Theres a pic of me heading back to Gilmans Point with some more of the glaciers in the background - still freezing cold!! everything was frozen, my poles, my glasses, my possum fur scalf, my body!! Then of course theres me at Gilmans Point, some of the crater is in the background, but pretty cool to have your name on a mountain somewhere!!















Theres me in one of the wooden huts, after getting back to hibo huts camp i had lunch and a quick rest before walking another 3 hours back to Horombo where Gav was. We had an early dinner and went straight to bed for a well deserved rest! by that time I hadn't slept for 36 hours and I'd been walking for about 22 hours of those including up the peak of the mountain!!!



Heres us with Nick and Elisa from our tour, we met up with them on day 3 after leaving Bob, Soren and Claudia, because these guys also did an extra day but started one day before us so it was cool to see them again. At this point we are back at Marangu Gates, back at the bottom, I know I'm clashing but it was my only clean t-shirt!! my god i was in so much pain, everything hurt, my feet, my knee, every muscle, such relief to get back to the bottom!!

Then one last pic of us with John (the other guy walking with nick and elisa) and some of the guides, we all went out for dinner for our last night in africa and to celebrate making it as far as we did! Excellent food!!

So, were back home, its a bit surreal, it already doesn't feel like we've been away, the reality of getting jobs has hit us hard! We have had an absolutely fantastic life changing experience, we have no regrets and plenty of plans for future trips. As Gav put it, we didn't meet a single person we didn't like or visit any place we didn't like, the whole experience was just fantastic

This is Mount Mwenzi, its the second highest peak on the national park at 5195m, it used to be a glacier but global warming has melted nearly all of it, and the ground is so soft now its too dangerous to climb. It was a cool mountain to be walking along side, most of the time we were walking inbetween the 2 mountain peaks along the saddle.




this is us with kilimanjaro in the background, we didnt follow the path you can see we went the other way around the hills. we hiked up the corner nearest to us and at the top of that section is Gilman's Point, then we walked along the rim of the crater at the top (left in photo) to the snowy part where the summit is, bloody hell it was hard! At the the bottom of the final ascent is Hibo Huts, thats where Gav felt really ill, we tried everything but nothing was easing the pressure in his head. At 11.30pm I started my climb up as Gav started his climb down, he wanted to stay but they forced him to go down. I was the first to begin the climb up and the 2nd last to get back down - I took it very slowly or pole-pole as the locals say but hey, I made it! It took me 7 hours to get to Gilmans Point, just as the sun was beginning to break the horizon; the hardest part was the last hour leading up to it, literally climbing over rocks to get there. I was exhausted and thought I was going to get a rest but literally the second I sat down my guide Chombo told me we had to go to the summit before the sun came up and made it too dangerous. So i managed to bite through one of my frozen energy bars (mars - fancy that, being forced to eat chocolate!!) and carried on up. the sun was rising behind me so i was constantly looking back and couldn't resist taking this little beauty.

The walk up to the summit was really tiring, more so because of the time and lack of sleep, it was no longer really steep but it was freezing with a bit of a snow storm going on, the wind was just burning my face. I almost didn't make it but my guides wouldn't give up, I met Elisa one of the girls from our tour, she didn't make it to the top, she got to stellas point - half way between Gilmans and the summit - she decided she had gone far enough which is fair enough. Chombo and Lucas kept me going, kept lying to me about how many more hills i had to go up and then i saw the sign point. It was such a relief to get to the top purely because it meant i could go back and go to bed!! I did feel really proud and did smile a bit, but i was so exhausted i couldn't really enjoy it. the scenery was amazing, being surrounded by glaciers and seeing the view beyond the mountain, the sun had risen by this time but it was still absolutely freezing. The summit is at 5895m, its the highest mountain in the world you can climb without the aid of oxygen, and the highest mountain in the african continent. the other photo is of one of the glaciers i could see from the top. on the way back down, tired from walking i slid down some of the hills on my bum, so my faster and a lot more fun!! Lucas only let me do it a few time, I guess the 100ft drops to the left into the crater were a bit dangerous!!

so the final part of our journey began - driving past Kilimanjaro from a distance peaking out above the clouds didn't exactly fill us with confidence, but did make the challenge that lay ahead a bit more realistic!! we started our walk with Bob, Soren and Claudia but as they were taking an extra day to acclimatise we left them after day 2 still it was great to meet some new faces!!













