Overtaken my fundraising total!!

The Kilimanjaro trek has now raised more than £5,000 for Spinal Research, with more money to come in. I am amazed at how quickly it doubled in the last few months. My left foot didn't trouble me once on the trek nor since I returned to Callander.
Many thanks to everyone again for your support. Lynne xx

Assignment woes!!

No photo this time. I just wanted to let everyone know that even though I worked all the hours God sent prior to leaving for Tanzania on 21st August, and stayed up until midnight the day before so that I could submit my 3rd assignment to be marked in my absence, I have just found out that it requires to be resubmitted due to it being corrupted!!! Thank goodness I don't have to start working on it from scratch as module 4 starts this week, and I've still to get my head around that.

My Porter Matthew

Hi, not much of a photo I know, but this is the only one of Matthew I could track down until such time that he emails me a copy of the one I took of him with his camera, doing cartwheels under the Uhuru sign. Goes to show what you can do at nearly 6,000m when you're a local 21year old!!!

The rest of us had barely enough energy to stand under the sign let alone climb onto the top of it!

I am overwhelmed at the additional money which has been coming in since the article about my trek appeared in the Stirling Observer last Friday. A local couple have just handed in £100, after reading about it.

www.stirlingobserver.co.uk/.../local.../local.../callander-woman-climbs-kilimanjaro-for-spinal-research-51226-24602313/

Thank you all for your continued support and encouragement. I'm sorta getting back to normal now - I think? xx

Departure Time - Boo Hoo!!

Departing on Precision Airline. The start of our journey home at Kilimanjaro airport.
Farewell to Tanzania. What an adventure!!!

Out and about in Moshi, doing a wee bit of exploring. Being 2 blond haired, white skinned females on our own though proved a wee bit problematic at times, and Ollie gave a right shock this morning pretending to be a local who wanted to show us his wares!!! We walked back to the hotel in a large group with Mark and Ollie as our bouncers. We did find some lovely local treasures to bring home.

Sue and I outside our room at the Bristol Cottages hotel, Moshi. This photo was taken from the outdoor dining room, and doing what all ladies do before dinner, having a wee G&T!!

Looking back down onto Lake Manyaro park, before heading back to Moshi. Masai tribesman herding his cattle across a new road which stretched for miles! The journey back took nearly 4 hours, but no more punctures - thankfully!!

Lake Manyaro Park

Sunrise, just after 6am, at Lake Manyaro safari park.

Having breakfast out doors must rate high on my list of heavenly things to do!! Please note the tablecloth, it didn't matter where we were or what time it was, a tablecloth was always supplied, eve up the mountain, perched on the side of vertical drops!! Being in the park so early meant there were more animals to see. It wasn't too hot for them and they were in no need for a siesta in the morning.

The remains of a buffalo at the hippo pool.

Looking back down from the cater rim towards the dried up white salt pan, which in the wet season is full of water. The far edge of the crater rim can be seen in the distance. It took us over 2 hours to drive from a half way point, to this view point on the rim.

A zebra and hyena in the Ngorongoro safari park. This was an amazing place as the whole Ngrorngoro area is an extinct volcano about the size of Stirling council area in it's entirety - it was massive!!! The mountains you see in the background are the rim of the volcano which we had to drive down to get into the park. ON the way we passed Masai tribesmen, driving their cattle towards the lake for water. Domestic and wild animals vying for the same source of life giving water. All there tribesmen had were spears to protect themselves, but the park rangers had rifles.

Sunset on the mountains above Lake Manyaro safari park. We were running late at this point and should have been at our campsite. But before too long, we had a third puncture, this time in the pitch dark and fortunately because there were 2 jeeps there was another spare tyre.

When we did finally find the campsite, 4km up a red dirt track, the porters had to erect the tens by the light of the moon, and paraffin lamps which had been left on for our arrival. Even in the dark it was a magical place, with typical tropical/jungle/safari animal noises all around. We were, yet again, served a delicious meal spread out on a table laid before us under the stars. This was the first time I had tasted Goat and it was very good. A big camp fire was lit and we reclined around the heat of the flames with a glass of red wine. Being a white wine drinker, this was indeed a change for me, but it was just perfect for that situation, and I think I could become quite partial to red wine in the right circumstances!!

