7,500 ft - 9,222 ft
Today's Stats From My Garmin
5.04 km
3 hrs 53 mins
978 Calories
Well we've made it to camp one and pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. As you can tell from the distance and time noted above, Wilbert did not by any means set a hard pace. His Pole Pole is really very slow and even on the steepest parts of today's track we weren't struggling.
Pole Pole are words we will constantly hear over the next few days. Pronounced "Polay Polay", it is Swahili for Slowly Slowly and it is essential that we hike slowly in order to acclimatise.
But I am jumping ahead, let me start at the of the day - which started with a sting. I was having breakfast at the hotel with Nick and Seth when I got stung by a bee. It was on my sleeve and I didn't see it but certainly felt it when I brushed my hand over it. Wow, I had forgotten how painful those little stings are. Like I sort of went into a bit of shock with quickened breathing and even tears! I guess I was panicking a bit - but bloody hell it hurt! And of course the last time I had a bee sting was when I was a kid and I was allergic to them then, so a bit afraid I could still be. Lucky for me Seth got the sting out and calmed me by telling me to take slow deep breaths and Nick rubbed circles on my back - you know those really comforting ones. All seems quite a drama now and later when I told them I used to be allergic - seems I'm not now - Seth explained that besides the pain factor, I would have experienced a flash back to childhood reaction and panic of am I still allergic.
Anyway enough of that. So we set out from the hotel at 8.00 for a four hour drive to our starting point. Roughly half the drive was on sealed road and half on rough road giving a free "African massage" :)
We were one of the first groups to arrive at the rangers quarters to sign and get our permit. By the time we left the place was packed with vans and 4x4s crammed into every available space and porters unpacking gear to be weighed in. Lucky for us, our porters had beaten us to this point, done the weigh in and set off ahead of us to set up for our lunch.
So once signed in and permit in hand, we had to drive an hour over super 4WD tracks to the trail head at Lemosho. Our crew had set up lunch at the trailhead so we could eat before starting our climb. Lunch was make yourself a sandwich from a nice selection of avocado and salad vegetables, various spreads and a selection of cut up fruits plus hot drinks -all good.
The forest walk was not difficult and was absolutely beautiful. Much like the dense tropical rainforest we have at home in the Paluma region. We had to watch out for Safari Ants which cross the trail in parts, apparently their bites burn for several days. So every time we came across them we would do this quite funny stamping type of ritual as we passed over them and for several feet afterwards to make sure none were attached to our shoes.
Then I had my second sting for the day. I needed to pee so took a bush break and I thought I picked a pretty good spot. Checking first for bees and any spiky or prickly looking plants before downing the trousers and squatting down. Now I don't know how this particular plant managed to reach me because it seemed well out of range, but a bloody stinging nettle reached over and stung me on the left arse cheek. More instant pain and it continued to sting well into the night! Just my luck, well I guess if a bee sting and a nettle sting are the worst things that happen this trip, I will be lucky.
Cloud cover came in late in the day and it was a wonderful surreal feeling walking through the thick cloud as it washed over us, looking much like smoke - but of course feeling much nicer. Rain followed the cloud so we had to stop and layer up with our wet weather gear that was in our day packs.
Gilbert was very helpful and stopped me from slipping over several times as the trail got wetter and more slippery.
We reached camp and found the porters had secured the best spot for us. They had all the tents up, including the toilet tent....very important! And hot drinks with fresh hot popcorn awaited us.
It was a very packed and noisy camp and most teams were crammed into the main clearing in the trees with tents almost touching each other. Kiliwarriors team had secured another spot in a small clearing away from the main bunch and we had it all to ourselves.....good onya boys!
Our first night camping was cold and wet and knew it was only going to get colder from here on in
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