Ashdown House School

On Wednesday we had a lecture from Mr Kendall about his epic journey across the desert. He started off telling us about the route he took and the way he did the navigation without any technology. He started his journey in trucks supplied by the Chinese Army and they drove up to a small desert town which is situated on an oasis because the desert nicknamed the desert of death and is uninhabitable anywhere else. He then had a caravan of 32 camels escorting all their water. They were aiming for the only set landmark in the desert called Masartague rock.

They then went to the north east of the desert from the centre of it to visit some caves that were inhabited by the Buddhist people many years ago. They were heavily decorated by Buddhist art work which was later carved out by English and American Explorers and are now distributed around the world in museums. He described a minor disaster with their water tanks leaking and they needed to collect more water by straining the water out of mud found deep under ground.

They then were pleased when the slow camels were sent back and they could make faster progress despite getting stuck in sand dunes every half an hour. They eventually finished their trip and flew back to whereever the people on the expedition came from. He then put a sample of sand out on the table for us to see how fine it was and its different colour.

It was a very interesting lecture and thank you very much to Mr Kendall for giving us such an inspiring lecture.
George Edwards