Next puncture, 30 mins later, by the side of a road this time, so no fear of being eaten by a lion, but we were accosted by loads of little Masai children. Sue who asked to take their photograph had a bag of Pear drops for them to share!!! Share, not being the operative word, as one wee boy snatched the bag from her hands and proceeded to stuff as many as he could into his mouth, stopping the others from having them. It was all good natured, fortunately, and he was back with cheeks bulging looking for more!!!

They wanted to show us how good their English was, always on the look out for more sweets. The bulk of these children wore a piece of material over their naked bodies and sandals made of rubber from old car tyres. They were also responsible, many times, for looking after the cattle or goats and lived in mud huts - no electricity or water!!

Tarangire Safari Park

Our first encounter with elephants and we had spent ages just watching this group of 10 wander closer to us. It was amazing as they didn't seemed to be fazed by our presence at all.

This park was the best for the quantity of elephants we saw every corner we turned.

We spent all afternoon, after a picnic lunch, seeing girafes, zebras, gazelle, antelopes, elephants and eventually a solitary lion asleep up a tree. However it was at that point that another driver told Deo he had a puncture, so he had to drive us to a place of safety so we could get out and allow him to change the tyre. This was just an added adventure to us, but I'm sure nerve wracking for him, being responsible for our safety in the park!!! WEeset off for our campsite at 5.30pm and the drive was to have taken us 1 hour!!!

Safari Time!!

Here are the 9 of us prior to leaving on our first safari. We went in 2 jeeps, loaded up with all our stuff, water, tents, mattresses etc!!

Sue, Gareth, Michael, Me, Mark, Mel, Ian, Gina and Ollie.

Deo, our driver is still loading the roof rack behind us.

Me, receiving my Kilimanjaro certificate from Alan, Whitely and Pascale - group leader and guides, after our Celebration dinner in the Protea Hotel, Machame.

I feel very chuffed at achieving this certificate, but am well aware that it is only due to the encouragement and tenacity of my porter Matthew (Pascales wee brother) that I reached Uhuru peak, without him, I wouldnt have made it - so thank you again Matthew.

A glass of champagne at our Celebration dinner on our last night together. There was only enough in the hotel for the ladies to enjoy and enjoy we did!!!
I think we all scrubbed up rather well, goodness only knows what the hotel drains were like afterwards??

Our last view of the summit before descending below the clouds from the Millenium camp back to Machame.

Last mountain morning!

This was me giving the Thank you speech on behalf of the group to the porters on our last morning on the mountain. Whitey was translating for the porters and Ian was signing for Mark, who is deaf.

Just afterwards the porters burst into song followed by a big group dance. That just about warmed us all up for the next 6 hours of walking off the mountain, back through pretty damp rain forest terrain!! But boy were we looking forward to the hot showers back at the hotel - I think it's just as well I lost my sense of smell in that car accident!!

We were all in the same boat so perhaps cancelled out the smell from one another, having said that, it's really unfair that as the week progressed the men looked more and more rugged and handsome whilst the women looked more and more unkempt and haggard - life's not fair!!??

Barafu Camp

I thought you might like to see this picture of Barafu camp, where we were perched on our 'summit walk' night? It was truly amazing what these porters did, where they set up camp and after all that, provided us with a hot 3 course meal including tea and coffee. The summit porters were also up all night with us and still managed to move camp from 4,600m to 3,900m in the space of a few hours.

Done it!!

Our intrepid leader, Alan, congratulating Sue and I on reaching the top of Kilimanjaro. It was such a relief to finally arrive at Uhuru peak after 9 hours. We still had the walk/run back down to our camp at Barafu before descending another few hours to our next stop at the Millenium camp.

At Uhuru Peak!!

Finally, I've managed to upload the photo of me at the top of Kilimanjaro. My camera froze at the top and I had to rely on Sue taking the photo's, however our computers are not compatible and I've had to do this from my work computer today. It might look nice and sunny but it was in fact -12c!! That is me with my Scottish flag and Lighthouse stake for planting at the top of Africa's highest mountain.

