Our second presentation was “Mars the Magnificent” by Liam Allen.
With more the 5000 dives to his credit, Liam has extensive experience in a wide variety of deep wreck diving locations across the world from the Norwegian Fjord’s to the Pacific Islands. One of these wrecks was the largest and fiercest warship in the world, named the Mars for the Roman god of war: But it went up in a ball of flames in a brutal naval battle in 1564, consigning 800 to 900 Swedish and German sailors and a fortune in gold and silver coins to the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Now, a few years after the ship’s discovery, researchers have concluded that it is the best-preserved vessel of its kind, representing the first generation of Europe’s big, three-masted warships. Liam took us on a journey to the Mars with images and footage from his dives showing some of the silver coins discovered– you felt you were there on the dives with him.
As usual it was a fantastic evening with a great venue, great food and drinks, excellent and entertaining guest speakers and we are looking forward to our next Evening of Adventure on the 28th November 2019.
