This issue: Big Wins at Tourism Awards * Safari Reports * Facebook Invite * Upcoming Tours * Christmas Offers & more!

It’s gold, gold, gold & we’re celebrating!

At the prestigious Tourism Council Awards announced in November, we won the GOLD Award in the Adventure Tourism Category for our Tag-Along-Tours & the BRONZE Award in the Tourism & Hospitality Training category for our Tour Guide Training Course!

We even stripped off our safari gear & got into penguin suits to collect our certificates! Woo-hoo!

We’ve had three great opportunities to spend quality time with our clients over the past few months.

First there was our Gold Class movie night to see “Red Dog” - lovely film, great company, yummy food & a top evening. Then there was our Outback Travel Show at Murdoch University which was absolutely chockers with over 100 attendees, followed closely by the Perth 4WD Show when dozens of current - and hopefully new - clients popped into our stand to say hello.

It was so nice to see you all & thank you so much for your support!

4WD TRAINING COURSE COMPETITION

We’re always talking about the importance of 4WD training so, following a tragic & fatal 4WD accident in Geraldton caused by holiday-makers using incorrect recovery procedures, we decided to put our money where our mouth is.

To help spread the safe-driving message, we ran a competition in conjunction with the 4WD Writer of The West Australian Newspaper giving away 10 one-day recreational 4WD training courses worth almost $3000. The winners have since completed their training & said they found it very beneficial & lots of fun! Congratulations to you all!

Next time you phone or email us, you’re likely to chat to our new Office Manager, Di Gardiner. Di joined us in August & is an absolute superwoman who’s good at just about everything! She’s a real asset to our business & we’re delighted to welcome her to the gypsy team!

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Happy clients on our two recent Kenyan safaris were so busy watching wildlife there was no time to write about it!

Both safaris were run in conjunction with Coates Travel of WA & Muthaiga Travel of Nairobi. We were delighted to welcome on our July departure Jeff & Linda Chilli, Margaret Larke, Elva Letts, Peter Neesham, Alison Marsh & Alan Quigley, Margot Pinkerton, Phylis Robertson (all from WA); Margaret Freer & Peter & Avril McGrath (Victoria); Martin & Dianne Singer (Queensland); and Ian & Holly Walters & Judy Weber (from NSW).

On our August departure we were joined by David & Alexander Beckley (who later produced a beautiful calendar - thanks!), Ray Dixon & Brenda Ihlein, Bob & Pip Jarvis, Martin Jones & Mary Barton (all from WA); Thomas & Suzanne Graham & Laurence & Diana Levy (Queensland); Christina Harvey, Lyn Hope & Tony & Angela Read (Victoria) & Ian & Jennifer Read from South Australia.

What terrific groups we had & what wonderful memories! Samburu, Lake Nakuru, the Masai Mara & Zanzibar - all amazing places with incomparable experiences. There were so many highlights it’s hard to pick just a few - herds of ellies in Samburu, meeting the Masai villagers, driving through Africa’s Great Rift Valley - the list is endless.

And we had so many wonderful animal sightings we couldn’t possibly show them all here! To see more marvelous critters, please check out our new facebook page. And don’t forget we’ll be running another Incredible Kenya safari in September 2012! Here kitty, kitty!!

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And speaking of Facebook, one thing they neglected to mention in the must-see movie “The Social Network” (which explains the development of this global phenomenon by geeky uni student Mark Zuckerberg) is that Global Gypsies now has a fabulous page on it!

We’d love you to join up so you can read about our adventures on an ongoing basis & add your own comments, or your tour photos! It’s easy & it’s free!

Just visit http://www.facebook.com/globalgypsiesthen click “Like Us” on our page. Thanks, folks!

Hey amigo! We now have prices, dates & itinerary for our exciting South American tour happening in October 2012. We’ll only be taking a small select group so if you’d like to join us, get in quick! We’ll be visiting Machu Picchu, Cusco, Sacred Valley, historic Lima & staying in an exotic jungle lodge plus there will be lots of other special cultural & colourful activities. Vamos muchachos!!

While we’re talking about America, we recently completed our spectacular Motorhome Safari to the States. How was it? Well, to borrow a phrase from the Yanks, we had a ball, ya’ll!