Me, flying the flag for Scotland at the top of the Barranco wall, our campsite is merely a fleck in the background!!

This is rather dark but is a photo of me and Sue outside our tent perched on the side of the mountain in fresh snow. This was our summit campsite at Barafu and you can just see Mount Meru above the clouds in the distance. There was an amazing sunset from here. We only were allowed to crash for 4 hours before being awakened by Ian at 11pm - for breakfast!!!

This is me scaling the Barranco Wall, a near vertical climb first thing on Tuesday morning. No wonder they had us up at 4,600m the day before as we needed all the oxygen we could gasp to scale this section of the trek!!

However the other photo is of one of the porters scaling Barranco wall with our camping gear. It was heard enough for us with our back packs let alone the loads these guys carried everyday, and always a cheery 'Jambo' greeting!!

It was a long hard slog today and many felt nauseous and headachy. We rose to 4,600m at the Lava Towers then came back down to 3,900m to sleep at Barranco camp at night.
That was the night of a tremendous dust storm, everything we ate was covered in a layer of grey lava dust, everything we owned was covered in a layer of grey lava dust, we were covered in grey lava dust from that point on. This wasn't good for my eyes, but thankfully the '2 Debbie's' had Optrex in their 1st Aid kit which they kindly let me use for the rest of the trip, otherwise I would have stumbling about half blind.

The first clear view of Kilimanjaro from our 2nd campsite at Shira Caves, unfortunately at this point we seemed to walking further away from the summit. However this was to help us becomes acclimatised to the altitude. We camped at 3,9000m here.

Porters early morning sing song as we left camp to start the day two trek. 'Jambo Mambo' which I'll be humming for evermore I think.

These guys were awesome, not only did they carry all the tents and equipment from each campsite, they also prepared all the food and tidied up so that we could get to our beds by 9pm!!!

They also provided toilet tents for us wimpy Brits at every stop including lunchtime stops.

We had 3 course hot meals 3 times each day, and given the conditions we were walking this was an incredible feat!!!

Mark, Darren, Andy, Karen, myself and Sue having a well earned rest in the rain forest on day one. This was by far the easiest day as we were under 3,000m.

It gave us an opportunity to learn each others names as we could talk as we walked!!

Sunday 23rd August:
Sue Piper and myself at the Machame Gate of Kilimanjaro national park, having been registered to climb the mountain. The start of day 1 of the climb and just before we did our warm up exercises with Ian.

Journey of Kilimanjaro trek

Saturday 22nd August:

Driving through the parched land of Tanzania for 1 hour on our way to the hotel we stayed in on our first night, in preparation for the trek the following morning.

Hi there,
Thank you so much for your support. For all the messages of encouragement before I left, texts during the trek and lovely messages of congratulations since I arrived home last night. I was greeted at the front door by Julie, with a bottle of pink champagne and a helium ballon. Oh and some yum yums and a bottle of milk - very practical. The champagne will be drank tonight as I sit and watch, son Andrews favourite Disney film, 'The Lion King'. I had never realized that many of the words used in this film is genuine Swahili and having been on 3 safaris I just want to envelope myself in that 'culture' again!! Gosh there is so much to tell and so little time/space to tell it in.

I just wanted you to see the first photo I had hoped to email from Tanzania to Wendy, taken from the plane as it prepared to descend through the clouds into Kilimanjaro airport. Texts worked but photos didn't unfortunately. Hopefully I will be able to direct you to where they can be accessed once I've got my brain fully functioning again! We couldn't see land as we were so high, but Kilimanjaro was there for us all to see.
Now that I have completed 4 loads of washing, including my jacket and trainers and have scrubbed my backpack, travelling bag and treking poles all I have left to clean are my boots!! My kitchen now feels full of lava dust - it got everywhere including my lungs as I struggled to breathe during my morning swim today.

I hope to upload more photos in the days to come. If you have any special requests please let me know?
It was a tremendous experience and my thanks go to Wendy for keeping you informed through the text messages. I'm glad to be home and was able to share a meal of potato soup and macaroni with John & Agnes Gibson last night, washed down with a bottle of African Shiraz. How I came to receive that bottle of wine at Nairobi airport is another story for another day!!
Lynne xx