The Globetrotter

Well after 10 hours walking on day 1 and very little sleep due to very noisy campers at the camp site, i was shattered on day 2. Again it looked like a perfect walking day when we woke up, but i wasn't taking any more chances, i wore my waterproofs and gaitors, determined to stay at least semi dry.

I am so glad i waterproofed myself, because as soon as we started to ascend the hills, the cloud started to drift in again and surround us. It was truly miserable. I may have enjoyed walking in the rain if we could have at least seen the views (not that they are that wonderful).

The route on day 2 involved walking through some of Yorkshires "star attractions", but i must say i didn't see anything fabulous about trow gill of gaping gill, they were a bit pants if you ask me.

Anyway, Ingleborough seemed to be a never ending hill, i may think that because all we could see was white all around us, but it really did go on forever and yet again we were all getting pretty wet and i was really concerned for the contents of my bag. My sleeping bag had got a little bit wet on the first day, i was simply praying that it could survive another soaking. Another worry was that Caroline was getting drenched. I will admit that i thought her poncho was kinda funky when we started on day 1, but it was a tad impractical in the torrential rain. Thankfully, i found a fleece neatly folded at Little Ingleborough and Caroline was really glad of it. She must have a guardian angel or something, either that or i stole someones fleece whilst they had gone to the toilet.

When we got to the top of Ingleborough, Lisa used the last of her enthusiasm to do a lil' trig jig on the camera and we gave Andy the flat cap we found in the "miracle fleece" pocket. - He can really pull of the Yorkshire man look.

Time dragged as we headed to camp at Braida Garth Farm and my feet were killing me, as i'd been walking in wet boots all day. Although the weather brightened up towards the end of the afternoon, we were really behind time and Carolines foot was hurting really badly. In the end, as we approached the end of the waterfall walk, caroline was walking with one boot off and me and ruth were carrying her bag between us. By the time we got into camp that night, it was beginning to get dark, we had been out almost 11 hours and we were exhausted. We were definitely getting a raw deal on this expedition. So much for the 8 hours recommended walking a day.

I swear that D of E expeditions are cursed! Either that or i'm cursed. I felt sure that this summer, having had a heat wave, we would have glorious weather for our Gold assessed expedition. How wrong could i be!!!

I was lulled into a feeling that it was going to be a nice day when we left the campsite in the minibus to get to the start point. The weather was mild, white fluffy clouds in the sky, it all seemed like ideal walking weather. Little did i know that this was the last that we would see of blue sky and the sun for 3 days.

Feeling like luck was on our side i decided to risk wearing a waterproof coat but no waterproof trousers - that was a school boy error! Just as we got up to the top of the first hill, the heavens opened and drissled on us for the next 8 hours or so. Needless to say, team spirits were low. The rain eased up after lunch and actually stopped as we approached Pen y Ghent, however seeing pen y ghent for the first time but seeing that monster of a hill looming ahead of us did nothing to reassure us. As we approached pen y ghent from the really steep side, it looked incredibly scary! We couldn't even see the top, because cloud had started moving in and we got wet again. Normally i would have been glad to get to the top, to see the view normally gives you a sense of achievement, but up Pen y ghent all we could see was rain and cloud.

Luck was clearly not on our side, because the rain just got heavier and didn't desist until we had got to our campsite in Horton in Ribblesdale. By this time, i was completely soaked through. Even my previously invincible boots had given in and i had been walking in small reservoirs for the past 3 hours.

Needless to say, i thought that team morale had reached rock bottom, little did i know what the next day had instore for us...

After Kilimanjaro, i was well ready for a week of chillin on Zanzibar. The boat trip across from Zanzibar was slow, but the views of the east african coast and islands were truly spectacular. There were so many small islands that looked like paradise desert islands. Before heading across the Paje on the east coast, i toured stone town with its amazing architecture.

I arrived at Paje in time to see the moon rise across the indian ocean. Paje is like a slice of heaven. My hotel Paje by night is like a beach with little bungalows all surrounding the bar, restaurant and health spa. It was so much fun sitting in the bar and chatting to all the people especially the waiters. I've never met people who are so laid back - it reminded me of the people on the Malibu adverts - they're seriously easy going!

