Alas once we all arrived in Gilgil all but myself left after a few weeks of serious resting, back to their respective Unis and jobs, however I didn’t have an option of either back home, so I stayed on in Kenya to look for something to do and with a lot of help as usual from the legend that is Peter King, I managed to get a job for one term in a lovely school called Pembroke House which was JUST down the road from the Green House!

The school is a prep school for richer Kenyans and Ex-pats and I had a great time assisting with sports and living in the boys boarding house looking after the little rascals. After my term was up I also managed to get 3 months of work in a very cool game conservancy called The Ol Pejeta Conservancy. This was through one of the parents who’s kids went to Pembrooke, I couldn’t have been more fortunate, as assistant marketing person I was in charge of following the security and wildlife rangers around, getting photos and videos of rhino captures, cheetah trackings and Lion calling, it certainly beat a lot of things I could have done and I feel I did a very small amount of good of wildlife conservancy (check out the Ol Pejeta Facebook page and website www.olpejetaconservancy.org)

But my six month visa was running out, so due to a lot of ‘if you don’t go the rest of the way you’re a wuss’ type persuasion from the likes of PK and Home Team Solar Andy, I decided as my bike still worked (just) I would see how far I could get to Cape Town with all the skills that my DRK friends had helped me learn cycling to Kenya.

So now I write to you from North Malawi just South of Karonga (if that makes sense (check out my map thing on www.downrightkenya.org/map/mark-goes-it-alone.html) having done about 1200k in the last 25 days or so, and so far all is great.

I started the ride as all good Nash bike rides start, with a bus! My visa ran out on the 9th of Sept and I had just said goodbye to Jack VP (who came to visit for a few weeks) on the 8th in Kenya, I couldn’t pump my tyres up due to a faulty pump and I had about 200k to get to the boarder in one day, that clearly wasn’t going to happen so I did a short ride on a lovely bus to Arusha, got sorted and set off a few days later.

Man was going tough on those first few days, the sun was HOT, my legs were weak and it felt like I had changed my saddle for a square lump of iron, my bum HURT!! A few days in I was put up for a day at Mkomazi National Park in TZ, run by Tony and Lucy Fitzjohn I was ready to go again and from there things have been getting better and better. The roads in TZ have been good if not a little traffic heavy and fast but TZ has been pretty nice, a little safer than Kenya I feel and much greener.

A good amount of cycling at a good pace got me through TZ pretty fast with no major events occurring and a few days ago I got into Malawi which has even nicer roads and easier going people. I pushed it a little bit too far getting into a nice campsite in Chitimba and got a little bit of heat stroke, so have rested for a few days, but tomorrow I am heading off again with my next major stop being Victoria Falls.

What of going it alone? Well so far its been fine, I truly do miss all the DRK guys of corse, and during some of the low points so far its been hard not having one of my team cheering me up or encouraging me on. I feel safe and manage to make good miles, but a lot of the time it does feel more like a day at work than a day cycling with some friends as DRK did. But its all good and im enjoying the travel and new experiences as always.

Ok, internet time is not cheap, so until anon my best to you all, and if you feel the urge to sponsor HSK a little more due to my extra effort please do, click on the website link.

Keep checking for updates.

Cheers, Mark Nash

P.S Happy birthday to Den and Sarah XXX

And here’s a letter from the Kenyan High Commission’s Education Attache - after our dinner.

With thanks to Clifford for forwarding!

Happy Birthday Sarah!

I’d like to wish a super super Happy Birthday to Sarah, here’s (hopefully) to a slightly less eventful year, preferably not involving longdrops, sleazy male admirers and dirt moustaches. We all miss you so much and can’t wait for you to come over and visit! Make it soon please.

Also, this Sunday will be a year since we all set off on our crazy adventure! I’d like to take this oppertunity to thank everyone who helped us to achieve our goal. To all of our friends and family for their endless support, to all of the extremely kind people who offered us their hospitality, to all of the other travellers we met along the way and most importantly to all of the riders; without you I don’t think I’d have made it!

Sunday is also the day I’m off to university in Birmingham, and I think it fitting that i should leave for my next adventure on such a fantastic day.

Still, I can’t wait for christmas when I can see you all again.

Den

http://www.camcycle.org.uk/newsletters/85/article6.html

And sorry to Sarah for making note of her ‘cultural breadth’!  She is of course much more than that…in fact, she is the person who fell down the long-drop, and wore ankle length socks with sandals….

