A last cooked breakfast at Jollyboys and a fairly stressful packing session trying to fit everything back into the bags! Then a safe journey to the tiny airport and presumably everyone is now back in England and heading back to Kent.
Miss Witherspoon is thoroughly enjoying her student-free day with luxury tent (and a bed!) on the banks of the Maramba River with hippo lounging around on the opposite bank as she eats her breakfast...
So, just to say a massive thank you to all the students who made the trip a great success whilst causing minimal hassle for the staff - it really has been an enjoyable month for us to spend with you and hopefully you have learned much about yourself and life in Zambot.
Enjoy the rest of your summer, free access to food in the fridge and the delights of a real bed,
See you all in September!
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Last Day
Fear not The Worried Westons - the other group are fine! They are currently off on a sunset cruise for their last day/ Ryan's birthday.
We have had another fantastic 2 days - the helicopter ride and lion experience were fantastic (so I'm told!) but you'll have to get a more detailed update from those that went.
Today we started with bacon butties on the Zambezi river, on our breakfast cruise with hippo and crocodile surrounding us - very peaceful and a great way to start the day. This was followed by an elephant encounter where we were all able to stroke and feed a herd of elephants which was a truly amazing experience. The baby ones were particularly cute but the real talking point were the bull elephants who impressed everyone with their "5th leg"!
The afternoon was spent back at camp supposedly packing, but seems to be lazing around creating even more mess. Guess packing will take place first thing tomorrow morning! We have a dinner scheduled here at the camp site this evening to celebrate our month long adventure and share our highlights.
This is probably the last post, though Miss Witherspoon may add one more comment to let you know that they all boarded the plane safely - she's staying for an extra 10 days, minus the 12 hungry smelly men!!!
Thank you all so much for your comments, it's great to know that you have been following us and hopefully the posts have given you an insight into the amazing trip we've all had.
See you very soon!
Team 2
We have had another fantastic 2 days - the helicopter ride and lion experience were fantastic (so I'm told!) but you'll have to get a more detailed update from those that went.
Today we started with bacon butties on the Zambezi river, on our breakfast cruise with hippo and crocodile surrounding us - very peaceful and a great way to start the day. This was followed by an elephant encounter where we were all able to stroke and feed a herd of elephants which was a truly amazing experience. The baby ones were particularly cute but the real talking point were the bull elephants who impressed everyone with their "5th leg"!
The afternoon was spent back at camp supposedly packing, but seems to be lazing around creating even more mess. Guess packing will take place first thing tomorrow morning! We have a dinner scheduled here at the camp site this evening to celebrate our month long adventure and share our highlights.
This is probably the last post, though Miss Witherspoon may add one more comment to let you know that they all boarded the plane safely - she's staying for an extra 10 days, minus the 12 hungry smelly men!!!
Thank you all so much for your comments, it's great to know that you have been following us and hopefully the posts have given you an insight into the amazing trip we've all had.
See you very soon!
Team 2
Sunday, 1 August 2010
End of Project and Victoria Falls
Last day at project went rally well - all the painting finished and a job well done! Oj made balloon animals/ hats/ flowers/ swords for all the children which kept them entertained for hours. The shildren sang us a song to show their appreciation for our help and we left 2 boxes of toys/ clothes/ toothpaste (they normally use salt or ash) as presents before we left. A really enjoyable week that I'm sure we will all remember for a long time.
First day of R&R was AMAZING! Victoria Falls are spectacular, just the noise and rush of water is phenomenal combined with the sray so that you get absolutely drenched in less than a minute. Fantastic sight (obviously Dr Wood and Miss Spoon got very excited about the Geography of it all and Miss is even thinking of starting her own "Witherspoon's Waterfalls Wall" at school. Hmmm.
Walked down to the boiling pot which gave spectacular views of the bridge and the bungi jumps/ zip wires across - they looked really cool and everyone was upset that our insurance doesn't cover it!
Spent the rest of the day in the market outside the falls buying and bargining for presents. Ben and Oj drive a hard bargin! The stall owners seem willing to trade anything and everything so off went t-shirts, boots, water bottles, even a dirty hanky in exhange for goods and presents! Great fun with lots of productive shopping done.
