Limbe Wildlife Centre

Category: Cameroon, Simone de Vries | Date: Feb 27 2009 | By: limbewildlifecentre

Last Saturday the ‘Race of Hope’ was organised, an incredible run to the top of Mount Cameroon and back. Keith Norman, Doug Gratwick and two of their Exxon Mobile colleagues from Nigeria participated in order to raise money for the Limbe Wildlife Centre. A lot of money has come in and more is still to come, so we are extremely grateful for their effort. And the race was a complete success.

At 7 am a group of well-trained runners left the stadium in Beua to start their race to the top. The first part is on a nice road but soon the landscape changes and a small rocky track is all that is left for the runners. Nobody is allowed on the mountain on this day, to avoid cheating, so the watchers can do nothing but wait for the runners to come back.

We were standing at the edge of town, with a nice view on the cloud-covered mountain. The first white man that came down turned out to be Doug. He was amazingly fresh and having a great time. He had not made it to the top, but the whole day was one big experience for him. We spoke for a while and then he continued the last kilometres to the stadium.

After this we decided to go down to the stadium, where we met Keith’s wife. It started to be late so she was a bit worried about him, but that turned out to be unnecessary. After nine and a half hours of hard climbing and careful descending, Keith returned to the stadium. He was tired, but also very happy because he had made it to the top! The Limbe Wildlife Centre congratulates Keith with this remarkable success.

We would like to thank the runners and everybody who supported this initiative financially. We really appreciate it.

Best wishes,
Simone de Vries
Assistant Project Manager