The amount (before Andy’s nifty calculator crashed) was over £61,000, which is fabulous news that means we’ve even exceeded our target of £60,000! That’s great news for HSK, as it should fund a new secondary school with hopefully a little bit left for some of the other schools HSK supports. A very special thanks to the gang at Bike Asia www.bikeasia.com who raised £900 for us.

I’ve been off the bike nearly 3 months now which is hard to believe. There’s rarely been a day where I’ve not reminisced about some aspect of the trip, which feels like a lifetime ago. From when I open the fridge in the morning (to an overwhelming number of refrigerated goodies), to when I bed down to read by the light of a lamp (as opposed to a very dim head torch), virtually everything is a reminder of where I am not!

The first month was a real struggle – trying to get used to a life where things were easy (get out of bed and leave the house, rather than pack it all up afterwards!) and every day didn’t bring a new challenge. You get surprisingly used to having to prepare yourself for anything that gets thrown at you… literally and figuratively. Slowly things have begun to normalise, though I always love coming across people who have heard through the grapevine you’ve recently cycled to Kenya… and you get a chance to tell your favourite stories all over again. And no, the one about the long drop isn’t part of the repertoire!

Thanks again for your ongoing interest in our big adventure, and keep an eye out for an update on what’s happening with HSK soon.

cheers dears

Sarah

DRK

…what really happened

The Guildhall, Cambridge

7-9pm

All welcome… bring your family and friends!

Travel Africa Cutting, May 2009

Recent cutting from Travel Africa (click on photo for readable pdf version) using Sam’s blog on Ethiopia.

Thanks to home-team Sarah for getting this in.

The evening was a great success, not least because it contributed £180 to our funds - thanks to all those who came along, donated and laughed in the right places.

So, watch a truncated version of the photo montage (shortened to 8:53 to fit on YouTube, click ‘HQ’ button for best quality) below, or…

…you can download the full montage at full screen resolution (70MB) by following the ‘Download this file’ link here, or, there’s also a full length but smaller size (32MB) version available here.

Sarah’s ‘Hello’:

And, last, but not least, Nasha’s message:

‘Hello everyone and thanks for coming to the presentation, im sorry I cant be there to greet you all and give you the dirt on all the other riders as im sure they are doing with me. Unfortunatly Kenyan internet didnt allow me to send a video, so I hope this msg will do.

I will keep it short, although there is so much to say, so many stories, Xinas boots, Team sporks beards that provided so much amusment whatever country we were in, Sams bike mending skills and razor sharp wit, Sarahs amazing ability to stay on her bike dispite her non existant coordination, Dens constant smile that only faded when I tried to tell a joke, and PKs constant somethimes suicidal enthusiasum, along with all the other people along the way we met or rode with, ill let everyone else tell you about these things.
But I did really want to say three things. First of all a massive THANK YOU to everyone sitting in this room right now, friends, family, the home team, random starngers, without peoples interest, support and generosity I dont think the ride would have been half as fun or possible as it was, perhaps it might not have been possible at all. When times got tough, during the long cold days through parts of Europe or the hot desert in Sudan, it was always the thought of all the people back home supporting us and having faith in us that would ultimatly keep us in the saddle no matter how uncofortable it got. So thank you for everything.
Secondly, to my fellow riders, it truly has been an honour over the past 6 months riding with you all, there were some pretty hard challanges, and at times spending so much time with each other could be pretty tough, but so many amazing qualities within you all helped me learn so much, and we had some amazing experiances! I am truly greatful that I can now call you all my friends. I really look forward to seeing you all when I get back home and hopefuly we can go riding again together one day, altough perhaps not for such a long time, I agree with you all that my feet got pretty smelly after 6 months!!!
And lastly, because he never takes enough credit and will try and hide the praise he deserves, Peter King, the instigator of this whole mad project deserves a huge thank you and to be recognised for all that he has acheived and all that he has helped us acheive! His unwavering faith in what we were all doing kept us going in the long months before, when we would turn to each other and ask what the hell we were thinking of….’it will be fine’ he would always say, ‘visas….no problem, wild animals and wars, piece of cake’, and to be honest, even when he was leading me 800km into the middle of knowhere, he was someone I always had and will always have unlimited faith in. So PK your a legend, and deserve to have at least one big applause dedicated to you right now (READER: please ask audiance to applause PK).

So now I will wrap up and say goodbye from Kenya, I am currently working at a school over here and hope to help out as much as possible with any HSK work I can, and will probably return at Christmas, so untill then, I look forward to seeing you all, take care everyone and thank you again.
And of corse one last thing…hello mum

All the best

Mark Nash’