The following is an extract from Henry’s website which has lots of interesting links and provides much background to this memorable trip to Molokai. To find out more info, take a look at: Just for background, one of Molokai’s famous past residents, Father Damien, was a Belgium priest who dedicated a large part of his life caring for and helping people suffering from leprosy.

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The Knights of Columbus, Kamiano (Damien) Council 11743 of Waikiki had arranged a round trip flight from Honolulu to Molokai for a nostalgic exploration of Father Damien’s Settlement. One can normally expect to be quoted a fare in excess of $200 for a Kalaupapa tour but the Knights of Columbus chartered a plane to fly round trip Honolulu to Molokai and that resulted in a savings which also included a bonus flight seeing air tour of the spectacular Molokai cliffs all the way to the east end of the island and back.

The weather was good after nearly a week of heavy rain and overcast skies. The trade winds were back with winds ENE at 15-25mph and it was now visibility unlimited.

We boarded our 9-passenger, twin engine Piper Chieftain for a 1200 departure and a fifty-minute flight that not only took us past downtown Honolulu and over the Norwegian Star, Waikiki and Diamond Head but over Koko Head and across the 22-mile wide Molokai Channel to the west end of Molokai and past Papohaku Beach, the longest sand beach in Hawaii. Then its along the north shore of Molokai until we see the low-lying Kalaupapa Peninsula jutting due north from a cliffed coast midway along the north shore. We pass the peninsula and continue east another fifteen miles past some of the highest sea cliffs (2,000′ asl) in the world. We turn around at Cape Halawa with a peek at Halawa Valley at the easternmost end of Molokai (the northwest coast of Maui can be seen nine miles away) and we then retraced our route so that persons on the left side of the aircraft might have a good view of the pali coast. We finally land at the state-owned and operated Kalaupapa Airport (LUP) with its 2700-ft runway scenically perched right along the rocky shoreline and abreast of the historic Kalaupapa Lighthouse.

At Kalaupapa Airport, located about two miles north of the settlement, we were met by Fr. Joe Hendricks, the pastor of Kalaupapa Parish and driven, by yours truly, to the settlement. Fr. Joe, who also founded the Damien Museum in Honolulu, said a mass for us at Fr. Damien’s old St. Philomena Church in Kalawao and then graciously gave us his insight into Blessed Fr. Damien’s life and labours. His story is universally known and a timeless one. We viewed his and Brother Dutton’s grave and were sure to see Mother Marianne’s last resting place, heroes all.

We drove everywhere we could and then some. Things were so quiet that we even saw deer and wild pigs in the middle of the day. The views are outstanding and the peninsula is, at least now, neat and pleasant. Re-supply is heavily by air since the barge visits but once in February each year. There are currently 43 residents who are living out their days in the settlement and one of them, Paul Harada who has been there since 1945, even gave one of our Tongan members (Zco who tells me he was named for the Tongan radio station that started operations on the day he was born) some good-looking fresh fish which were just right for sashimi. This special visit took us four hours and afterwards we reboarded our chartered plane for the return flight to Honolulu.

We flew along the northwest coast of Molokai and headed for Honolulu direct. The flight path was somewhat similar to the outgoing leg but provided interesting views, such as downtown Honolulu (photo 12), from another angle. We landed at Honolulu International Airport (HNL) and taxied back to our starting point to complete an extremely memorable experience!

The Knights of Columbus will sponsor other trips to Kalaupapa so if you are interested then click here to request further details and a schedule. Note: Passengers must be sixteen years of age as a minimum. Although the entrance to the Kalaupapa National Historical Park is free, admittance is limited to either those taking the Damien Tour or those personally invited by a resident.

If you would like any further information, please contact Henry by email: Nowicki@webtv.net

Our organization, Save the Earth Network, an entirely self funded organization (generating its income from the participation fees of our volunteers, visitors and eco-tourists) makes donations to humanitarian projects. Our partner organizations are orphanages, foster homes and a construction/ renovation organizations in Ghana. Churches, other organizations and individuals make donations to our partner organizations.

We have many volunteer opportunities and also eco-tourism opportunities to travel around Ghana. Also, in March this year we plan to start our own HIV/AIDS prevention education projects/programs in Ghana and are looking for volunteers to help in this too

People who would like to participate in any of our programs should please contact: Edgar Asare or Eben Mensah at Save the Earth Network, P.O. Box CT 3635, Cantonments, Accra, Ghana. West Africa. Tel: 233-21-667791, Fax: 233-21-669625 or e-mail Eben on: ebensten@yahoo.com.

If you would like to get in touch with some of our former volunteers from all over the world, they are happy to provide testimonials. Please contact WonHye Chung from the USA on wchung@wellesley.edu , Jane from England at dodgytie@hotmail.com, Kim from New Zealand at kimbaker73@hotmail.com or Waahida from the USA at waahida@hotmail.com

Meeting news from our branches around the world.