Also met the other group and heard some of their stories - they are staying at the same camp site as us tonight and tomorrow so expect things to get competitive!
Helicopter ride and Lion experience for half of us today - the rest are off to the market again and to the Crocodile Park then out for dinner, no more cooking!!!
First day of R&R was AMAZING! Victoria Falls are spectacular, just the noise and rush of water is phenomenal combined with the sray so that you get absolutely drenched in less than a minute. Fantastic sight (obviously Dr Wood and Miss Spoon got very excited about the Geography of it all and Miss is even thinking of starting her own "Witherspoon's Waterfalls Wall" at school. Hmmm.
Walked down to the boiling pot which gave spectacular views of the bridge and the bungi jumps/ zip wires across - they looked really cool and everyone was upset that our insurance doesn't cover it!
Spent the rest of the day in the market outside the falls buying and bargining for presents. Ben and Oj drive a hard bargin! The stall owners seem willing to trade anything and everything so off went t-shirts, boots, water bottles, even a dirty hanky in exhange for goods and presents! Great fun with lots of productive shopping done.
Also met the other group and heard some of their stories - they are staying at the same camp site as us tonight and tomorrow so expect things to get competitive!
Helicopter ride and Lion experience for half of us today - the rest are off to the market again and to the Crocodile Park then out for dinner, no more cooking!!!
Friday, 30 July 2010
Lubasi Children's Home
Project is going really well - we have to re-paint 6 toilet/ shower cubicles so spent first few days preparing surfaces and applying undercoats - starting with the gloss today. Slightly held up by the children at the home who all want to help all the time! They run in and around weilding paint bushes, scrapers and mops getting underfoot with a limitless enthusiasm. Enventually we had to put several people on "entertainment duty" aka human climbing frames/ water bomb attack targets to distract them away from the work!
Miss Witherspoon's hair and knitting have provided hours of entertainment for the girls, whilst Charlie has proved a great target for water bombs made from rubber gloves! A fantastic opportunity to interact with the children - also proving that fun and games are more international than language, you don't need to speak the same language to know that Oj running at you with a bucket of water means get out of the way!
Unfortunately illness seems to have swept camp, with almost half of us being affected by vomitting or diarrhoea at some point in the last week. Those of us that have are now affectionately known as the "Chunderbirds" and provide much hilarity for the healthy ones! Luckily a day of rest and plenty of water seems to cure it so we all hope to be well for our last 3 days of Rest and Relaxation. Fear not - we are all battling through!
Really looking forward to our free time and we're all planning out what exactly we want to do and then trying to fit it together into some sort of timetable so that we can all take part - rest assured nearly all of us are planning extensive gift lists and trips to the market to buy presents - you will reap the reward when we get home!
Love to everyone back at home,
Team 2
Miss Witherspoon's hair and knitting have provided hours of entertainment for the girls, whilst Charlie has proved a great target for water bombs made from rubber gloves! A fantastic opportunity to interact with the children - also proving that fun and games are more international than language, you don't need to speak the same language to know that Oj running at you with a bucket of water means get out of the way!
Unfortunately illness seems to have swept camp, with almost half of us being affected by vomitting or diarrhoea at some point in the last week. Those of us that have are now affectionately known as the "Chunderbirds" and provide much hilarity for the healthy ones! Luckily a day of rest and plenty of water seems to cure it so we all hope to be well for our last 3 days of Rest and Relaxation. Fear not - we are all battling through!
Really looking forward to our free time and we're all planning out what exactly we want to do and then trying to fit it together into some sort of timetable so that we can all take part - rest assured nearly all of us are planning extensive gift lists and trips to the market to buy presents - you will reap the reward when we get home!
Love to everyone back at home,
Team 2
Monday, 26 July 2010
Batoka Gorge
Hey hey!
Just got back to Jolly Boys after he Big trek in the gorge. Was hard work for everyone but most of us made it through to the end. After a valiant effort Miss Witherspoon went back to camp for two days and joined us for the last two days to finish the trek. We had a great time down in the gorge and even had a swim in the Zambezi river which was an experience. We had some great camp sites for the nights we were there which were mostly by the side of the river. It was an excellent place to wake up to. When passing though two villages we got swamped by loads of children which was fun and we managed to play with them for a few hours. The school we camped at was funny as it was the first sheltered place all trip and was a good change. The toilet there wasn't the nicest in the world. There was only a hole in the floor leading to a sewer below! It was a challenge in there haha. The project starts tomorrow and we are all looking forward to it!
