TWO Kendal Rotary Club members have returned from the “trip of a lifetime” to help deliver a £25,000 redevelopment project in a remote village in Nepal.

Philip Hoyle and Ray Wood joined a party of ten trekkers who spent three weeks in Khiraule.

The Rotary Club has spent more than two years raising £25,000 to redevelop the village school.

Their work has resulted in a water sanitation scheme; the building of new classrooms and refitting existing ones, and the delivery of new teaching aids and sports equipment.

Khiraule is the home village of Lhakpa Sherpa who, with his wife Pat, lives, in the summer months, in Barbon, near Casterton.

Lhakpa and Pat led the party, who had to walk for four days each way from and to the regional airport of Phaplu - walks that included descents and ascents of around 1,000 metres.

During the visit, the group got stuck in by fixing the school computer, digging drainage trenches, painting new window frames and staging lessons in the classrooms.

Khiraule has a population of approximately 400, mostly small-scale farmers, of whom about 90 are children who attend the local school.

Philip said: “It was the most incredible trip of a lifetime, walking in stunning scenery and being enthusiastically greeted at every stage by crowds of excited children.

“The welcome we received at the village was both humbling and uplifting.”

He added: “Local firms did their bit as well. My son-in-law, Mark Kelsall, who was a member of our party, works at Croppers and they were kind enough to donate some paper for the school.

“Ulveston Rotary Club member and trekker, David Friend, arranged the donation of a supply of pencils from Keswick and my son Christian, who was also with us, donated pencil cases and erasers sponsored by his Leeds firm.”

To fund the project the Kendal branch put in a successful bid for a £15,000 grant from Rotary International in the USA, worked with other Rotary Clubs in the area to raise additional funds and partnered with a local club in Nepal.