Rigging for Rescue in South Africa

The only work-related gig that we prearranged for our round the world trip was a 4-day training workshop in South Africa.  I had conducted a similar Rigging for Rescue program down in Cape Town in 2010. One of the participants from that workshop, Rob Thomas, runs a mountain guiding and rescue training company called School for Mountain Leadership here in South Africa. I had approached him many months ago about the possibility of doing a workshop while we were in-country and he enthusiastically agreed to make the arrangements.

Our training session was based in the Magaliesberg Mountains north of Joburg.  The Magaliesberg is an ancient mountain range with beautiful, hard quartzite rock.  The workshop consisted of 12 participants from various rescue agencies around the country.  It was a keen group and we had a terrific week of training. 

Rob put the Gibbs Family up in a nice log cabin near the training site. We used the cabin as the classroom facility and also the group mess hall. It was awesome to have the kids be able to watch and see what their dad does for a living and also to engage with the South Africans attending the training. We held evening meals together and by the end of the week the kids were on a first name basis with the entire class. Pretty cool.