The last day today! Now we are near to the end of the walk and creature comforts (ie a shower and toilet) we were all more aware than ever how gross we were and how bad we smelt, this being the longest most of us have ever gone without washing properly. We woke up at 6.30 as always and had our last breakfast and packed up tent. At 8.00 we had the tipping ceremony with the porters and guides, it was lovely they all sang and danced with us to congratulate us reac...

We were "awoken" at 23:00 although none of us had slept much due to the gale force winds going on outside and nerves about what was ahead of us. It was cold as soon as we left the tents and the wind whipped through all our layers in what felt like seconds. We had a very light breakfast in the mess tent of ginger nut biscuits and tea. Tarryn pointed out it was like an elephant was sitting on the tent the wind was making such and imprint on it. Matt felt we were ...

Again we all woke up much brighter today, sleep seems to be a good cure for the side effects of altitude. We had breakfast of pancakes and packed up camp in record time. I am still struggling to be enthusiastic about food but managed a small amount of breakfast. The first challenge today is "The Wall", a steep incline for which we had to use our hands to scramble up it. Again it was terrifying watching the porters climb this with one hand while they used the oth...

After the events of last night I felt drained and was dreading the walking today. It was the first time at health check we didn't all score 10/10 for how we felt. Our feeling of dread for the day was further enhanced when Charles told us one of the porters was sick and so Richard our assistant guide and him had to go back down the mountain. He looked pale, sweaty and generally unwell. We felt helpless away from out western hospitals to help him and so besides ant...

We all slept really well, getting 9 hours sleep! We were woken at 6.30 by Nasuru who brought us hot mugs of tea to our tents. We packed up our bags and then had a breakfast of maize porridge which was filling enough but then was followed by egg, sausages and toast. After feeling like we were already there was then a small panic as we realised most of us had forgotten our sun cream but Tarryn and Tom came to the rescue and once was were all covered we set off. Th...