We started at Marangu Gate and walked the 4 hour walk up to Horombo, the walk was nice through a rainforest with waterfalls and stream and lots of lychen on the trees, it was pretty cool really. after a rest at Horombo we took a walk to Maundi crater, a small crater about 10mins away, that was pretty cool, got the blood pumping round again, then on the way back we saw loads of black and white collobus monkeys, they were really cute, they had really small faces with loads of hair, they were a bit like giant skunks!! the pics didnt come out to well so thats why theres not one up.

then theres just some pics of gav walking with our guides Chombo and Dao, and having lunch at one of the picnic table stops along the way. the walk takes you through the Kilimanjaro National Park up to the final peak, there are lots of other peaks on the national park but kilimanjaro is the highest. we got some fantastic views on the way up before we went above the cloud.
i have to say, i was really impressed that there were flushing toilets almost all the way up at the campsites, im sure you can imagine how gross the squat ones get!

I figured there weren't enough photos of animals so heres a few more!! theres a family of warthogs in one, they were pretty cute, as we went past them we got stuck in the mud, luckily we reversed out, then godfrey our driver went through at about 100mph, it was like being on a rollercoaster!

This is a group of us girlies standing by a big hippo pond, not sure if you can see the hippos in the lake behind us!! i thought id put on a pic o some lions hiding in the grass but ive forgotten, still no males but it was pretty cool seeing them creeping along in the grass, we didn't see a kill or anything exciting like that and I'm sure they weren't best pleased that we'd given their position away!! the parks were fantastic, the crater with the magnificent mountain surroundings and the serengetti for its open plains with nothing but animals for as far as the eye could see. the 3 day safari was a definite highlight in the trip and fantastic way to end the journey.

Back at the campsite we enjoyed our last night together at the bar, probably had a few too many to drink but it was a great laugh! gav wasn't very well so went to bed early but we had good fun partying on and i couldn't resist a floor photo!


The end of our journey and I finally decided I should get some pics inside the truck. this journey was very bumpy, bit like fraser island really where we constantly got bumped around on our sits, often air bourne!! it was a fun journey though, everyone in high spirits after a fantastic journey through africa!!

this was our last day in the parks, we joined a different jeep too, this is me cuddled up in masaai blankets with Fen, Ester, Vicki and Norelle, it was cool in their jeep - lots of gossiping!!!










so we went down into the crater and along the soda lake, there were loads of flemingoes on it but you can't see them in the pics! there were loads of zebras and hyenas by the lake too frolicing around.









We saw these buffalo, they were quite funny with the birds on their backs, some had grass all over them, some of them just stared at us, don't know if I mentioned before but buffalo are the hardest of the big 5 to catch/kill. they are clever because they go down when shot, but as you approach they get up and are you are soon the victim!! the big 5 are lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino and they are the big 5 because they are the hardest animals to hunt by man on foot.



we saw these ostriches, the males are the blacks and the female the grey/brown colour, dont know much about them



These hippos were really great because we saw them entering the water which meant that we saw loads of hippos out of the water, adults and babies, they are quite funny to look at really because they have huge bodies and very short stumpy legs!! they all rushed into the water while we were there and did the usual grunting, ear twisting, yawning, all of which was cool to see!

we also saw some jackels, a rhino but it was so far away the pics didn't really come out, we saw a load of elephants, a load of antelope species, the type I can't remember, but it was all really cool!

this is a gumma lizard, we saw quite a lot of them and they come in other colours too, but they look pretty funky don't they!

On the way back to Ngorongoro Crater we went past the migration again but it was totally different. the animals for some reason were running full out, hundreds of them crossing the road ahead of us, I dont know how the babies didn't get trampled but they did a good job of keeping up! They were going so fast, weve got a video of it, you just can't describe what we saw, for miles and miles the line of wilderbeast and zebra went on, then for no apparant reason they just stopped at the side of the road and let us all drive through and then started up again! it was mad! such an incredible thing to see.






