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16th February 2016 - Walking The Great Wall Robert Nimmo Robert Nimmo is well known throughout Lanarkshire and beyond as a tireless fundraiser for St Andrews Hospice. As he told Tuesday’s Biggar Probus Club, it costs about £29000 a week to run the hospice. Robert’s contribution is to plan and undertake sponsored group walks in far-away places, and to this end he made a trip to China with about fifty other Scots, ranging in age from teens to septuagenarians. The plan was to walk the Great Wall. Before leaving Scotland the team had excursions to test fitness and to bond as a group; this proved a worthwhile precaution as there were no drop-outs and remarkably little friction. Robert gave us a brief history of the wall, and how the authorities have devised tourist routes so that visitors can get a good idea of the wall and of rural China without walking the whole 8000 miles. They had student guides who were only too keen to practice their English, albeit with strong Wishaw accents! Although they noticed a wide disparity of incomes in China, there was no desperate poverty such as Robert had seen on various other sponsored walks. In spite of the food and toilet facilities being suspect the group remained fit and healthy. The last day of this memorable trip was spent in Beijing, marvelling at the Forbidden City and the vastness of Tiananmen Square. When they arrived home, and totted up their sponsorships they realised that they had raised over £200,000 for St Andrews Hospice. A fine effort – congratulations!
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