Tribewanted: Vorovoro

From The Conch blog:

This weekend I had the pleasure of spending some time with the founder and members of a project I’ve been interested in for quite some time. Tribewanted was launched in 2006 with the aim of building a sustainable community on an island in Fiji alongside a global, online community. Join the tribe online and you can go out and stay on Vorovoro, Fiji (something I’m dying to do but will have to wait a while).

On Friday the tribe ventured a little closer to home, with Tribewanted: Live in the Lakes. Seeing the similarity in ethos to The Conch and our Club Conch events the founder, Ben Keene, asked me to go and help out at their second event on the banks of Coniston Water.

On arrival things were a little bleak. Rain was pouring down and I arrived to find just two tribe members, John and Cally, stood, soaked to the bone, in the middle of our private campsite (Cally was even wearing a cooking pot on her head to keep dry). Luckily for me they were in high spirits so I didn’t have to worry and once we had the tents up and a fire going, the rain eased and we tucked into a delicious curry.

The plan for Saturday was a two mile Canadian Canoe trip to Peel Island on Coniston Water, Swallows and Amazons style. Unfortunately, due to the strong wind, we weren’t making much headway and by the time two new tribe members, Doug and Elaine, capsized and needed rescuing we decided to get a fire going and have lunch on the nearest beach we could find. All dried off and well fed we got everyone back to the campsite before hotfooting it back to the beach for a much more luxurious experience on the water, a champagne and solar-powered boat cruise (the boat was solar-powered, we were powered by the champagne).

Saturday was rounded off with a hearty barbeque back at the campsite and some chatter around the fire (until somebody informed us that fires weren’t allowed, which of course meant we put it out…).

Old Man Coniston

On Sunday morning we packed up our tents and set out to brave what looked to be a big rain cloud as we climbed Old Man Coniston. It was a great walk after a night of celebrations and, apart from a little mist further up the Old Man, we stayed dry.

We rounded off the weekend with a quick pint of Bluebird Bitter in Coniston and we said our goodbyes. I’m hoping to see the tribe again soon at some of the Club Conch events we’ve got planned in the next 6 weeks (more on that in another post) and hopefully at the next Tribewanted: LIVE, wherever that may be.

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The Conch is a community-powered guide for adventurous people.