Hi Rachel here, interrupting our African adventure stories (being sent months late - sorry) to say a quick hello for Christmas. Christmas is only a few days away, which is very exciting. We got into the Christmas spirit with a visit to Munich on the first weekend of December, where we visited our dear friend Vicki. We had a day skiing and looked around the beautiful Christmas markets. Of course I started playing carols in November and am very much enjoying the nights closing in, the Christmas decorations in the shops, the carol singers and just the buzz of Christmas in [View Full Entry]

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After our relaxing time spent on the lake it was time to hit the road again and next we were going to pick up a 5 day one way private trip which would take us all the way to Victoria Falls on the Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe borders via the South Luangwa National Park, and Lusaka in Zambia. It was going to be some very long driving but hiring our own vehicle was not an option and no other form of transport would take us to where wanted to go without resorting to local buses at each stage to take us [View Full Entry]

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OK sorry for another massive delay of getting this updated but determined to finally get at least the Africa portion of our adventures finished. If you can't remember where we were up to then you'll have to go back to the previous Blog, but we had arrived at Lake Malawi for a couple of days rest after the trip down from Tanzania. We had two stops in Malawi centred around the wonderful Lake Malawi which is one of the worlds largest fresh water lakes and is just like a tropical paradise. First up we were in Chitimba Beach for a couple [View Full Entry]

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After a week in Arusha, (while the family went on Safari and we caught up with friends), the trip proper was about to start. We were planning to fly to Dar es Salaam (to save 10 hours on a bus) and then catch the train to Malawi and make our way overland down through Malawi then Zambia and ending up in Victoria Falls. Of course plans sometimes need to change!!! The train from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania travels some 1800kms over 3 days all the way into Zambia but we were only going to go to the Malawi border (about [View Full Entry]

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Well as you may have guessed we have been fairly busy finding a house and jobs here in the UK, we have settled in Maidenhead in Berkshire, which is just outside London in the West. Maidenhead is an average sized town with 'Royal Windsor' 5 miles down the road and many pretty little villages in between. We are on a 'fast link' into Paddington (20 minutes during peak time), which is great for my work (I am based near Oxford Street), and great for Rachel and shopping!! Anyway, finally we are doing a bit of a catch up on our blog [View Full Entry]

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After last years birthday spent paragliding in Switzerland, this year we were in Africa. We finished our Gorilla tour on the Saturday and spent Sunday relaxing at the hotel. We had booked to fly back to the UK on the Monday evening (my birthday) but during the day we went to see our World Vision Sponsor child Mbithe, who lives about 3 hours out of Nairobi. We have sponsored Mbithe for 12 years since she first entered into the World Vision child sponsorship program at the age of 5. She is in her second last year of secondary school and is [View Full Entry]

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OK, I know we have been really slack and left the blog hanging half way through the trip - Sorry - no excuses. After we left the Gorilla's in Rwanda we headed back to Kosoro in Uganda for the night before the start of the return trip to Nairobi with a few stops along the way - at hopefully, a more leasurly pace!!! We had already covered a massive distance in the first 7 days and had an amazing experience with the Gorilla's on day 8. Day 9 - Left Kosoro at 5.30am (finally getting used to the early starts) and [View Full Entry]

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Day 8 was Gorilla day - the day we had been looking forward to and a real once in a lifetime experience, although we were both a little nervous. There are 5 gorilla groups at the Volcano's National Park that range in size from 6 up to 32. Of course everyone of the 40 people trekking that day wanted to see the big group (Susa Group), they only take a small group of people and we didn't want to split up, so we got to see the second largest group, the Amahoro, which consists of 16 Gorilla's including 2 Silver [View Full Entry]

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As we mentioned in the last entry after leaving St Jude's we were booked onto an overland trip from Nairobi to the Gorillas in Uganda or Rwanda (depending on permit availability), travelling quite differently in an overland truck with six other people for 14 days. We left the school early on the Friday morning with Dan (my trusty Accounting buddy - who was also leaving the school on the same day as us) and we headed to Nairobi in his car. We spent the night at his friend's place and then checked into our tour departure hotel the night before [View Full Entry]

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First of all, for the keen eyed amongst you, you may have noticed a slight change of location. Yes we have left St Jude's and are currently in Nairobi, Kenya about to head off on another adventure. As Big Brother would say (yes we are a bit TV deprived) "It's time to go...". After 6 months we have decided to end our St Jude's experience and head back to reality TV and Marks and Spencers. Like everything in life, even St Jude had many sides to its personality, and we decided that we no longer wanted to be a part of [View Full Entry]

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