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The journey started for me when on the 15th October, I staggered under the weight of the luggage into Cork airport, London-bound on the 2.40pm flight to Heathrow. Got into Terminal 1 and kicked my heels for a few hours. Checkin for Ethiopian Airlines in Terminal 3 wasn't going to be until 6pm, so I had tons on time on my hands. Wandered down to T3 for about 5pm and heard from Charlotte that she was on route.
Met up with Charlotte, Dave and Mark Sandall hanging around awaiting checkin also... hard to spot with the classy red Explore bags stuffed to capacity..at least I wasn't the only one !! Eventually the group assembled and checkin proceeded. There was another explore group heading for the Simean Mountains, along with other adventure companies heading in our direction.
It turned out we were going via Rome initially. Presumabely to get divine inspiration and get the platypus bags blessed! From Rome, (cue Indiana Jones map mode...) we flew into Addis Abbaba, very modern airport with more employees that travellers...nothing to do there, but very modern! After an hour or so, we jetted off to Nairobi and at last followed by a short hop to Kilimanjaro Airport. I must admit after all the airtime, I was glad to be back on terra firma. Credit must go to Ethiopian Airlines, who served pretty decent airline food, had good leg room and in flight films...they did run out of breakfasts though so I ended up getting a second dinner in the morning though, but wasn't complaining as it came with dessert!
From Kili Airport, which has a very 1950's style feel to it, we were met by reps from Shah Tours, and we were whisked off to the Mountain Inn in Moshi. There we dumped the gear on the ground, went in and met up with Helen Bunn, the tour leader a very friendly, easy going woman who had been up Kili five times previously. Rooms were allocated all round, met up with Pete Ryan dumped the bags in the room and headed down for beers/water and introductions. Helen had a quick chat about gear, AMS and on the actual climb so it was a good litmus to see if you had forgotten anything. It seems like we'll be in good hands anyway. Helen mentions that a local shop known as Gladis's stocks a shed load of gear of you're lacking in anything gear wise, also you can get all the touristy stuff and have a few pints and a game of pool also...
In the hotel, we get to dump any gear not needed for the trek. The trek luggage has a weight limit of 15kg on it for the porters to carry. Heading to bed, I realise how dark it gets near the equator, after sunset, its pitch black..you're eyes don't adjust at all..discovered this when the generator didn't kick about 1am, and was forced into attempting a spot of night orienteering to find the the lavvy !