Members of Barry Athletic Bowls Club are counting down the days to the start of their Kenya tour.
The 18-day return visit follows the club hosting a touring team from the African country last summer.
The ten-strong party from Barry - including eight players - have six matches scheduled against local clubs, alongside some touring opportunities, including a two-night stay and safari in the Masai Mara national park, a three-day stay in a beach hotel in Mombasa, and a visit to the Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi.
The tour was organised jointly by club member Mark Ellis at the Barry end, and Cardiff businessman Peter Allen, who has links with Kenya and has been co-ordinating visits there by sports clubs for several years. Allen has also helped arrange the tourists’ schedule.
The party faces an early start, leaving by coach for Heathrow on February 12th at 3.30am. “It’s a nine-hour flight,” said Ellis, “but we get two free days before our first match. There are some other free days later in the tour where we plan to go on some adventures, but it’s mainly mapped out.”
Allen leaves for Kenya three days before the touring party which, along with Ellis, includes Nina Ray, Craig Mullins, Leanne Mullins, Mark Rhys, Julia Kiddie, Mike Harney, Julia Phillips, Julia Jones and Jane Lacey.
As there are only eight bowlers in the party, Allen will be joining them, along with three local players, meaning matches of four triples. As well as Barry Athletic shirts, the players will sport specially-made tour shirts in Kenyan colours.
When the Kenyan tourists visited Barry, they presented the club with a statuette of a lion. The six Kenyan clubs hosting matches will be presented with a Welsh slate tile featuring Y Ddraig Goch, and love spoons.
The tour, which is costing just under £3,000 per head, comes to an end on Monday 2nd March. There is a farewell dinner at the Nairobi Club on 28th February, and on St David’s Day, the tourists play a final match before catching the midnight flight back to London.
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