Chilling on the beach was lush whilst i recovered from Kilimanjaro, as it was so pretty and swimming in the gorgeous turquoise ocean was lush, but zanzibar has a lot to do, so i went snorkelling, scuba diving, into Jozani forest to see the Colubus monkeys and over to Prison Island to see the giant tortoises.

Leaving Zanzibar was not something i did not want to do, but sadly my time was up and so was my money, so i headed back to Nairobi to fly home......sadly zanzibar concludes this years summer adventure, so i guess i'll just have to plan the next.

One of my lifes ambitions is to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa and one of the worlds largest volcanoes. I mean its some achievement to climb it, so i did.

I was so lucky to have such a nice group and such a fantastic set of guides and porters, because i know i would never have made it to the top of the mountain without them.

The first 4 days were pretty easy. I was really lucky that i didn't suffer from altitude sickness at all, the food was really good and apart from it being a bit cold at night i was fine. We had pretty good walking weather and it was surprisingly warm considering we were walking above the clouds from 1700m - 4600m.

The penultimate day of our trek, was the day that we attempted the summit and boy was it tough. We started at midnight and walked in a zig zag up a 3km scree slope of a 1 in 3 gradient for 6 hours. - Its a lot harder than it sounds and i'm so glad i did it in the dark otherwise i would not have thought it possible. To make matters worth, once you pass 5200m, there is less than half the density of oxygen than there is at sea level, so its tough. Its basically like walking up a height of 3 empire state buildings with only one lung. The altitude finally got to me when i reached Jamaica rocks at 5400m, where i started vomitting, but luckily that was it.

I made it to the top at 8.15am on 11 July. The view of the glaciers up there was amazing, you just had to look beyond all the people keeling over and vomitting around you.

Descending the peak, Kibo was almost as tough as getting up it as it involve scree skiing down 3km, which is really tough on the calf muscles.- i was exhausted, but there was no rest for the wicked. after an early lunch, we had another 4 hours walking down hill to get to our last camp on kilimanjaro, which totalled 15 hours of walking that day.

Having decided that Nairobi looked rather boring i decided to splash out $260 to go on safari. We headed off on the 7 hour van journey to Masai Mara at 7.30am - which is way to early for a trip which is supposed to be a holiday. Getting out of Nairobi was a nightmare and i have decided that Nairobi really is not as nice as it seems in the centre. There really are hundreds of slums on the outskirts and the main road out of town barely qualifies as a track.

Well the 7 hour journey was definitely worth it. The views of the rift valley from the top of the hills surrounding it were breath taking. We were driving down on a cloudy overcast morning but it was still pretty incredible.

There was a lot of wildlife on the way to the national park, but inside it was incredible. There were whole herds of elephants, giraffe, zebra, gazelle, Lions, Lionesses etc...

We even saw a crocodile when we went down to a river to look at the Hippopotami. I'm kicking myself that i didn't take binoculars with me because the cheetahs were really hard to spot in the long grass.

Our camp was just outside the national park which was a bit scary, but it was really cool because it was actually run by a masai village, so the masai men guarded the camp and sat round a campfire and had a chat with us during the evenings. They invited us in to their village one day, gave us a tour and made us dance with them which was really embarassing. I drank some of the Masai beer they offered me aswell and boy was it strong! It was more like whiskey than beer.

On day 3 of the safari, we decided that jeeps were for tourists and hit the mara on mountain bikes instead. Not wanting to risk being eaten alive we thought it would be safer to explore the area just outside the national park. It was incredible, without the jeep the animals all seemed intrigued by us interesting creatures travelling on 2 wheels. The best part was when we rode right past a sleeping lion. We had no idea it was there until our guide at the rear of the group pointed out that we were about 5 metres away from the lion. The picture is truly awesome, but i was cacking myself, cause it turns out it wasn't really sleeping. Needless to say we got away fast.