THERE'S been yet more drama for Tenby adventurer Rosie Swale Pope on her round the world trek. Since taking time out from her epic challenge to take part in the Chicago Marathon last month, the 'Silver Dream Machine', carrying all her equipment ,was hit by a car and her tent partly ripped. The 60-year-old grandmother also cut her hand quite badly while opening a food packet with a knife. "With the help of some very nice people she has managed to improvise a new tent covering and have her hand patched up," said her son James in a messgae posted on her website. After running the Chicago Marathon, Rosie travelled back to Canada to the spot she left off from, and is continuing her run across Canada and America enroute back to the UK. At the moment, James says Rosie's biggest concern is with the cold, as it has been has been minus 20 degrees F. When she got frostbite last time, it was only minus 10 degrees. She is now waiting to pick up her cold weather gear which has been stored during the summer. "Her hand is healing up well and she is managing to make good progress," added James. Rosie is currently running along Highway 16 en route to Saskatoon. "Either side of road are large farms like islands, amid the grasslands and beyond them is wilderness," said a message from Rosie on her site. "It is a huge contrast to how isolated I was in Siberia and Alaska, but some things remain the same. At night, sleeping in the open, I am part of the secret world of the foxes and coyotes, the birds." Since leaving her home on her 57th birthday in October 2003, Rosie has suffered various setbacks. In Russia, she encountered bears and was confronted by a stark naked man wielding a gun, while in February of this year, she was rescued by the Alaska Air Guards, and was airlifted from blizzard-like conditions on Henry Island in the Yukon River due to severe frostbite in her toes. She later had a bad fall and cracked a rib.
