Mt. Kilimanjaro - to the Roof of Africa

We Made It!

In the early hours of Thursday June 18th, 2009, we conquered Kilimanjaro in support of UNICEF.

Text, photos and video footage will tell the full story as soon as I manage to recover. In the meantime you can still give to our charity here.

Thanks!

Neil and Palma

Back from Oz

Well it’s been almost two weeks since my grand trip to Australia and I expected to return to feral children and a house I wouldn’t recognise.  Now that’s no reflection on my wonderful husband but let’s face it nobody can really do a mother’s job.  But to genuine my surprise, my lovely girls were in great shape and my house was spotless, showcase material.  Joe assures me he didn’t pay anyone.  I don’t know whether to smile about it or cry about it. That said, my body and mind are almost in sync and life goes back to normal.

 

While I was down under doing the family thing, there really wasn’t a lot of training going on to be honest, lots of going out, drinking, socialising, catching up with people I haven’t seen for years, introducing Joshua to family was grand and spending quality time with Dad was the best. Several things got in the way of training like really bad storms, cyclones, floods all sorts of forces against you.  I even tried going swimming, but you could say that didn’t go according to plan. 

 

Here we were Joshua and I splashing in the pool just getting started and Joshua said “look Mommy, a frog” as I got closer I discovered that the frog was indeed a huge water scorpion not to be messed with.  They aren’t poisonous but their claws can nip your toe clean off!  I didn’t need any more convincing that swimming was not a good idea. To top off our experience of outdoor swimming there also were poisonous toads jumping about, and I don’t even want to tell you about the snake story because you really won’t believe me. Joshua fell in love with the kangaroos however ….

 

Back in England and training has started up again in the form of walking on week-ends much to my children’s horror.  It’s rather comical, as all three chant “We’re not going walking again!” and me saying “Oh it will be fun, lots of rocks to climb”, while Joe’s rolling his eyes thinking to himself “Here we go again”.  Bless, they have been brilliant but five months of walking is starting to get to them and we still have several weeks to go.  Joe was of the opinion that going to the gym would be of greater value to me rather then just walking out and about.  His way of saying, “I too don’t want to walk anymore”.  So off he went and bought me a membership at my local gym.  How thoughtful, I get the training and he and the children get some peace.  So now I also go to the gym but my experience of my induction was rather different from Neil’s.  My instructor was very gentle with me and very helpful and after my induction was finished (15 minutes) I did an hour of the treadmill and steps combined while several well fit men pumped weights.  If that’s not incentive enough to go back I don’t know what is. 

 

Bring On the Mud

On Sunday Joe and I thought it would be a great idea to go and climb Roseberry Topping with our lovely children, Natalia 8 years old, Sofia nearly 5 years old and Joshua almost 3 years old.  We got there for about lunch time and the car park was full.  Wow, we weren’t the only ones, must be a nice day for it.  As we started off on the path, we couldn’t help but notice that the country roads we had to walk on were no longer roads, but complete mud slides.  The kids thought this was the best ever, jumping in muddy puddles; they had wellies they weren’t bothered, Joe had his walking boots, he wasn’t bothered, and I on the other hand had my riding boots so was I bothered?  You can certainly believe it; I was sliding all over the place.  Needless to say, while I joylessly walked on, I kept on saying “this was a stupid idea, we shouldn’t have come today.  (Of course I had far better descriptive words that I would have liked to use, but the presence of my children got in the way of that).

At one point, about half way up, Natalia tried to cheer me up by saying “Mummy why don’t you think of it as a river of chocolate?"?  Sofia added, “Mummy does the chocolate taste good?”  I shouted at the top of my voice, “There is no chocolate and it doesn’t taste good!”  As other walkers looked on in great concern, thoughts of buying my trekking boots came to mind.  We finally reached the top and it was absolutely freezing.  Of course we didn’t bring any warm hats, gloves, scarves.  It was one of the quickest lunches we’ve ever had.  We were all glad to be going, and as we made our way down of the beaten track, not one of us said a word.

Kit List Shopping

The very next day Joe and I decided to go shopping so we took the afternoon off and with our kit list in hand we drove to Rydale Rambler in Pickering.  There we were met by Neil and Jonathan.  They have experience in kitting people out for this very trek so they knew what they were talking about.  Neil spoke to me about my fitness, and even gave me statistics about altitude sickness and age.  They gave me a sense of confidence because they could name the different types of terrain I would be walking on.  It was like they knew the Mountain personally. They were also full of great tips like blowing the water back in the bag once you have finished drinking so the tube doesn’t freeze.

So my boots are on order (see pic) and my kit bag has been chosen.  Neil and Jonathan really looked after me, they were genuine, honest people, making sure that I understood the importance of my equipment and how to use it properly too.  Can’t wait to get my boots and I’m so excited that I’m even looking forward to climbing Roseberry Topping again.  Bring on the mud.

Palma

Palma's post - How it all began for me

It was in the weeks leading up to Christmas and I was listening to Chris Moyles going on about how he should have started his training but hadn’t yet and he was meeting up at a pub with someone to talk about his Comic Relief climb up Mt Kilimanjaro.  That night I said to my husband Joe how amazing it would be to do something as awesome as that and to make a difference in a children’s life, that would be a lifetime achievement etc.  I thought to myself, if Chris Moyles can climb mountains why can’t I?  Joe said that it was a great idea and that if I found a partner to go then he would consider it, as for him that would mean a safety net.  I asked every person that I knew: good friends, work colleagues, acquaintances, friends of friends.  Most people were saying “great I will sponsor you” but nobody could actually commit to coming along.

Weeks went by and there was no potential volunteer. I was now thinking that it was a great idea but that’s all it would ever be.  The day before Christmas I get a text at work from Joe telling me he has booked my flights to my charity challenge and Neil is booked to go with me.  I almost fell off my chair.  I text back saying “is this a joke?” as I clearly couldn’t believe what I was reading.  The only person in the world that I ruled out for certain was Neil; I was so certain he was the only person I didn’t ask - how ironic that he was the only one who, like me, jumped at the chance.

Where am I now?

So a month down the line where am I now?  Well like Neil, I too have been vaccinated for several diseases, which put me out of action, feeling so unwell that I’ve stayed home for two days running, not being able to do my usual horse riding or Wii fit and as I lay there feeling sorry for myself I had plenty of time to think that the challenge has really already started and I haven’t even left the country yet, let alone climb the mountain.

On Thursday 22nd January 2009 Neil and I will meet with a lady called Pauline Coates, she climbed Mt Kilimanjaro last year.  I am really looking forward to asking her loads of questions about her experience, what training she, what made her want to do this challenge, and endless more questions like that.

I started the training today (pictured left) - walking from Dalton Piercy to Elwick village, almost a mile through the countryside with the kids. Very cold (2 degrees) and very muddy - I'm going to need some serious wellies to survive the training I think!!

Raising the Money

On the sponsorship front UNICEF have been very supportive with emails and words of encouragement, advice and helpful information, which makes me feel this is worth it and I want to do this even more.  One of our fund raising ideas was to ask as many schools as possible to participate in a non-uniform day, with students bringing a pound with them to take part.  I asked teachers that I knew what they thought of the idea and they said they would love to help out and also to be a part of it.  They even went as far as taking our idea to meetings for us.  It has been a great positive response and we hope to get as many schools involved as possible.  The date we are proposing for the non-uniform day is Friday 13th Feb - more on this soon!

Palma