Greetings Overland Enthusiasts and concerned family members,

Apologies again for the lack of updating, but hopefully this huge selection of photos will more than make up for it. Henry in particular has been getting very technical with apertures, soft focuses etc etc in order to try and capture the utter beauty of the places we are seeing. I can’t believe how much we have done since we last updated this site properly. We had only just met Dan and Amy, Henry and I had only just begun to embrace the facial hair (which has now gone), we still had a long way to go to get pork and beer and we hadn’t endured the ferry from hell.

            I have put on another postcard that I wrote while in Addis Ababa but was unable to use, so don’t go making comments about us getting lost and ending up back in Ethiopia by mistake, it is purely for your interest.  

            We are presently with Mr and Mrs Brainch in Nairobi making plans and doing things like...internet. For those that don’t know, they are parents of my Kenyan friend, Harry, who was at St Andrews with me and is presently following our route from England to his home. He is doing it in an ancient Range Rover he built himself with three other people crammed in and is on the dreaded Lake Nasser ferry as I write this.

             Anyway onto the more important matter of what we have been up to since my last postcard. Geoffrey is raring to go for the second half of the trip after a successful service after which Henry entertained Tony Church whilst Susie was in England and Kate and I were in the Mara. We (Kate and I) had a fantastic time managing to wangle, thanks to Susie, a private landcruiser safari with a driver and cook for the same price as being crammed into a minibus safari. We saw leopard, lots of lion and one of only 4 black rhino in the whole Masai Mara as well as all the usual stuff, so we were satisfied customers when we were dropped back at Longonot.

            Having been reunited with my each other, Henry and I (and Kate) spent the night at Longonot before heading up to Kigio, which is a small (4000acre and yes that is small by Kenyan standards) conservancy, which has two rhino and some rotheschild giraffe. It is run by Chris Campbell Clause, who is the brother of Charles Campbell Clause, who is married to Susie Church’s sister Juliet and their son Will was at Edinburgh with Henry (come on keep up!). So we were warmly welcomed and invited to stay in Charles and Juliet’s house up there called C4. We had a wonderful three days going for walks around the conservancy, drinking sun downers on the veranda whilst looking out across lake Naivasha, being shown what goes on in the conservancy etc. We then returned to Longonot but not before bidding Kate a fond fairwell as she returned to St Andrews to do her dissertation.

            Having returned to Longonot we laboriously dust proofed the boot, cleaned the entire contents of the car, met back up with Dan and Amy and drove to the Masai Mara. We had a fantastic three nights there, seeing loads of lion, elephant, millions of zebra and wildebeest and watched a cheetah making a failed attempt at a kill (see photos). We drove back yesterday and are now once again enjoying the luxury of maids to clean our rooms and clothes, cooks to make our dinner etc etc. It really is hard work this overlanding I would not recommend it to anyone!       

            We are heading to Tanzania in the middle of the week and will be attempting to avoid paying exorbitant park fees by being rather sneaky as well as visiting the hunting block, which hopefully will not result in us being mistaken for a buffalo. To this end I have been diligent in cutting down on my weight. Big Marge you will be proud of me. Whilst the enema idea sounded intriguing, Henry was unwilling to apply the tube. So instead I decided to go in such of a friendly amoeba to live in my stomach for a while. This was achieved successfully in Kigio (our second Tusk project) which you may have seen on TV with Ben ‘Gay’ Fogle ‘saving the rhino’ or a few years ago with Joanna Lumley saving the endangered Rotheschild giraffe. At the moment food does not stay in me very long, which proved a logistical nightmare whilst in the Masai Mara, although no self respecting lion would have gone within 10 miles of me in my present condition. Anyway the weight is falling off as are most of my clothes, but it is all for a cause and I hope the Wincanton Weight Watchers are proud of the commitment. If they have any ideas about how to get rid of pet amoebas when they are no longer needed I would be most grateful.

            Right well, given the length of time it is going to take to upload however many hundreds of photos it is that we have put on, I better call it a wrap. Once again we are very sorry not to have updated this properly for so long and thank you for continuing to use it. The message board makes hilarious reading so please keep it up and we will try and reciprocate with some decent photos and stories to help whisk you away from your office desk or study computer.

The hard bit is over, now the fun really begins!

All the best

Henry and Ali