Thirty members joined our Zoom on Tuesday 18 August. It was also great to have two friends of the Club, Jo Baker and Darren Fulford in attendance.
Those in attendance saw an outstanding presentation from two former students of Toorak College, Colette McCarthy and Jacquie Sherlock. Both women are previous Rotary Gobal Student Exchange (GSE) students sponsored by the Rotary Club of Mt Eliza. In addition, Jacquie was a Rotary Exchange student sponsored by our Club.
Colette spent her childhood years growing up on the Mornington Peninsula. She is a qualified physiotherapist having graduated from the University of Queensland in 2001. Colette has been working at The Sports Injury Clinic in Frankston since February 2006 and was a participant in the 2007 GSE program on exchange with District 3410 in Indonesia.
Jacquie is currently the General Manager - Finance Operations at ISPT based in Melbourne and is a Chartered Accountant. Jacquie has worked both in Melbourne and internationally in senior finance roles. Jacquie grew up on the Mornington Peninsula and still has a strong connection to the Mt Eliza community with her parents still living here.
Colette spoke about her time on GSE when she went to Indonesia for five weeks in 2007. At times she attended six meetings a day. These experiences gave her confidence as a public speaker. She has a role an an announcer at the Australian Open for Tennis Australia and she will always be grateful to Rotary for giving her the opportunity to participate in GSE.
In 1995 Jacquie went on exchange to rural Japan. This was her first overseas trip. She still has contact with people that she met at that time. In 2008 Jacquie participated in GSE and went to Canada. Living just outside Toronto she was there for five weeks during the Global Financial Crisis.
Colette and Jacquie are life long friends and their Rotary experiences have given them a passion for travel.
The two speakers then gave a pictorial and spoken presentation about a trip to Antarctica that they undertook with another friend, Danielle, in 2017.
Colette, Jacquie & Danielle on their Antarctic journey
Leaving from Argentina on a Russian ship, the Academic Odyssey, they went to the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), then on to South Georgia, down to the Antarctic Peninsula and then back to Argentina via the Drake Passage.
At South Georgia, only 32 people live on this British Territory with the main settlement being Grytviken.
During their presentation, Jacquie and Colette shared beautiful pictures of penguins (everywhere), seabirds, seals, sea lions, beautiful (but cold) beaches, high cliffs, whales, kayaks (they went kayaking on a number of occasions) and an abandoned whaling boat.
A magnificent albatross!
Beautiful scenery - high cliffs with ice and snow everywhere.
Penguins galore!
When kayaking they needed to stay well away from the cliffs in case any ice broke off.
A video that they showed of a pod of whales swimming near their kayaks was quite spectacular.
They also shared stories about Ernest Shackleton, the British explorer, who made six trips exploring the Antarctic between 1901 and 1921. Shackleton died at Grytviken on 5 January 1922 and he was buried there with a commemorative cairn being built by his grave.
Sir Ernest Shackleton
A poignant story was also told about Colonel Henry Worsley, who died while attempting to complete the first solo and unaided crossing of the Antarctic in 2016. He had crossed more than 1450 km and was only 200 km short of his journey's end when, exhausted and gravely ill he had to call for help. He was rescued and flown to a hospital in Punta Arenas in Chile where he died at the age of 55.
Col. Henry Worsley
Worsley's widow and two children were on the boat with Colette and Jacquie and when they visited South Georgia they interred his ashes in a place that he loved and near his lifelong idol, Sir Ernest Shackleton.
The presentation finished with Jacquie and Colette explaining that Danielle slept in a dug out "grave" on the Antarctic Peninsula while they stayed on the ship, which moved out to sea 40 kilometres away (coming back the next day to collect those who slept overnight).
A lengthy question and answer session closed off a magnificent presentation.