At the tender age of 17 I had already taken my A levels and took a gap year before heading for Nottingham University to read civil engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I spent this most formative of years teaching O levels at a small “Harambe” (self-help) school near the town of Othaya in Kenya not far from Nyeri where Lord Baden Powell is buried and close to the famous Tree Tops hotel where the Queen learnt of the death of her father (see The Crown series 1!). The Youth Service Abroad (YSA) scheme was run by the Church Missionary Society in a pioneering scheme that they instigated before the term “gap year” even existed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From our well built little house on the school grounds we could see the Aberdare mountains rising up behind us, and in the distance, in the opposite direction, Mt Kenya, an irrisistable lure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A couple of days before Christmas 1971 saw a group of us walking up to the Teleki valley via the Narro Moro route through the infamous “vertical bog” carrying up to 60lb packs (27kg). On Christmas day we successfully reached the summit of the third highest peak, Point Lenena, now a well known trekking peak which I climbed again 42 years later in 2013 (see separate page).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The adventure did not end there. One of the porters developed
pulmonary oedema (acute mountain sickness) that evening and in the middle of the night twelve of us, including several beefy Americans in a nearby hut, set off down the mountain carrying him on a home-made stretcher. He survived! We then had to turn around and climb straight back up to the Teleki valley to re-join the rest of our party and collect our gear. Probably one of the most physically demanding efforts I’ve had to make (apart possibly from climbing Mera Peak in 2017!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are just a few of my pictures scanned from the slides I always used to take before turning digital.<\/p>\n\n\n\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the tender age of 17 I had already taken my A levels and took a gap year before heading for Nottingham University to read civil engineering. I spent this most formative of years teaching O levels at a small “Harambe” (self-help) school near the town of Othaya in Kenya not far from Nyeri where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3450","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P3jvhD-TE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3601,"url":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/?page_id=3601","url_meta":{"origin":3450,"position":0},"title":"Mt Kenya December 2013","author":"Dave Morton","date":"5 January, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In December 2013 I hit the big six zero and needed an adventure to mark the occasion. It didn't take much thought. I wanted to climb Mt Kenya again, 42 years after my first ascent as a just-turned 18 year old on my gap year. I also wanted to take\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5476,"url":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/?page_id=5476","url_meta":{"origin":3450,"position":1},"title":"Mountain Adventures","author":"Dave Morton","date":"20 January, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Since climbing Stac Polly at the age of 7 on my first Scottish family holiday, hill walking has been my passion. I can remember the sheer excitement of approaching Snowdonia or the Lakes in my early years whether a week end away with my father or on one the \"Arduous\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4157,"url":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/?page_id=4157","url_meta":{"origin":3450,"position":2},"title":"Trek to Mera Peak, Nepal, April 2017","author":"Dave Morton","date":"4 June, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I first went to Nepal 35 years ago in 1983 when I went trekking with my father in the Helambu region north of Kathmandu. It was a modest 1 week trip getting to about 16,000ft. 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It might say something like this: Hi\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2168,"url":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/?page_id=2168","url_meta":{"origin":3450,"position":4},"title":"Paul’s Gallery","author":"Dave Morton","date":"29 December, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul was 19 years old when he died from a brain tumour in November 2008. He was a very talented painter and photographer which he studied for A level during which time he received his diagnosis. Despite that he continued with his A levels and was successful at gaining a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2084,"url":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/?page_id=2084","url_meta":{"origin":3450,"position":5},"title":"Georgeham","author":"Dave Morton","date":"26 December, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Georgeham is the village where my wife Pippa and I have lived since 2011. It is just a mile or so inland from the more famous surfing beach and village of Croyde and a similar distance to Putsborough Beach. It is a village with everything a village needs - a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3450"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7479,"href":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3450\/revisions\/7479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgehamphotography.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}