Operation Raleigh a step closer

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 13

Operation Raleigh a step closer

A section of Operation Raleigh, the round-the-world expedition, came another step closer last week with a visit by the leader of the New Zealand phase, Mr Charles Burton. He has been in New Zealand looking closely at the Dusky Sound camp site, and talking to scientists and Fiordland National Park Board officials about the programme. Operation Raleigh is scheduled to be centred in New Zealand from October, 1986, to March, 1987. The entire expedition involves 4000 venturers taking part over four years. Each venturer joins the expedition for three months and takes part in community tasks, scientific projects, and adventuring. The organisers have already selected 25 New Zealanders to take part and

14 of them have already gone. There are still another 25 to be chosen at a selection course at Waiouru in September. Mr Burton said he had recently returned from a

seven-year involvement with Sir Ranulph Fiennes' Transglobe expedition when he was asked by Colonel John Blashford-Snell to lead a section of the Operation Raleigh expedition. "I chose New Zealand because when I called in here (on Transglobe) I wanted to see more of it," Mr Burton said. While on Transglobe he became one of only two men to have crossed both the Antarctic and the Arctic, the first two to have traversed the North-West Passage in one season, the first to have gone round the world through both Poles, the first to cross the Arctic Ocean in one season, and had made the quickest crossing of Antarctica. When he has not been out adventuring, Mr Burton has had a career in the Army, worked for a Zaire diamond company on security, and is now based in London, giving lectures. “This will probably be the last thing I do, but explorers always say that. It might be the Whitbread round-the-world yacht race next.”

With the Transglobe achievements under his belt, Mr Burton does not envy the lot of the two Englishmen who will set out from Cape Evans next summer to retrace Captain Scott’s path to the South Pole. Robert Swan and Roger Mear have

named their expedition “In the Footsteps of Scott”

“I think they have got. their work cut out for them,” Mr Burton said. “I wish them the best of luck. It is more mind over matter than physical prowess of the people involved. I would give them a 50-50 chance,” he said.

He thought that crevasses would be the biggest problem to face the two men.

Mr Burton will return to New Zealand two weeks before the New Zealand section of Operation Raleigh begins. He will go to Lyttelton in the 1900-ton research ship Sir Walter Raleigh and will then stay in Christchurch to meet the venturers as they fly in. Two hundred are expected in two batches.

About 25 New Zealanders will act as leaders for the expedition here and will include some who have taken part in the overseas sections of the expedition as venturers.

In New Zealand the venturers will be based at Dusky Sound, the Auckland Islands and Campbell Island, and some will climb further north.

Mr Burton hopes his venturers will be able to supply manpower to take part in about 20 scientific projects, for which proposals are now being sought