Steve & Deb Pleysier, Colin & Lisa Willis, Ron & Bobbie Owen & Kent & Margaret Piercy joined us for some fabulous adventures in Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Zion & Yosemite National Parks, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Big Sur & San Simeon just to name a few top spots. Magnificent scenery, well appointed campgrounds & beautiful parks - even if some of them had a few too many people for our liking after the wide open spaces we’re used to here in Australia.

Tackling the busy California freeways in convoy was a challenge in our 26 foot motorhomes - thank goodness for our two-way radios & Tom-Toms! - even though we gave them insulting nicknames when they occasionally told us to drive into trains & rock faces & off steep sea cliffs! Good to know that humans still have the final say!

Our personal favourite places were Sedona - a new-age type town in Arizona with red rock faces & Indian ruins - and Zion National Park in southern Utah with its dramatic backdrops and peaceful atmosphere.

After the tour we headed up to Yellowstone on a personal mission to catch up with family & discovered another park we just fell in love with - the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. If you’re ever up that way take time to visit it, particularly when the elk are migrating!

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Our next exciting caravan/motorhome safari is to Kakadu in July and it’s filling fast! This self-catering adventure will be of 12 days duration and will be led by Jan & Jeremy -one of the few Tour Guides in WA to have completed a special 100-hour Kakadu Training Course enabling him to escort clients through the park.

The tour will begin & end in Katherine. We’ll spend most of the time exploring Kakadu but will also visit Litchfield National Park, Edith Falls, Darwin & more.

Included in the price of $1850 per vehicle/van will be special Welcome and Farewell Dinners, park entry & caravan park fees, guided bushwalks, star-gazing evenings, lots of fun activities plus Pre-Departure Workshop and Pre-Departure Kit. As always, convoy numbers will be strictly limited. If you’d like to join us you better act like a crocodile & make it snappy!

Looking for the ideal stocking filler? How about a copy of our towing training DVD for just $30? As a special Christmas offer, we’re selling our $34.95 “Caravanning with Confidence” DVD at a special price leading up to Chrissie. We’ll even throw in a free copy of our Caravanning Check List which normally costs $10! So you save $15! Ho-ho-ho!

Gift vouchers for towing or 4WD training courses also make great (& instant!) gifts - we can just email them to you! Call us today for details!

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Our inaugural “Tracks of Len Beadell Expedition” in July was a huge success. Joined by lots of previous Gypsy clients & some enthusiastic ‘newbies’, Jeremy & our talented Safari Hostess, Rebina, loved discovering & exploring new & different places with the eager group.

Starting in Kalgoorlie & ending in Wiluna, this challenging outback ‘discovery’ expedition passed through Menzies, Lake Ballard (where we stopped to see the famous Gormley sculptures), Laverton, Neale Junction, Warburton, Carnegie Station & lots of remote places in between.

The purpose of the tour was to retrace the steps of the legendary engineer, surveyor & outback road-builder, Len Beadell, who opened up many remote areas in the 50’s and 60’s. There were lots of stories shared around the campfire about this talented man, considered by many to be Australia’s last true explorer.

Thanks to Jim & Lisa Bond, Ian Brown, Anne Gray & Cath Hartley, Mal & Brad Kent, Garry & Sue Mason, Ross McGillivray, Bob & Eileen Mounsey, Bill & Mas O’Neil, Jenny Rose, Malcolm & Germaine Seymour & Colin Willis for joining us on this great adventure & making it such a fun & memorable experience!

Highlights included climbing Mt. Beadell & searching for, and locating, many of Len’s markers & the trees he blazed. Thanks folks, we loved every minute of it!

No sooner had Jeremy returned from that tour than he was asked to help with the 4WD safety aspects of surveying a track through virgin desert to join up two Aboriginal communities for one of our favourite corporate clients.

With a Challenger Tractor leading the way, Jeremy assisted a convoy of nine vehicles to navigate dozens of sand dunes in pristine country while indigenous Martu trackers ensured that nothing of heritage value was disturbed along the way.

He says, “For over a week we traversed country that had never been travelled by vehicles before. It must be how Len Beadell felt when he was blazing new trails in years gone by. There aren’t many opportunities to do that kind of exploring today & I feel privileged to have been involved.”

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Franchising Solutions is a WA-based business consultancy which mentors & coaches senior executives & shows them how to maximise the ongoing viability of their companies.

