Day 188 - Goodbye Carr-Jones family

---

A tearful farewell to Gemma's parents, as well as a big 'thank you' for the holiday, and we were soon driving back to Cape Town with Stuart and Nicola. They were flying back to London in the evening so we went to buy the sleeping mats we needed for our upcoming overland trip, had a fish and chips lunch and said 'goodbye'. We're actually strangely jealous of them returning to the UK. There's definitely a part of us that is ready to get back to our normal lifestyle back home, but we know this is a one-off trip and our only chance to experience the things we've got planned for the next 6 months. Having said that, we're pretty happy to be heading off on our travels again. When we got dropped off at the Big Blue hostel for the night, the venue for a 5pm pre-departure meeting, we saw a big blue truck and suspected (rightly as it turned out) that this would be our transport for the next 42 days. We are embarking on an overland trip from Cape Town to Nairobi, a distance of 9000km, and sleeping in tents. Slightly apprehensive, we met our fellow travellers for the month-and-a-half journey and then slipped out for a final walk down to the Waterfront Sports Cafe for a burger and Liverpool vs Arsenal in the FA Cup. We then had our final night's sleep in a bed - although a bit of a shock going from luxury to hostel - before the next morning's departure.

---