Report on the 2022 Encounter Overland Reunion
Loads of folks turned up for a 4-day reunion, held at The Cally Palace Hotel, which is in Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway.
Kiwi Mike Edwards, with e-support from the Archiving Team, arranged a great few days in Scotland at the Cally Palace Hotel which was a million miles from the usual EO environment!
However, due to adapting to whatever was thrown at us, we all had a great time and fitted in very nicely. For some, it was their first time meeting up in 30-40 years which generated a lot of chat and of course, that required a lot of lubrication obtained from the bar. +/- 50 people can make a lot of noise – and they did!
The itinerary was structured yet flexible, and evening entertainment included videos from ALJ himself and then Rob Rumball. Trips to the largest Tibetan Monastery across Europe and to a Whisky Distillery verified the diversity of educational content included in the reunion agenda.
Additionally shopping, museum visiting, and sight-seeing were all explored by some, plus golf and walking for those who could and weren’t put off by the weather. And yes, of course, it rained!
It was great to see not only the UK folks make the effort to trek north but to have so many fly in from Europe, the US & Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The joy of these events is not just meeting up with your old mates and reminiscing, but also meeting new folks from different times. But the downside for some was their take-home present of Covid ☹
So where and when next? Ideas so far include Canada and Australia.
What is very clear is that it doesn’t matter what anyone did or where they went, there is a lasting camaraderie that has truly created an EO Family – long may it last 😊
Thanks to Graham Smith (Floppy) for some great photos. We tried to grade people in the years they worked for EO in the group photo but as usual it was chaos so only the first two rows are almost correct!
Encounter Overland Archives (1968 - 2001) 