Iris, a British lady of considerable character and pluck, is on a 23 week overland truck expedition from Quito in Ecuador to Caracas in Venezuela. After this, she plans to do a 3-month voluntary placement in Ecuador, and then visit Central America for another overland trip between Panama City and Mexico City, ending up with perhaps another 2-month voluntary placement somewhere in South America again. This amazing journey will take Iris one year. Here is an extract from Iris’ journey notebook.

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27^th November 2002

Arrived in Quito at 1730 local time. Met 4 people from Madrid, 4 more from the UK and 4 others at the hotel and today 7 of them plus me went to the Equator. It was really hot, sun beating down and some had no hats and were getting burnt up! On the way back, we had taxi race but my taxi lost! All told good flight and meeting some great people. Hotel okay – no spiders or cockroaches in sight! Everything very clean.

Pre-expedition meeting tonight – there are only 41 of us instead of 44 – I am on a truck with 20 others – does that mean I’m on my own in a tent? Will have to see! (Beetle: we’ll hear a lot more about this particular aspect of Iris’ trip!)

Left Quito at 1100 hrs after a frenetic time trying to get everything packed into that locker! 77cm x 40cm x 30cm seems a large space until you find it is made of hard wood! Everyone had similar problems to me, but I got mine in with little problems compared to others and some still haven’t managed to transfer their stuff to their lockers!! It’s 5 hours down to Baños, out first stop (still in Ecuador and we’ll be here in Baños for 4 nights.

Am sharing with an Australian lady, Judith – 3 yrs older than me but a kindred spirit. We did our exercises together this morning! Everyone on the trip is so friendly and we really enjoyed the trip down here together. The hotel is fine. It appears we will be staying in hotels most of the time at the moment. We’ve been given a programme for the next 8 weeks (54 nights) and are staying in hotels for 37 of those. Apparently we start camping after we’ve dropped people off in Santiago in Chile. We are all longing for the camping to start.

Weather here is changeable at the moment however as it is the rainy season and today we had our first real rain, which lasted all morning, but now the sun is out. However, Baños is nestled below an active volcano, which as I write is spewing forth steam! We saw it from all sorts of aspects as we approached Baños – I wrote in my journal that it looks so “innocently menacing”! Black and brooding above this small town. In the church there are countless paintings depicting disasters in the past, and when one looked at the earth in the banks on the way down to the town, it was black earth, obviously from previous laval deposits. We are chilling out here – all of us, recovering from the journey to South America and some of us had really fraught times getting here – Judith, my room-mate came from Australia via London and took four days of constant travel to get here hours before we were due to leave Quito! She is really jet-lagged and needs this time to recover.

Activities here are walking (I’ll participate); canyoning (abseiling, sliding down ropes and swimming) planned for tomorrow (definitely not for me – as Judith said, if it was the last week of the trip we might risk it, but this early in? No way!); mountain bike riding (ditto for canyoning!); rafting (ditto again). Most people, I think, just want to chill out and renew energy for the remaining 22½ weeks!

If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk

Globetrotters meeting on Saturday 4^th January 2003 by Padmassana

For our first meeting of the New Year we were treated to four mini talks by club members.

First up was Gavin Fernandes who talked to us about Darjeeling, India. Gavin showed us slides of his journey, which began on a very slow narrow gauge steam train. The train often runs late anything up to 12 hours. Once he had arrived in Darjeeling, he showed us slides of the area including tea plantations clinging to the sides of hills and temples on mountaintops with their colourful prayer flags. We also saw the local people, including porters who carry impossible loads on their heads including massive oil drums and furniture.

Our second speaker, Kevin Brackley, gave a well received talk on South Korea. Kevin showed us the DMZ (Demilitarised Zone, border with North Korea) and the surrounding area including the world’s most dangerous golf hole and the world’s tallest flagpole as well as the hut where superpower meetings take place. We then saw pictures of Bulguksa temple in the Southeast corner of Korea near the city of Gyeongju and examples of the fine carpentry and paintwork that adorn the temple. Kevin’s photos concluded at Haeinsa, another temple in the mountains near Daegu. Haeinsa is famous for being the repository for 80,000 woodblock texts dating from the 14^th century.

After the interval our next speaker Sylvia Pullen took over and took us to Nagaland in India, an area situated near to the Burmese border. Sylvia explained that to visit this area you have to obtain a special permit. Whilst Nagaland is 99% Christian, the large amount of religious buildings are explained by the fact that services in them are in different languages. Sylvia told us that there is little tourist accommodation so she stayed at the Circuit House, which is normally used by visiting judges, engineers and dignitaries. We also saw photos of local life and even a local King.

Our last speaker was Phil Koniotes who took us to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. He started on the line of the equator with a foot in each hemisphere before boarding the world’s highest railway to travel through the Valley of the volcanoes. Phil’s trip then took him to the Galapagos, where he enjoyed night-time lobster fishing. Phil showed us the creatures that inhabit the islands including giant tortoises, Iguana, Frigate birds and Blue Footed Boobies. While diving Phil showed us smiling fish and a seal that was intent on eating his flipper! (By the way, congratulations, Phil! Beetle)

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. There is no London meeting in August, but we will be back in September. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or register for email updates at at our website (click here)

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