Rosie Swale-Pope MBE
In 1983 Rosie sailed the Atlantic single-handed, having spent many years at sea learning the art of handling a craft. During her voyages she cared for a family on board and even gave birth to her son James on a family round the world voyage!
Next on the agenda came a 3,000 mile jaunt on horseback across Chile and in 1997 Rosie ran 200km across the Sahara and 1200 km across Romania.
Always pursuing new adventures, Rosie completed a 1000 mile solo run across Iceland in 1999. To mark the millennium she achieved a long standing ambition and successfully completed the gruelling 54 mile Comrades Race in South Africa across the Zulu homeland of Natal.
For this achievement she picked up a much coveted medal in a race which has been dubbed the roadrunners equivalent to climbing Mount Everest…and mountains were the backdrop for Rosies next adventure, when she completed the Davos Marathon in the Swiss Alps in July 2000 and her challenges go on and on, and on!
Rosies fame is spreading. Already she has written 5 books and is currently working on a sixth, entitles “Horses who have owned me” which is a childrens story. Gradually she is becoming very well known as author Rosie Swale Pope. She has made several films for TV both here and in the USA, including the acclaimed “Revenge of the Raingods” for Channel 4.
In April 2001 she ran 500 miles alone through the war-torn Balkans. Described as “her hardest challenge ever” Rosie took in parts of Kosovo, Montenegro and Northern Albania on her 500 mile trip which took three weeks to complete. During her time in this volatile part of the world, Rosie encountered much kindness, saw at first hand the grief and hardship of the people in these places and at one point she was interrogated at gun point.
She has fallen down glaciers, braved mammoth waves at sea, struggled through blizzards, been blinded by sandstorms, sustained injuries on solidified lava, rolled off the edge of mountains, roamed lost and hungry through wilderness…and she is still coming back for more!
Rosie took on the great Trans-Himalayan Sponsored trek for the Nepal Trust in 2003, and it is expected to take approximately two years. This trek is daunting and dangerous and probably never achieved since the days of the great explorers over 100 years ago.