You’ve reached the Bushbabes info site: The Babes Are Back!
We, the Bushbabes, are a ladies-only team taking part for a second time in the 2011 Rhino Charge - Kenya’s famous and extraordinary annual off-roading event - to raise money for the Rhino Ark Charitable Trust.
Our team is made up of six physically fit and fabulous women who last year managed to make it to 5 of the 13 Guard Posts in an amazing 3 hours: before our fuel cap was ripped off by a tree and we were left dangling over a precipice… all in the name of a good cause! We raised a total of K.Shs 1,318,466 (9 out of 65 Fundraisers).
1. Petra Somen: Team Leader, Driver
2. Sabine Kontos (5 times Charge entrant): Co-Driver, Runner, Co-Mechanic
3. Catherine Szlapak: Navigator
4. Millie Seagon (2 previous Charge experiences): Navigator, Runner
5. Catherine Coulson: Runner, Co-Mechanic
6. Jo Hechle (previous organiser of the Rhino Charge): Runner, Co-Mechanic
This year we are packing a spare fuel cap for our classic 1986 Range Rover, and are determined to make it around the whole course within the 10 allocated hours, while raising K.Shs 750,000 for a wonderful cause.
With sixteen children between us, the Bushbabes team comes fully equipped with ‘super-mum’ organisational and endurance skills: and although what’s going on under the bonnet of the Range Rover will have to be brushed up on between now and June 2011, there’s little a Bushbabe baulks at.
Team Leader is www.home.co.ke’s Petra Somen, who owns and shares the driving of Car No. 19 with her sister, Sabine Kontos.
Sabine is Sales & Marketing Director of Penta Flowers and has taken part in the Rhino Charge several times before: coming FIRST as part George Barbour’s team in the 1991 Magadi event, infamously driving a rented car. She doesn’t remember much of the 1992 event as she was knocked out by a branch! More recently Sabine took part in the 2002 event in Trans Mara, and with a girls-only team in 2004, out near Kajiado.
The car
This car has a story. Originally owned by Sabine, the Rangie was used to drive her and her new husband from the church on their wedding day in 1998.
Early into the new century the Rangie changed hands: becoming the property of Catherine Szlapak, yet another Bushbabe as well as agriculturalist and full time mother. Her family here in Kenya run the Fairview and Country Lodge Hotels.
Finally, last year Car No. 19 ended up in Petra’s garage, where it was ‘pimped up’ into a suitable Bushbabe ride.
How The Babes were Born
The plan to take part in the Rhino Charge was hatched at a dinner party, with protagonists Petra, Catherine Szlapak and Catherine Coulson. CC is partner at P.R. Consultants, Energy Source, and is a great asset to the team in the fund-raising arena.
Once the seed of the idea had germinated, the final two to join the bushbabes were Millie Seagon of The Flower Hub, exporter of cut flowers, and Jo Hechle, part-time mother and part-time LAMDA teacher.
Millie took part in the 1996 Rhino Charge, as the only girl in a team with Jo’s brothers - one of whom was Millie’s boyfriend at the time – and one of Jo’s ex-boyfriends. She can’t remember what position they came: but does remember that it was a great laugh!
Jo also has a long history with the Rhino Charge. She worked for Rhino Ark and organised the Charge alongside its originator, Ken Kuhle, for three years from 2005; was Public Relations Officer for the event in 1997; finally helping to man the Hardi Control Post in 2008. “The only thing left to do” says Jo, “was the damn thing itself”.
With this wealth of experience – along with a great car and a team truly at home in the bush – the bushbabes will be worth watching. So catch them wherever ‘there’ is on 1 June 2011.
