The Womble Project

Orinoco on Wimbledon Common

This is another page I have retrieved from my VT account.

Wombles are small furry creatures that live on Wimbledon Common and pick up litter, making good use of the things that they find, that everyday folks leave behind. They originally appeared in books by Elisabeth Beresford, and later as an animated children's TV series. In the 1970s they even had hit records, and they made a comeback at Glastonbury Festival in 2011.

When young Wombles are old enough to go out on litter duty, they choose a name from the world atlas. Over the past few years, we have been visiting places which provided names for Wombles.

Naturally our Womble-related travels had to begin at the Womble home in Wimbledon Common. We took Orinoco Womble along with us.

Rumba the Macaw

As Orinoco is probably the most famous Womble, our journey proper started in January 2009 with a trip to Venezuela, to visit the Orinoco Delta, after which he was named.I paddled a canoe, went piranha fishing and met a very friendly macaw who helped herself to our lunch and then tried to move in with us.  It was very different from my usual sort of trip, but we also had time for a visit to the historic city of Ciudad Bolivar and a quick tour of Caracas.

Tobermory

Tobermory was the handyman Womble, who made good use of the things the Wombles found on the Common. But Tobermory the town on the Isle of Mull is rather more well known for the children's TV series, Balamory, which was filmed there.

Great Uncle Bulgaria in Bulgaria

Great Uncle Bulgaria is the senior Womble in the burrow. Bulgaria was the only place on our Womble itinerary that we had visited before, so we decided to do something different, and opted for a walking holiday. I imagined it would be like the guided botanical walks I had done in Crete. This was a bit of a miscalculation. I realised that shortly after arriving when the group leader asked if our insurance included helicopter evacuation...

Tomsk

Tomsk is the sporty, brawny Womble. But Tomsk in Siberia is a city with a number of universities ('the Oxford of Siberia'?). Our visit gave us an excuse

to travel on the Trans-Siberian railway. This provided us with an extra 'bonus' Womble, as the train also passed through Omsk, the name of a visiting Russian Womble in one of the books.

Cholet

Cholet is a small French town that we would probably never have visited if it had not been for the Womble project. As Mme Cholet was the Womble chef, we went to the 'Festival of Rural Deliciousness' -mmm apple fritters!

Wellington was the brainy Womble. Sadly, we didn't make it to New Zealand (yet!). Fortunately, there are a pair of Wellingtons in the UK: one in Somerset and one in Shropshire. The Shropshire one is near the Wrekin, where we took our pocket-sized Wellington for a walk. For Womble purists, it's the Somerset one that Wellington Womble is actually named after.

Bungo and his bridge

Last, but not least.... Bungo!  Bungo was a self-important, bossy Womble. He picked his name by closing his eyes and pointing at the atlas. Bungo actually turned out to be an old name for an area in southern Japan. When we got there we were excited to find that Bungo had his very own bridge in Kitakyushu. We only found it thanks to the time-travelling racoons, but that's another story...

Our final trip of the project was to Adelaide. Miss Adelaide looked after the Womble nursery. She is mentioned in the books, but didn't appear in the original TV series. In Adelaide we met another small furry creature beginning with 'Wom...' - a wombat!

A wombat in Adelaide Zoo