Everyone is still in high spirits and we are all enjoing the trip
Team 2 x
Just got back to Jolly Boys after he Big trek in the gorge. Was hard work for everyone but most of us made it through to the end. After a valiant effort Miss Witherspoon went back to camp for two days and joined us for the last two days to finish the trek. We had a great time down in the gorge and even had a swim in the Zambezi river which was an experience. We had some great camp sites for the nights we were there which were mostly by the side of the river. It was an excellent place to wake up to. When passing though two villages we got swamped by loads of children which was fun and we managed to play with them for a few hours. The school we camped at was funny as it was the first sheltered place all trip and was a good change. The toilet there wasn't the nicest in the world. There was only a hole in the floor leading to a sewer below! It was a challenge in there haha. The project starts tomorrow and we are all looking forward to it!
Everyone is still in high spirits and we are all enjoing the trip
Team 2 x
Monday, 19 July 2010
Kasane - Chobe National Park R&R
Today we crossed the Chobe River Border Crossing and are now in Zambia having finished with Botswana. All is well. Zambia ended with an incredible safari drive on the Chobe National Park River Front Route yesterday and we saw bags of wildlife... many many elephants, hoards of hippos, a scattering of crocodile and thousands of antelope/gazelle as well as some giraffes. We've seen giraffes and elephants while driving around in general too!!
The next phase here in Zambia is a longer Batoka Gorge trek along the Zambezi River! We start this from wednesday and are doing preparation shopping/getting ready/moving to the start point at the Peregrine's Nest Lodge where we will camp tomorrow. This is where the endurance challenge is likely to start.
Camp has been tense for the past few days but all is now well and we have emerged wiser and better off! Dinner is cooking and is taking a while as the lack of cooking facilities, although this is the only delay so far on the menu tonight is sausage spagetti! YUM
All are well and enjoying but we miss home alot think of all in England always and hope you are enjoying the blog.
The next phase here in Zambia is a longer Batoka Gorge trek along the Zambezi River! We start this from wednesday and are doing preparation shopping/getting ready/moving to the start point at the Peregrine's Nest Lodge where we will camp tomorrow. This is where the endurance challenge is likely to start.
Camp has been tense for the past few days but all is now well and we have emerged wiser and better off! Dinner is cooking and is taking a while as the lack of cooking facilities, although this is the only delay so far on the menu tonight is sausage spagetti! YUM
All are well and enjoying but we miss home alot think of all in England always and hope you are enjoying the blog.
Friday, 16 July 2010
Okavango Delta
hey hey just come back from the okavango delta after having a really good time!! The bushwalk was amazing as we saw Giraffes, Zebras, Wildebeast, a cheetah, Wild Cat etc and got many pictures of them! Can say that Jamie's wind is any better so we have all been gassed for the last 10 days! The mokoros were great when we sailed in the delta with only a few peple getting wet! We're staying at Audi Camp now and we're just about to go over to the resturant for some well deserved food and hopefully it'll be better than the beanfeast!! Have to get up early for the 6 hour drive tommorrow up to Kasane for a day of R&R! Everyone is fine and dandy and everyone is feeling good about the trip and is looking foward to the weeks ahead!
Love Team 2 x
Love Team 2 x
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
11 hour bus journey
just just off of the 11 hour bus journey and we are all very tired. Just getting the shopping for the week ahead. SO thought would pop in and update you all. Everyone has been fine jamies wind problem is not getting any better as we alll discovered on the coach today as he kipped on miss wspoons sholder. Sandwhich disaser was avoided after guy the explorere managed to salvage tem from the base of all the luggage in the bottom of the bus! Ate well in the end stopping for fresh made doughnuts at one of the many border checks
Next up we are off too the audi camp for the night just sorted travel arangements to get there, then its an early start and we are off down to our gondola trip up the river which everyone is really excited about you can feel the bus of excitment buzz around the world!!! Miss W. and charlie saw ostriches and there have also beeen sightings of baboons so the wild life is looking promising for our trip in the delta.
