Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The day has arrived...

I am writing this as we await our departure from the Hotel Nakuru in a small village in Tanzania 3 hrs drive from the Kili starting point. To say I have butterflies is an under statement and after seeing the mountain on our flight into Kilimanjaro and just how HUGE it is, the whole team are feeling anxious, excited and so looking forward to starting our journey.

The trip so far has been amazing. After a very long trip here (36 hours of traveling, 3 planes, several hours at airports, a two hour long (tedious) checkin process in Bangkok and 3 girls' bags not arriving until 10pm lastnight) we're all fully rested and doing the last of our packing.

Yesterday a local villager took 5 of us around the village and we enjoyed all of the beautiful smiling kids who followed us and played hide and seek with our cameras. The people here are full of joy and have wonderfully open hearts. Looking forward to the 3hr drive we are about to start as the street life is very colourful and sites quite amazing.

I am loving being home in East Africa and just can't wait to be underway.

Will post upon our return... crossing fingers and saying lots of prayers for us all to have a safe climb:)
Jambo!!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Inspired Adventure Blog - The Kili Climb

You can also view the blog which will be updated by the team supporting us during our climb at: http://blog.inspiredadventures.com.au/



















The lead up...

Well with less than two days to take off, it's been a busy time with my trip to Hawaii last week and some final preparations!

The packing has begun and a final visit to the K2 tomorrow will see the last of the equipment purchases (its incredible how much gear we need for the extreme temperatures which may range from anywhere between 29degrees at the rainforest floor to -24degrees on summit day at 5840 metres).

The trip will see us climb for 5 days to reach the summit, then descend for less than two before heading back into Arusha. Once we have had a day to recover we will then spend a few days with the kids and teachers at the School of St. Jude. As Synthia, her sister, friend and myself are sponsoring a little girls school fees and her teachers wages we will get to sound some time with her. Her name is Irene and her family are one of the many impoverished families in arusha. We will get to see where she lives and meet her family which will be amazing.

Once we have helped out at the school, we will enjoy a 5 day safari into the Serengeti and ngorogoro crater before heading to Zanzibar for some final r&r. I'm looking forward to sharing some of my photos with you...

And what this trip is all about:
As many of you know, the charity we have been raising money for is kids helpline who provide phone and online support for kids all over Australia. They answer many thousands of calls a day and will be able to train more counsellors with the money we've raised.

We received word from kids helpline this week saying that our group has raised more than $89,000 for kids helpline... It's been a long few months of hard work by all and it really is worth it.

Well that's it for this post... Next tine I'll be saying jambo!









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Location:Brisbane