|
As March dawned, the days became noticeably longer, the weather generally more promising and we began getting serious about our training programme now that we had only 5 months until the off. Our initial focus was on increasing general fitness, aiming simply walk about 15 to 20 miles per week by going out for about 90 minutes at least every other day and for about 3 hours on Saturdays and/or Sundays. The local populous must have begun to wonder what was going on as we were seen traipsing the same local streets over and over again with reasonably loaded rucksacks on our backs. The intention was to train not only the legs but also the upper torso and shoulder muscles by carrying packs heavier than we expected to carry each day on "The Hill". At this point we were probably not far adrift from what we will actually carry on Kilimanjaro but one has to start somewhere! At this stage Barbara was packing about 6kg and Gary about 10kg but even this quickly began to weigh quite heavily on the unsuspecting shoulders. Still, with practice it can only get better - surely! We were usually seen with camera in hand because we were still trying to complete what we had started in February to work out how many pictures fit on an 8GB memory card and how many pictures a full battery charge would deliver. Although the idea was simply to keep pressing the shutter until the battery expired it quickly became apparent that this would represent many hundreds if not more than a thousand photographs. We therefore began looking for anything a little out of the ordinary along our trails. In doing so it is actually quite interesting how one sees the local environment. In the end, and after many training walks, the battery finally gave up the ghost having captured nearly 1,600 pictures. On this basis and with the supply of batteries we had purchased we worked out that we could survive in the wilds long enough to capture a whopping 10,000 images, and while that number would of course reduce markedly in the sub-zero temperatures on the mountain, we considered we have enough batteries to provide a comfortable margin for error. And, at only 70g each, weight is not really an issue either. Only time will tell whether the margin for error is big enough but as long as we keep one fully charged battery in a warm place to get that summit photo we should be OK. Luckily the memory card was still half full from last year so we also managed to ascertain roughly how many pictures we are likely to get per 8GB memory card. This came in at about 2,900, so again, storage was not going to be an issue. Below is a selection of some of the more interesting or perhaps whacky pictures from the 1,600 snatched photos on out treks around the local streets and countryside and while they have no real relevance to our adventure as such, were never intended to be retained once the battery had gone flat, everyone likes pictures, click on the thumbnails and enjoy, criticise or simply scroll down and read on!
So there you have it, 22 almost pointless photos but they do make for a more colourful page...
Basically these are normal wrap-around sunglasses that can be worn by anyone but which include a clever adaptation of the clip-on sunglasses concept, which of course no spectacle wearer relishes. Instead of clipping sunglasses over normal specs, these have a clip-in attachment which positions prescription lenses behind a variety of interchangeable shades. These range from clear glass to category 4 high altitude lenses transmitting only 6% of light. Gary will be taking the Category 4 (as seen above) which came with the hi-altitude frame plus a set of photo chromic 20% to 80% lenses (basically the same as normal prescription photo chromic lenses) to ensure the benefits of the wrap-around style can be enjoyed during the almost certainly windy push for the summit through the hours of darkness. So far all signs are that this is a very good investment both for Kili and for use more generally. March also saw pay a short visit to our doctor, on the basis that most things one reads suggest having a check-up before embarking on climb such as this and also to arrange the painful part of the preparations. i.e. the various jabs. As expected the medical opinion was get on and do it and enjoy yourselves and actually the three rounds of injections weren't that painful after all. One or other of them caused a slightly painful arm for a few days but nothing to get concerned about. What we still have to look forward to was of course the Yellow Fever injections which many people say are quite unpleasant but that is for April or May, so nothing to worry about for now...
|
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