AWESOME!!!
love simba and team 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next up we are off too the audi camp for the night just sorted travel arangements to get there, then its an early start and we are off down to our gondola trip up the river which everyone is really excited about you can feel the bus of excitment buzz around the world!!! Miss W. and charlie saw ostriches and there have also beeen sightings of baboons so the wild life is looking promising for our trip in the delta.
AWESOME!!!
love simba and team 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Return from Kalahari
Hello, hello!
We have just returned from our first 5 days out camping the Kalahari - very dusty and unbelievably cold! (-4 at night)
Brilliant journey out there on the back of Dave's flat-bed truck, a little bouncy but a great way to see the country.
A fantastic few days with our guides Oakansi, Chamca and Dukes who were expert bushmen and taught us an incredible amount. We now know which plants to eat for earache, which to use as toothbrushes and which make the best alcohol!
We also learned to set traps and saw how successful they were as our guides brought back 2 red-breasted karan birds and killed a steinbok in front of us that was caught in one of their traps - very tasty!!
We have also tried our hand at robi, a game involving whacking a stick at a pile of grass in the hope that it will fly into the air, further than your opponents - unfortunately we were hopeless - only OJ managed to gain any height at all!
We were a little better at throwing spears and the hand crafted bow an arrow - with Greg taking home a bushmen spear as his prize and Jamie winning the bow an arrow competition.
Jamie slept outside in our very own bushman shelter, made entirely from wood and grass, whilst Ben enjoyed the space (and clean air!) in the tent without him!
We were all privilged to receive a digging stick and small bow and arrow as present from our guides and the knowledge they gave us will be invaluable for the rest of the trip.
Food has been fantastic, though shopping has been a long-drawn our process, hopefully we will all get the hang of it a little quicker and there will be no sneaky trips to KFC by select members of our group!!
Off to the Okavango tomorrow - 3am start!!! More to follow as soon as possible.
Hope everyone at home is well...
We have just returned from our first 5 days out camping the Kalahari - very dusty and unbelievably cold! (-4 at night)
Brilliant journey out there on the back of Dave's flat-bed truck, a little bouncy but a great way to see the country.
A fantastic few days with our guides Oakansi, Chamca and Dukes who were expert bushmen and taught us an incredible amount. We now know which plants to eat for earache, which to use as toothbrushes and which make the best alcohol!
We also learned to set traps and saw how successful they were as our guides brought back 2 red-breasted karan birds and killed a steinbok in front of us that was caught in one of their traps - very tasty!!
We have also tried our hand at robi, a game involving whacking a stick at a pile of grass in the hope that it will fly into the air, further than your opponents - unfortunately we were hopeless - only OJ managed to gain any height at all!
We were a little better at throwing spears and the hand crafted bow an arrow - with Greg taking home a bushmen spear as his prize and Jamie winning the bow an arrow competition.
Jamie slept outside in our very own bushman shelter, made entirely from wood and grass, whilst Ben enjoyed the space (and clean air!) in the tent without him!
We were all privilged to receive a digging stick and small bow and arrow as present from our guides and the knowledge they gave us will be invaluable for the rest of the trip.
Food has been fantastic, though shopping has been a long-drawn our process, hopefully we will all get the hang of it a little quicker and there will be no sneaky trips to KFC by select members of our group!!
Off to the Okavango tomorrow - 3am start!!! More to follow as soon as possible.
Hope everyone at home is well...
Monday, 5 July 2010
We're off tomorrow!
Last evening at home... everyone is enjoying a final evening of luxury before setting off tomorrow! We will spend out first day testing tents and checking kit before heading off to the airport at 13:30 and flying out in the evening. Wish us luck and see you soon!
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Our proposed itinerary
View a map of our journey - this is a proposed itinerary only, things may be subject to change!!
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
25 days to go!
With just 25 days to go, staff and challengers are more nervous and excited than ever before - there still seems to be so much to do! Miss Witherspoon has finally got round to having her vcaccinations (just in time!) and Dr Wood has been out walking each weekend in preparation. Most challengers are still revising hard for exams but will be in school next Wednesday to take part in the sponsored walk - with weighted packs on!
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