Thanks to its founder & CEO, Tim Hantke, who ran a fantastic planning session for us three years ago, we made a strategic decision in 2009 to start building up the training side of our business. At a full-on, full-day session, Tim & his colleague, Kim Maisey, helped us develop a plan of action & create a strategy combining a quality lifestyle with business sustainability. Subsequently our Training Division has gone from strength to strength & Tim can claim much of the credit for this success.

Since then, excellent 4WD Instructors such as Richard Nicholls, Stuart Bonner, Ken George & Darren Byrne; Towing Trainers Trevor Cocks & Eddy Tamlin; & Tour Guide Trainers Cherie Toovey & Jeff Bayldon have helped us build our Training Division to become one of the most respected in WA - so much so that we recently won an industry award for our efforts. Today we are proud to count among our clients some of Australia’s most respected organisations, particularly in the mining & resources sector.

We thanked Tim at the time, but it’s only much later that we are fully appreciating the soundness of the plans he helped us develop & the wisdom of his business advice & guidance. So once again, Tim, a huge thank you - your expertise made a world of difference to Global Gypsies!

While we’re on the subject of training, we just completed another super weekend of accredited Tour Guide Training at Murdoch University & at our ‘bush classroom’ at Willowbrook Farm in Gin Gin!

Thank you to Kar-Lei Chow, Jason Evans, Michelle Fisher, Peter Gorski, Michael Hayden, Yvette Hollings, Alison Weller & Wayne Williams (all from WA) & to Robyn Smith (Victoria) for your participation & enthusiasm - it was an absolutely brilliant weekend! You were all stars & we think you’ll make fantastic Tour Guides!

We’ll soon have some very exciting news to announce about our “Mystery Tour” that’s happening in May 2012.

Why the shroud of secrecy? Because it’s a joint venture with a large organisation & we need to have all the details worked out before we go public. We can’t say too much yet except that the tour will provide participants with the unique opportunity to visit a remote area AND do some interesting volunteer work while they are there.

Oops! Don’t want to spill the beans! All will be revealed in the new year!

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Hooray! We’re going back to the Bight!

From March 22 to April 4 we’ll be exploring WA’s breathtakingly beautiful southern coastline on our popular, catered & escorted, self-drive 4WD "Brilliant Bight Tour". Join us on this magical outback adventure during the last days of summer with a happy band of like-minded adventurers as we visit one of Australia’s most scenic & peaceful areas.

Our small convoy led by Jeremy with 1000-star catering by Rebina will meet up in Kalgoorlie, then head off to such remote locations as Mt Ragged, Israelite Bay, Toolina Cove, Baxter Cliffs, Cape Arid, Cape Le Grande & Fitzgerald National Parks & more. And we don’t just 4WD, there’s bushwalking, star-gazing, beach-combing, swimming, fishing & lots of other fun activities, too. This is one of our best-loved tours so don’t miss out! If you do it will come back to Bight you on the Bumper!

Too bad, how sad - our annual Holland Track Expedition was washed out this year. We had to change our plans at the last minute for our most popular outback tour of the year when the local Shire closed the track - heavy unseasonal rains had turned it into a bog!

But coming up with Plan B was a challenge, too! So much water had fallen that every 4WD track within ‘coo-ee’ was closed! How about a swim-through? Or a rowing regatta perhaps? Instead we decided to lead our somewhat soggy (and extremely patient and understanding!) convoy to Hopetoun, the Mallee Fowl Sanctuary in Ongerup & the Stirling Ranges Retreat who managed to squeeze us in on a busy long weekend (thanks Tony & Ayleen!).

Also a big thanks to everyone who joined us on our unusual “Un-Holland Track Expedition” - Dave & Pam Barnett, Brian Embleton, Allan & June Gronow, Joe Mihaly, Graham & Donna Slessar, Ailsa Stokheld & Julie Crewe (all from WA); Justin Busbridge & Laura Marshall (UK); & Ton & Irene Hoekendyk & Aad & Petra van Beekum (from The Netherlands). It was certainly different and - as it turned out - heaps of fun!

HOLIDAY GREETINGS!
On behalf of all the Gypsy team, we hope you have a sensational & safe holiday season & a spectacular 2012! Best wishes & happy travels from