Best and Worst Experiences Ellie: Worst - Having a nosebleed and altitude sickness in the Rocky Mountains Best - Lion Cubs Jack: Worst - Falling off the golf cart and getting an ear infection Best - Seeing the Southern Right Whales and Cheetahs (but not at the same time!) Mark: Worst - Jack falling off the golf cart Best - 1st Safari Annabel: Worst - Never getting a night of uninterrupted sleep Best - 1st Safari and Alcatraz Best Country: South Africa Worst Country: America Best Meal: Mark - Lunch in Cape Town for his birthday Annabel - Dinner in Hermanu [View Full Entry]

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Getting home after 63 days of travelling After an uneventful flight, a quick check at immigration, we faced an hour long wait at the Baggage Reclaim because they couldn't open the door of the baggage hold! However we made it with an hour to spare back to the Coach Station at Heathrow for our coach back to Gloucestershire. After a brief dispute with the coach driver who insisted that first of all we couldn't all take our rucksacks on board and then that both children had to sit in seats with booster seats on them we arrived back to be collected [View Full Entry]

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We were woken by a breezy "jambo" again at 6am today so that we could enjoy our last early morning safari. However, we had to become stealth warriors on our way to our vehicle as there were three elephants blocking our path to the reception area of the camp. We had to duck and dive around varying tents, waiting for the go ahead from the security guards before crossing open spaces in the camp. Having survived our short walk without disturbing the elephants we set of to see what awaited us outside the camp. Our first sighting was of the buffalo [View Full Entry]

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Big Cat Diary Day started once more with another shout of ‘Jambo’ (hello) from our tent guide and rousing to consciousness via enforced cheerfulness and a couple of mugs of hot chocolate. Just so that you know, the daily routine by now was: game drive - breakfast - mid morning game drive - lunch - collapse and try to force kids into a siesta - afternoon game drive - make self presentable for dinner - dinner - fumble around tent in half darkness getting ready for bed - fall asleep to the sound of bellowing/roaring/trumpeting/clumping/chewing wildlife. Pretty hectic! Anyw [View Full Entry]

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On Safari in the Masai Mara The day started with our wake-up call at 6 am and we hurried into our clothes to start our early morning safari at 6.30am. First of all it would be fair to say that on any of the safaris we embark whilst at Governor’s Camp we will see Topi (with their markings making them look like they are wearing denim shorts and brown stockings), impala, grant’s gazelle and Thomson’s gazelle (tommies). Also to prevent repetition we should probably say that: breakfasts are great, full cooked etc.; lunch and dinner are also delicious, at least three [View Full Entry]

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Arriving and Safari all in one day With a prompt wake-up call, we dashed to get ready and breakfasted for our pick-up to transfer us to Wilson airport. As with the best laid plans, the driver turned up early and put us into a slight panic but we piled aboard and headed into the mechanical melee that is the Nairobi road traffic system. Joseph (our driver) navigated his way past broken down Lorries and inept traffic police (whilst giving succinct political and social commentary), and successfully delivered us to the airport. We boarded the Kenyan Airways RubberBand 500 and flew for [View Full Entry]

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Heading for Kenya, the final destination 3.30am came to soon (not soon enough for Annabel who woke up at 2am), but we were out of the apartment and in the car just before 4am to drive to Cape Town International for our 6.20am flight to Johannesburg en route to Nairobi. Berk did a reasonable job of directing us, and on the way to the airport we drove past another expansive township - this time in the dark, so you could see how sparse the distribution of electric light was (and, presumably, electricity per se). Another slight digression here - something we [View Full Entry]

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Oh what a beautiful morning We had decided that we would celebrate Mark’s birthday today, instead of tomorrow when we would be spending most of the day on airplanes and in airports making our way to Kenya. The day started with brilliant sunshine - yes! Annabel even sat outside on the patio to eat her breakfast it was that warm. After Mark had been sung Happy Birthday and had opened his presents we set out, once again, for Table Mountain. Unfortunately by this time the brilliant sunshine was hiding behind a fair amount of white clouds, but this was going to [View Full Entry]

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The first day of spring in Cape Town Another overcast day greeted us this morning as the 1st September heralded the start of spring. However there was none of the ominous dark grey clouds of the days before looming and the weather seemed altogether calmer so we set off in high hopes of today being the day we would conquer Table Mountain. We made use of Berk to remind us of the route to Table Mountain and were soon at the lower cable car station; in time to see that the cable cars were running - hooray. We donned varying layers [View Full Entry]

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Raindrops keep fallin’ Saturday Table mountain had its black table cloth on this morning and the rest of the sky was pretty grey too so no visit up there for us today. As mentioned yesterday the weather was constantly changing and before we left the house we had watched a couple of rain showers out of the patio windows (we’re never going to get into our (very own) swimming pool at this rate). Waterproofs donned and we headed out through the underground garage as this was the furthest we could walk without getting wet. Once we were outside the rain had [View Full Entry]

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