Heres one of gav in our home for the entire time we were in africa! it was quite cosy really! was quite funny at night time because we had to watch out for the hyenas, bush pigs and wild birds!!








This is one of us standing on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater, its hard to believe that once upon a time a mountain was where the crater is now! the area is huge! no wonder it takes hours to drive around and its so hard to find the cats!! its a soda water lake so in the dry season when it dries up it looks similiar from the rim because its a layer of soda crystals

Driving around the parks in the jeeps was a lot of fun, we had the roof open so most of the time we stood on our seats enjoying the breeze outside, and animal spotted as we drove along! we shared a car with Keith, Tenniel, Peter and Trish, we had a fun time together!!














As we drove around the serengetti I spotted this leopard in the tree! im sure the driver saw it before me but i pointed it out! was great to see this one because it moved all around the tree, gave us lots of different poses to photogragh, so amazing just watching it! we then came across this group of monkeys, 2 of them started shagging at one point but it was over in seconds-literally, but the time id turned my camera on they'd stopped! those female monkeys get a raw deal!! was funny watching them with the babies i guess you'd call it grooming when they clean eachothers bums and stuff! oh so excited to see this lion, there was actually a few of them, all female - a bit gutting as I really wanted to see a male with the full mane and that but nevermind. some o the went off to hunt, pretty much as soon as they went in the grass you couldn't see them, still this was cool, just sitting there happily!

How cool is this little dude!! he loved my sunglasses and kept asking me to take pictures of him! he was one of the kids from village we walked around. A load of the adults and kids did a traditional dance for us too, that was pretty funny especially when they started getting people from the tour to join in!

we also went to a school which was built by english volunteers, and a doctors clinic, both were really well maintained stocked up. on the way we saw this lady carrying roofing material on her head - this is proof that women literally do all the work!!











From the snake park we went to the Serengetti and Ngorongoro National parks and the few days we spent there were incredible! we saw so much wildlife, in fact on the way to the park as we admired the view over Lake Manyera we noticed 3 elephants right on the side of the road in front of us! they really are everywhere! to get to Serengetti we had to drive through Ngorongoro Crater which is great because we saw loads of animals along the way, from giraffes, zebras - we saw zebras crossing!!; a leopard (which we thought and told everyone was a cheetah at first but sadly not), hyenas, vultures, hippos, it was really great - but it was all about to get better. As we entered the Serengetti, something up ahead wasn't quite right, there were literally millions of animals. we witnessed the first day of the wilderbeast and zebra migration north to Masai Mara Park! you can not imagine seeing this number of animals, as far as we could see beyond the horizon the animals were there, walking, eating, laying down, young feeding, it was incredible. The photo of Gav and I is from a view point and all the darkness in the background is the animal migration, it really was crazy, but the most crazy thing is the fact that the migration doesn't usually begin until May! they were 2 months early - we were SO lucky!

And finally I got gav to hold a snake!! And look how happy he is to do it!! Its some sort of constrictor grass snake so not too dangerous, it was pretty strong though, constantly wrapping itself around our wrists, necks whatever it could! the park was really good!















I think this day was our actual anniversary hence the pic of the 2 of us toasting our drinks! 7
years, thats a long time!! we all had a few drinks together that night in the bar, don't we just look great, boys and girls!! that was a top night as i remember, lots of silliness hehe!

























the next day we went on a village walk to learn about the masaai culture - that is one culture i would never like to be a part of. they curcumsize both boys and girls at 15 - so the women dont enjoy sex and therefore don't cheat on their husband. the men can have as many wives as they like as long as they buy them with cows up to 10 cows for a pretty wife! the women do all the work from raising the children to building the house, the men who used to hunt lions hence the warrior name now just do the farming, ie looking after the cows, and of course pregnating the women. if hes at wife 1s house, any children over 5 go to a neighbouring house, when wife 1 becomes pregnant he moves on to wife 2, and any of her children over 5 will then go to a neighbouring house, very wierd if you ask me. the village we went to was 1 mans village who had 8 wives and 50 children!!! i think thats most western worlds men's nightmare!! this is a masaai elder outside a house